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Open Science for Physicists - Credit and Dissensus

  • Last updated Date: 19/09/2023
  • Author: Niels Martens

Contributors:

  • Sanli Faez @SanliFaez
  • Erik van Sebille @erikvansebille

During this course, whenever you get an assignment involving more than one person that leads to an output, e.g. an essay, a project report, or presentations slides, start the assignment by going through the following decision points with your whole team BEFORE generating your output.

  1. AUTHORSHIP
    • a. Is the authorship order determined now (including duties that come with first/second/last position in that order) or are criteria for being first/second/last author determined now and evaluated at the end after the work is done? For a description of some standard contributor roles, see the CRediT taxonomy from NISO.
    • b. Consider possibilities:
      • Alphabetical order…
        • and everyone should do roughly equal amounts of work.
        • regardless of how much work everyone ends up doing.
        • with a description of the work done by each contributor in a special section in the paper.
      • Group name…
        • only, no individual authors.
        • first, followed by individual authors in some order (see other options).
        • last, after individual authors in some order (see other options).
      • First author will be the person who did the most of task 1, second author the person who did most of task 2, etc. [determine task categories, e.g. writing, data analysis, experimental or conceptual design, etc.]
      • No authors, but a writer, a presenter, a coordinator, etc. (similar to the movie credits)
      • No author byline at the top: everyone writes their own section and is listed at the top of that section as its author.
      • Design your own authorship criteria/agreement.
  2. OTHER FORMS OF CREDIT
    • a. Think of additional ways of assigning credit, beyond being a (first) author. Try to be as explicit as possible; “clarity is kindness.”
    • b. Consider and discuss rewarding possibilities such as:
      • Visibility by being allowed to present the results.
      • Not having to present the results, if one chooses to stay off the stage.
      • Job title/role reflecting one’s specific responsibility (e.g. main data analyst).
  3. DISSENSUS
    • a. It is possible that the group does not agree about everything (ways of proceeding, spending resources, results) during the course of the assignment. Determine beforehand which options you will allow to deal with dissenting views that may come up.
    • b. Consider intermediation possibilities such as:
      • Voting
      • Tiebreakers determined by a person outside the group
      • Deciding by a lottery
      • Continuing discussion until consensus is reached.
      • Produce separate reports/essays/slides when there is disagreement (of a specific type, e.g. about the main conclusion).
      • Person with minority opinion may write one paragraph about their motivations in an appendix.
      • All conflicting views are presented alongside each other in the body of the presentation/paper.
      • Walking away: If one disagrees with the majority, the only option one has is to remove their name from the essay/slides.
      • Determine your own consensus policy.

At the end of the assignment, evaluate whether you would have made the same decisions about authorship and dissensus practices in retrospect.

In cases that the authorship discussion results in walking away of any group member, it is the responsibility of all group members to inform the course coordinators.