In the academic world, students and their faculty supervisors often collaborate on research papers, producing works in which publication credit can take several forms. Many feel that the first authorship of a student's paper should be given to the student unless the input from the faculty advisor was substantial. In an attempt to see whether this is in fact the case, authorship credit was studied for several different levels of faculty input and two objectives (dissertations versus non degree research). The frequency of authorship assignment decisions for published dissertations is given in the accompanying tables as assigned by 60 faculty members and 161 students:
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Faculty respondents
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|
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Authorship Assignment High Input
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Medium Input
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Low Input
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Faculty first author. student mandatory second author
|
4
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0
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0
|
|
Student first author. faculty mandatory second author
|
15
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12
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3
|
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Student first author, faculty courtesy second author
|
2
|
7
|
7
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Student sole author
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2
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3
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5
|
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Student respondents
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|
|
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Authorship Assignment High Input
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Medium Input
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Low Input
|
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Faculty first author. student mandatory second author
|
19
|
6
|
2
|
|
Student first author. faculty mandatory second author
|
19
|
41
|
27
|
|
Student first author. faculty courtesy second author
|
3
|
7
|
31
|
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Student sole author
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0
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3
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3
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a. Is there sufficient evidence to indicate a dependence between the authorship assignment and the input of the faculty advisor as judged by faculty members? Test using α=.01.
b. Is there sufficient evidence to indicate a dependence between the authorship assignment and the input of the faculty advisor as judged by students? Test using α = .01.
c. Have any of the assumptions necessary for a valid analysis in parts (a) and (b) been violated? What effect might this have on the validity of your conclusions?