Is it legal for a professor to add your name to a paper without consent?

[DaveC426913]

No, it's like someone pointing at you and saying, "That's my baby's father." I mean, the baby's beautiful and all, but...

Brilliant!

 

[j93]

No.

It's like someone giving you credit for rescuing a little girl from a burning car when in fact it was the guy who left before the camera crew arrived.

An honest person does not take credit where no credit is due.

And realizing that someone has given you this unwarranted credit deliberately and knowingly is something that cannot be countenanced by an honest person.

He did say he contributed by collecting data.

 

[Cyrus]

Look, I've worked in a lab before that had all sorts of big expensive experiments with technicians needed to set up and run them. There name does not go on the paper. The PI name goes there, along with the team that works under him/her.

The PI in this case would be the advisor and the people working under him (My friend). Althoguh I also work for the PI, this is not my research. I'm simply the monkey that collected data. (And quite a lot).

I think anyone that wants their name on a paper for collecting data is academically suspect.

 

[Tickitata]

I read every post by Cyrus with the intensity of Daniel Day-Lewis in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. "Because it is my name!"


As for my two cents, I think the best course of action would be to contact the journal and see if they will remove your name from the paper. If for whatever reason they won't... just forget about it. Since you're not interested in academia, I can't see any actual damages coming from this (besides the ethical principles of the matter). Yes, it was wrong for your professor. But...so what? It seems now like you were only joking about a lawsuit, but if not, in my opinion that'd create a much larger headache than it's worth.

 

[f95toli]

I think anyone that wants their name on a paper for collecting data is academically suspect.

But that would probably eliminate 80% of all the authors on most experimental papers. The new data is after all the most important part of any paper in experimental physics. True, there should be a where the data is interpreted and perhaps modeled as well but that is usually the least interesting section.
Just to give you another example: what about all the people who spend most of their careers in cleanrooms growing samples, doing lithography, microscopy etc? Some don't do anything else meaning they are not necessarily involved in any other part of the experiment and sometimes they don't even understand the physics behind the experiment (nor do they care, I know people who do e.g. microscopy for so many projects that there is no way they can keep track of the finer details of each project so often they settle for making sure they understand the part that is relevant to their part of the work).
But on the other hand it is obviously an important part of the work (if it isn't done right nothing else will work or the data will be flawed) so obviously they deserve to have their names on papers that use results obtained from the samples they worked on.

If you really spent a lot of time collecting data and that data was then used in the paper it would be unethical of the professor NOT to include you name; of course he should have still asked you but if you had said no I can't see how he could have gone ahead and submitted the paper without your approval. Everyone who worked on a project and somehow affected the outcome of the experiment should be credited or if it is a very minor part be included in the acknowledgments.

 

[vanesch]

I think anyone that wants their name on a paper for collecting data is academically suspect.

Then the whole field of experimental high energy physics is suspect. There, *every* scientist that did just *anything* on the experiment gets on the authorlist of *all* the papers. That's why you get 500-1000 authors on every paper in these fields. Even if you only programmed the overheating protection of the data-acquisition electronics.

 

[vanesch]

No.

It's like someone giving you credit for rescuing a little girl from a burning car when in fact it was the guy who left before the camera crew arrived.

Na, it it more like, say, 3 people being on the camera, you included, being called the heroic rescue team, where actually only two of them really went into the fire, and you only held the water hose.

Would you still want to sue the camera team from including you in the picture ? Wouldn't such a behaviour come over as strange if you did ?

It is not that somebody else was left off the paper and you were given his place.

 

[Vanadium 50]

There, *every* scientist that did just *anything* on the experiment gets on the authorlist of *all* the papers.

I don't think it's quite that bad (and it's the "just anything" part that I am objecting to). Most experiments have well defined and documented conditions for authorship, and if/how this is renewed. There's usually some minimum amount of "service work" that needs to be performed and periodically this is reset and people need to re-qualify (or stop being authors).

It may not be right, but at least it's clear.

It's also not just HEP. It's in astronomy too. Most ACT telescopes have a similar policy, as does SDSS.

 

[vanesch]

I don't think it's quite that bad (and it's the "just anything" part that I am objecting to). Most experiments have well defined and documented conditions for authorship, and if/how this is renewed. There's usually some minimum amount of "service work" that needs to be performed and periodically this is reset and people need to re-qualify (or stop being authors).

Well, back when I was in HEP, this went as follows: every team being a member of the collaboration, had to declare a list of scientists and their date of entry in the team. The burden of the experiment chores was distributed according to the number of names (like the number of night shifts and so on). The entry date + 6 months meant the entry on the author list (whatever you did - but your actual task was to be decided inside your team). When the team leader declared that you parted, you still had your name on the author list until about 6 months after you left. There was strictly no relationship between your actual activities, and the contents of the papers being written. Teams had scientific and technical tasks, and they arranged between their members on how they distributed the tasks (knowing that their total burden was proportional to the number of declared members). So what I wrote was not totally imaginary: if one of the team tasks was to program the slow control, then a dedicated person could have done that (and only that), and be co-author of a sophisticated paper on I don't know what exotic phenomenon he might even never have heard about.
In the beginning of my PhD in HEP, I actually searched for more than a year how to remove static and interference from detector electronics, but I nevertheless got on some papers I didn't even understand in the beginning. Afterwards, things changed. But if I had left at that point, I would have just glued copper tape on electronics boards and soldered capacitors for having my name on some HEP papers.

 

[Mapes]

In the fields I've worked in (mechanical engineering and materials science) I often see these criteria:

1) If you wrote any part of the paper, you're an author.
2) If you contributed ideas to the paper, you're an author.

"Ideas" is defined broadly. It clearly includes study design, new models and equations, and interpretations and conclusions. If you fabricated something new or collected data on a new tool, you hopefully developed an efficient protocol that can be reported, and this constitutes new ideas. If you analyzed the data in a new way, this constitutes new ideas.

If you followed a standard protocol or fabricated something under constant direction--that is, if no new ideas were necessary or generated--than it is appropriate for you to be acknowledged in the acknowledgments section.

This part should be easy. After this comes the author order!

 

[seycyrus]

This is a puzzling thread! Evidently PF's most active publishers mostly lurk.

Such conflicts of interest and similar cases are are not uncommon in the publishing world.

Contact the publication. They will tell you how to proceed. They probably even have published guidleines to handle such situations.

 

[uman]

I have the best analogy:

It's like if someone owed you $500, and broke into your house to give it to you. Clearly you deserved to have the $500, but he went about it in absolutely the wrong way.

In this case, giving back the $500 would NOT solve anything, and neither would taking your name off the paper... why not let it stay (I'm not an academic, but most people here seem to agree that you deserve for it to be there), but talk to the professor about his mistake and ask that he apologize/promise not to repeat it?

 

[Pythagorean]

I think anyone that wants their name on a paper for collecting data is academically suspect.

Collecting data right is absolutely noteworthy. Not only does it take a bit of competence, it also takes your genuine interest in doing it as accurately and correctly as you can (which can be very stressful depending on the method of data collection).

If someone feel's guilty about being given credit for data collection, I'd be more suspect that they did it with complacency and aren't sure of their accuracy...

But only because this is such an odd thing to throw a fit about.

 

[WhoWee]

To be clear, I'm not getting a PhD, and I'm not trying to become a professor. I'm not here to publish as many papers as I can. The only thing I did was to collect data for a friend of mine because he asked me for my help. I agreed to collect the data for him. I find out more than half way into the deal that I'm supposed to be a co author and its too late.

I do not deserve to have my name on a paper for collecting data. What a joke. If I'm putting my name on any papers its going to be because I helped with some form of analysis.

My question still stands though: What right does an advisor have to sign your name to obligations you were not made aware of.

Perhaps he feels obligated to give you credit...draft a release of obligation and thank him. If this doesn't resolve the problem...have an attorney send a certified letter explaining the seriousness of the situation.

 

[vanesch]

Collecting data right is absolutely noteworthy. Not only does it take a bit of competence, it also takes your genuine interest in doing it as accurately and correctly as you can (which can be very stressful depending on the method of data collection).

If someone feel's guilty about being given credit for data collection, I'd be more suspect that they did it with complacency and aren't sure of their accuracy...

But only because this is such an odd thing to throw a fit about.

I don't think Cyrus is somehow feeling "guilty" for not "deserving" to be on the paper, but is rather pissed because he considers his name to be his "property" and nobody is entitled to mention it somewhere without his consent. Although strictly speaking, that's correct, I do find it a somewhat prima donna attitude in this particular case, where the use of his name is not in any way harmful (or at least, the one using it had absolutely no intention to harm, and even thought in doing him a favor).

 

[Vanadium 50]

Vanesch, I tend to agree with you. It doesn't help that Cyrus' position has shifted from having done nothing:

Because I didn't contribute to it. Not one thing. None.

to having not done enough:

The only thing I did was to collect data

 

[Cyrus]

I don't think Cyrus is somehow feeling "guilty" for not "deserving" to be on the paper, but is rather pissed because he considers his name to be his "property" and nobody is entitled to mention it somewhere without his consent. Although strictly speaking, that's correct, I do find it a somewhat prima donna attitude in this particular case, where the use of his name is not in any way harmful (or at least, the one using it had absolutely no intention to harm, and even thought in doing him a favor).

I'm a bit confused as to why you would say I'm having a prima donna attitude here. I'd like to point out that under no circumstances, should one EVER allow the use of their name by others without explicit permission. Even if it's for something good.

In the real world, when you run a business or purchase a home, or have bills, etc, you DO NOT allow your name to be used in documents that obligate you to something without your permission. Saying 'oh it was good intentions you're being a prima donna', just comes off as ignorant. I don't mean that in any disrespectful way vanesch, as I love you dearly , but I REALLY don't think what you said is good advice. Don't let people use your name without your permission. Ever. Not with good intentions. Not with bad intentions.

This is not how you do business (and I help run a small family business, so I know).

 

[Bystander]

I'm a bit confused as to why you would say I'm having a prima donna attitude here. I'd like to point out that under no circumstances, should one EVER allow the use of their name by others without explicit permission. Even if it's for something good. (snip)

"Convention" in this country is that the permission is explicit in your agreement to do the work --- lesson for you for later in life --- you don't want your name used, you state it up front to the charity cases you pick up.

 

[Cyrus]

"Convention" in this country is that the permission is explicit in your agreement to do the work --- lesson for you for later in life --- you don't want your name used, you state it up front to the charity cases you pick up.

Thanks for that piece of information!

 

[turbo]

It may actually be department policy to credit all students who contributed to a project. The prof may not have had any real choice in the matter.

 

[turbo]

Thanks for that piece of information!

I believe that Bystander's information is not only correct, but is codified under "implied consent" laws in most states.

 

[uman]

If someone signed your name to a contract, would the best course of action be to declare the contract null and void?

No, not if you would have signed your name to it anyway given the chance.

My point remains: make the guy apologize, but why try to get your name taken off the paper?