7.1 Overview and Philosophy
The primary goals of the HerbVar authorship process are to consistently, accurately, and transparently attribute the contribution of each author to a paper, to encourage participation in manuscripts by interested scientists, and to ensure that each author has made sufficient contribution to the paper to warrant authorship. Secondarily, authoring a paper within the HerbVar process benefits authors by reducing overlap among papers, fostering collaboration, streamlining use of HerbVar data to produce papers through GitHut tools, and helping to publicize HerbVar products. While prospective authors can use published HerbVar data to create products on their own, we encourage all authors working with HerbVar data to work with the network.
The HerbVar authorship process has been heavily influenced by the authorship process implemented by the Nutrient Network. This process provides ground rules for a fair and inclusive process for establishing authorship while not diluting the value of authorship on a manuscript. HerbVar is grateful to be able to build on the foundation of NutNet’s model for collaborative international ecology. The text below is edited to reflect HerbVar-specific policies, but some is drawn directly from the NutNet authorship document. Differences reflect the fact that HerbVar is a much larger network (with hundreds of contributors) and a more fluid network (contributors might only contribute data once, rather than actively maintaining an experimental site).
7.2 Herbvar Network contributors
The following are definitions for the different types of network contributors:
Steering committee: Responsible for overall network administration.
Site PI: A contributor that has submitted at least three herbvar surveys for one of the main or add-on objectives. Note that a person can be a site PI for the main objective, but not necessarily a site PI for one or all of the the add-on projects, depending on the completed surveys.
Member: Anyone who is currently or planning to work with the data, either through data collection, working group, etc.
7.3 Article Categories
In general, HerbVar aims to be as inclusive as possible. At the same time, we acknowledge that massively multi-authored papers (e.g. with all HerbVar members) present substantial challenges for lead authors and might discourage initiation of new projects. To balance these factors, there are two types of published products in the HerbVar process: “All PI Papers” and “Working Group Papers”.
7.3.1 “All-PI” Papers
All-PI Papers invite all site PIs meeting authorship requirements to be co-authors, acknowledging the fundamental importance of contributing data to HerbVar.
The HerbVar Network launched with a Steering Committee commitment to produce two papers using the core HerbVar data collected during the first phase of sampling. Site PIs earn co-authorship on these papers by providing at least 3 surveys (though more are always welcome) to the core dataset. The Steering Committee has so far launched three add-on projects (Focal Species, Focal Families, Reproductive Damage). Additional add-on projects may be created - see Datasets and Proposals for New Data Collection. Site PIs earn co-authorship on one paper from each add-on project by contributing at least three surveys that advance that project, in addition to the minimum three surveys required for Site PI status and authorship on the core HerbVar papers. See Section 9.1, the HerbVar website and our Species selection document (in the HerbVar Protocols folder) for information on our current sampling objectives and planned manuscripts. We will be flexible on the minimum number of surveys, particularly if substantial additional intellectual contributions are made to project development (e.g., creation of documents and protocols, recruitment of collaborators able to work in under-sampled regions or with under-sampled taxa, or other network coordination work). The Steering Committee will review instances that do not meet the minimum criteria on a case-by-case basis. Please reach out if you have questions or concerns. Collaborators who set out to complete 3+ surveys but are only able to contribute 1-2 surveys will be given the opportunity to maintain authorship by contributing in other ways. Potential contributions that could make up for missing surveys include but are not limited to working on our primary database, developing our traits and/or environmental databases, and/or collecting other metadata. In addition to contributing data, Site PIs who want to be co-authors must also contribute intellectually to at least one of the following: development of questions and overall study design, data analysis or interpretation, writing, or editing.
Site PIs who contribute data but do not meet the criteria for co-authorship (e.g., submitting too few surveys, deciding to not make up for missing surveys with additional contributions (see criteria for authorship below, etc.) have two options for their data:
The Site PI will not be a co-author, but they agree to let HerbVar use and publish the data they contributed. They will be recognized via the HerbVar member list. The HerbVar member list will serve to acknowledge all contributors (even if they didn’t meet co-authorship criteria), and will be associated with each manuscript.
The Site PI will not be a co-author, and they do not agree to let HerbVar use and publish their data. All their data will be removed from all HerbVar databases. HerbVar will not use or publish their data. They will be removed from the HerbVar member list.
7.3.2 “Working Group” Papers
Working Group Papers allow for smaller teams to assemble to write additional papers using HerbVar data, broadening the scope of our collective work without requiring every lead author to manage hundreds of contributors. Typically, working group papers will be centered around already published HerbVar data analyzed in a new way and potentially combined with some new data. HerbVar supports working group paper authors in being as inclusive as is practical, and in connecting with appropriate co-authors to build new collaborations. A complete guide to proposing and writing Working Group papers, along with criteria and expectations for co-authorship, can be found in Chapter 8.
7.5 Manuscript Preparation
Please refer to Chapter 10 for details on the HerbVar Research Workflow and guide to preparing reproducible manuscripts. Chapter 12 includes required information to include manuscripts, such as citations of Herbvar datasets and acknowledgement of NSF support.