Author: FlorianStadler, July 2008

1. Everybody having significantly     (at least 5% of the total work) contributed to the research to be     published will be a co-author of the article. Including students and     technicians as authors is possible but not necessary and lies at the     discretion of the advisor of their home institution. If the advisor     chooses not to include students and technicians as co-authors, their names     should be explicitly mentioned in the acknowledgements. The number of     authors from each institution (institute, chair, …) should approximately     reflect the amount of contribution from the respective institution.     Persons not having directly contributed to the article by research,     interpretation, … , e.g. the head of a department, should not be taken as     coauthors. The direct advisor of a Ph.D.-student or a PostDoc should be     taken as a coauthor, however.

2. To determine the author order,     the authors first have to be divided into executing researchers and     advisors. In case an advisor personally significantly contributed to the     article by performing experiments or writing the article (not by     correcting it or helping with the interpretation of the results), he/she     will be counted as executing researcher.

1. The executing researchers are      listed before the advisors.

2. The order of the executing      researchers is determined by the amount of contribution to the research      to the article. The first author is the main contributor, followed by the      other executive researchers in the order of their amount of contribution

3. The advisors are listed after      the executing researchers and their order of the advisors is determined      by the opposite order of the institutions of the executing researchers. Hence,      the advisor of the first author is the last author.

4. If the paper is part of a      cooperation producing multiple papers, this rule should be applied in a      way that each executing researcher and institution will get a number of      first authorships according to his/her total contribution to all      articles, even if this slightly contradicts 2b.

5. The first author’s advisor is      the corresponding author. In case the first author is PostDoc or higher,      the role of corresponding author can also be assumed by the first author.

3. The first author is the     coordinator for the written parts of the different cooperating parties and     is responsible for correctly formatting, correcting the article. The first     author is also responsible for the article during submission and revision.     The other authors should be informed by the first authors, how he/she     would prefer the paper to be formatted. The duties of the first authors     may be delegated to other members of the first author’s home institution.     The first author should ensure a speedy publication. All other co-authors     will be asked by the first author to share their expertise for the     revision and the proofs.

4. If the first author is an     advisor, both types of duties and privileges bestow on him/her.

5. The journal should be chosen to     meet the interests of all authors’ best and to maximize the impact of the     article.

6. No article may be submitted     (initial submission and revised versions) unless all advisors have given prior     consent. In case the deadline for the resubmission of the revised version is     imminent, the consent of all parties is not absolutely necessary (e.g. in     case one of the advisors is not answering repeated phone calls and/or     emails for weeks). The proof copies should be but do not have to be     corrected by all co-authors, as the deadlines on correcting proofs are     generally very tight.

7. All information on the status     of the article after submission are to be distributed by the coordinator     of the submission process or his advisor as soon as possible among all     co-authors especially when the news are not positive.

8. Unless there is an explicit     need, the cost of publication should be minimized by avoiding cover     charges, extra off-prints, color figures, open access, … . In case some     measure producing cost is needed the different institutions involved have     to agree on how to split the costs prior to the submission of the     publication.

9. The off-prints are to be     distributed among the participants as follows:

1. Each author receives one or      two personal copies.

2. The remaining copies are to be      split among the participants’ institution in a way that the corresponding      author’s institution receives twice as many off-prints as every other      participating institution.

3. If only digital off-prints are      distributed, these rules do not apply. In this case, the first author      should try to get a normal pdf-version of the article to be used in place      of the classical paper off-prints.

4. Each author should receive      also a pdf-version of the article, even in the unlikely event that extra      costs are involved.

10. Every institution involved     should be informed, when some of the cooperatively obtained research     results are used in oral or poster presentations. The     presentations and posters should be given to the other institutions. The     other institutions should be informed about the presentation prior to the     conference/meeting/seminar.

11. Presenting data of the other     institution in a normal length paper, e.g. conference proceedings journals     like Macromolecular Symposia, should be avoided, when not giving a     co-authorship to the researchers of other institution (even if they have     not been on the author list of the conference). If a conference explicitly     requires such a publication of the results, the contributing authors     should agree whether to submit such a publication or not, considering the     rather low impact of such conference proceedings journals. The publication     of abstracts with less than three pages, oral or poster presentations in     non-refereed means of publication without adding all co-authors is not     considered problematic, as long as the main focus of the presentation is     on the research performed in the presenting organization.

12. If the cooperation is the     consequence of a joint project, the advisors should agree on one person to     keep track of all publications (posters, oral presentation, seminar     lectures, abstract, full publications). All other partners will ensure a     speedy reporting of their presentations to this responsible for the     collection. This will ease the collection of the presentations for a later     report required by the funding agency.

13. Changes of address of authors     (especially of former Ph.D. students) should be speedily conveyed to all     cooperators involved to ensure that these contributors are properly     credited.