Dear Jorge, With many others, my thanks for raising the topic.
Here is how I would handle your dilemma. I would focus on the criteria (ICMJE) or guidelines (ESA), keeping in mind these are guidelines and criteria, not rules and regulations. Your dilemma is a potential co-author that has not seen the manuscript and cannot contribute or approve it, or take responsibility for it, and so falls outside the ethical guidelines. As you might know, some journals ask for contact information for all co-authors and now inform all coauthors at important steps - submission of the manuscript and decision letter. So, if you cannot locate the potential co-author, and you have good reasons to include that person, I would make the case for including that person, **with your reasons**, in the cover letter when you submit the manuscript. The goal is to think through the topic, in light of best practice (ICMJE and ESA). Hope that helps, David S On 2016-08-19 16:54, Jorge A. Santiago-Blay wrote:
Query on authorship Dear Colleagues: I am writing a small paper resulting from research done with two undergraduates many years ago (and, later on, involving several other colleagues using cutting-edge technology). As the results became obvious, both of the students agreed (orally, in person) with me that we should get the research published. As far as I remember, there was no email or letter documenting that and, there was no manuscript, only the data and the methods we were using. The problem: I have located one of the former students (now a researcher at a major research institution), who is excited about getting the research published, but not the second student. Question: How to handle the contribution (including authorship) of the other person? Here are some options I see. a. OMIT THE NAME OF THE PERSON THAT HAS NOT BEEN LOCATED and indicate that another person was involved in the data collection but we were hot able to locate him/her to get his/her approval to use his/her name as an author. Under these circumstances, would it be OK to name the person in the Acknowledgments? Lately, I am asking permission to do that because sometimes some people prefer to remain anonymous. b. INCLUDE THE NAME OF THE PERSON I CANNOT LOCATE AS AN AUTHOR, an act of fairness and good faith on my part. If the person does not like the idea (and the paper is published) retract the name of the person in an erratum, later on, and assume responsibility for my error. A kind colleague did that to me once and, subsequently, it has resulted a long standing collaboration (and co-authorship in many papers, with my knowledge) :) c. NOR USE THE DATA GARNERED BY THE PERSON I CANNOT LOCATE. Although I am pretty sure I am authorized by the institution to use the data, as a general personal; preference, I like to ask permission. If you have something constructive to comment, kindly direct your comments to me, blayjo...@gmail.com , Apologies for potential duplicate emails. Sincerely, Jorge Jorge A. Santiago-Blay, PhD blaypublishers.com [1] 1. Positive experiences for authors of papers published in _LEB_ http://blaypublishers.com/testimonials/ 2. Free examples of papers published in _LEB_: http://blaypublishers.com/category/previous-issues/ [2]. 3. _Guidelines for Authors_ and page charges of _LEB_: http://blaypublishers.com/archives/ [3] _._ 4. Want to subscribe to _LEB_? http://blaypublishers.com/subscriptions/ [4] http://blayjorge.wordpress.com/ http://paleobiology.si.edu/staff/individuals/santiagoblay.cfm Links: ------ [1] http://blaypublishers.com [2] http://blaypublishers.com/category/previous-issues/ [3] http://blaypublishers.com/archives/ [4] http://blaypublishers.com/subscriptions/
