Computational Molecular Biology and Statistics Core

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQs regarding collaboration with personnel from the Computational Molecular Biology and Statistics Core:

1. Do I need to have an understanding of computational biology to use the core?
   No, but it certainly can be helpful to do some background research to be sure that your questions/tasks are clearly formulated and that you can define an endpoint to a given project.
2. What recourse do I have if I'm dissatisfied with core service?
   The Core Director (Randy Morse) will be the point person for handling problems/complaints. If further mitigation is required, referral will be made to the Core Oversight Committee.
3. I'm already paying chargeback; why should I also share authorship with core personnel?
   Several points can provide a rationale: first, co-authors on a manuscript often include personnel who are also paid out of research grants. Second, the chargeback policy is not providing a profit for core personnel (or anyone else), but will be used for core support (e.g. travel to meetings, upgrades in equipment and/or software. Third, for papers in which author contributions are explicitly indicated (an increasingly common practice), it provides accountability and proper credit. Most importantly, if the work done by core personnel is sufficient to justify co-authorship, it is simply the right thing to do.
4. How do I decide if a co-authorship is justified, or whether a simple acknowledgment is sufficient?
   Use the same criteria you would for other cases. If core personnel have contributed to the writing of the paper, provided a figure or table, or otherwise made essential contributions to the paper's conclusions, co-authorship should be considered. If contributions are routine-e.g., downloading and running packaged software, providing routine statistical input-a simple acknowledgment would suffice. This is a matter that in general should be openly discussed with anyone involved on a project.
5. I don't think I should have to include core personnel as coauthors, since they did not provide intellectual input, plan the experiments or write the paper.
   This is really a philosophical matter. However, most of us have included students or technicians as coauthors if they have invested much effort and obtained results (e.g. a figure or two) that are included in the manuscript. This is really no different. In any event, inclusion of personnel who have contributed substantially to a publication in general does not dilute the recognition of the first and last authors-most readers will regard the paper by Smith, Edwards, Jones, Barney and Kleiberveitch as being Smith's paper from the Kleiberveitch lab.