Co-authorship Policy

It should be mentioned that the deposition of data is the part of publication procedure and will be done by X-ray laboratory staff only if this publication has been considered as scientific collaboration. The guidelines for co-authorship that have been followed at the Molecular Structure Laboratory are in accord with IUCR regulations and with co-authorship policies accepted at other crystallographic laboratories. Compliance by faculty with these guidelines is voluntary.

Crystallographer should be considered for co-authorship if the structural information is a major part of the intellectual content of the paper. If this information has been derived primarily by X-ray diffraction, then the crystallography should be included in the paper and/or the supplementary information. Most papers that discuss molecular geometric parameters, atom's thermal-ellipsoids, and packing features would fall under this classification. We are encouraging faculty members to use our expertise in structural discussion (packing, hydrogen bonding, inter/intra-molecular interactions, etc.), structure comparison, and database search for relevant compounds. We will be happy to assist in the preparation and review of manuscripts before submission to editor and answer all questions during publication procedure. As a co-author, the crystallographer is responsible for deposition of structural data to the database and other additional tasks.

Crystallographer should not be considered for co-authorship if crystallography was used only to confirm a structure which has been well-established by other means (NMR, Mass spectroscopy, etc.), and if no structural details are given in the paper. In this case, the appropriate acknowledgment has to be added to paper as the usual tasks have been performed. This would occur, for example, when the relative stereochemistry of an intermediate in a complex organic synthesis has been determined, or when the crystallographic experiment was routine and structural determination was straightforward. If this is the case, the crystallographer is not responsible for submitting of structural information to editor and for deposition of these data to database. The quality of data not always straightforward, therefore the special comments (from resulting *.DOC and *.CIF files) have to be added by authors of paper.

The crystallographer may be willing to publish the structural results of the investigation in a crystallographic journal upon mutual agreement of all parties.

As supervisor of the X-ray lab, Dr. Ellern will try to provide answers to any questions concerning crystallography, diffraction methods and any other subjects within his expertise.

All above-mentioned is intended to help authors to prepare a manuscript, facilitate its publication and to protect the authors of manuscripts from errors in professional presentation of the crystallographic results.