na-mic national alliance for medical image computing publications guidelines eric grimson

NA-MICNational Alliance for Medical Image Computing http://na-mic.org

Publications Guidelines

Eric Grimson

National Alliance for Medical Image Computing http://na-mic.org

Publications guidelines

• Issue: Need to balance cultures and requirements of different communities– Some agencies require acknowledgement

of data– Some agencies measure performance by

grant citation– Contributions can be made in many ways

• Need to be sensitive to these variations


Publications guidelines

• Contributions:– Creating algorithms that are essential to the

analysis of data;– Designing and executing experiments that

substantiate hypotheses;– Articulating and refining the hypothesis to be tested.– Creating data sets that are unique, especially in

cases where the acquired images are carefully processed with extensive manual contribution;

– Creating processing infrastructures without which the analysis could not be executed.


A suggested rule of thumb

• “Could this work have been just as easily accomplished without the efforts of this partner?” – Was the particular data set used (especially if

it is not just a set of scans, but includes definitions of particular structures obtained by careful manual delineation) essential to the success of the project, or would any data set have sufficed?

– Was the particular algorithm used to analyze the data, or extract structure from the data, unique, or would any of several stock methods sufficed?


Suggested checklist

• Has the NAMIC base grant been acknowledged?• Have the sources of data been acknowledged?

– Have any grants associated with the creation of the data sets been acknowledged?

• Need to collect a list of grants associated with data sets

• Have researchers essential to the creation of data used in the publication been included as co-authors?

• Have researchers essential to the creation of algorithmic tools unique to this project been included as co-authors?


Example of guidelines (BIRN)• Research teams should discuss authorship issues frankly and early in the course of their work. • Everyone who is listed as an author should have made a substantial, direct, intellectual contribution to

the work. For example (in the case of a research report) they should have contributed to the conception, design, analysis and/or interpretation of data including development of the written report. Honorary or guest authorship is not acceptable. Acquisition of funding and provision of technical services, patients, or materials, while they may be essential to the work, are not in themselves sufficient contributions to justify authorship.

• Everyone who has made substantial intellectual contributions to the work should be an author. Everyone who has made other substantial contributions should be acknowledged.

• When research is done by one or more teams whose members are highly specialized, an individual's contributions and responsibility may be limited to specific aspects of the work.

• All authors should participate in writing the manuscript by reviewing drafts and approving the final version.

• The authors should decide the order of authorship together. • One author should take primary responsibility for the work as a whole even if he or she does not have

an in-depth understanding of every part of the work. • This primary author should assure that all authors meet basic standards for authorship and should

prepare a concise, written description of their contributions to the work, and how they have assigned the order in which they are listed so that readers can interpret their roles correctly, subject to approval by all authors. This record should remain with the sponsoring department.

• All authors should approve the list of authors certifying that they are not aware of anyone else who should be included.


Other actions

• Should there be a NAMIC board that (quickly) approves publications?

na-mic national alliance for medical image computing publications guidelines eric grimson

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