[labnetwork] publication acknowledgements

Wed Apr 26 10:58:27 EDT 2023

Hi Nathanael -

Excellent question, as it's easier and cheaper to simulate a device than 
it is to build it, so we always need to demonstrate the value of our 
facilities in the research ecosystem. I can share what we do now (though 
will defer to Sara, our nano at stanford program manager who is managing 
the process this year) and would be glad to hear what others do.  Since 
we receive partial support from NSF, we provide a list of publications 
every year.  We currently use two approaches in parallel.

1. The libraries.  We work with a wonderful Project & Data manager in 
Stanford's Digital Libraries group who runs searches on various 
publications databases for us.  This is done in several rounds using 
keywords with decreasing specificity, which require increasing levels of 
human filtering.  For example, the first round is a search in the 
acknowledgements for our NSF award, "nano at stanford", "Stanford 
Nanofabrication Facility", and "Stanford Nano Shared Facilities" and 
other keywords (like staff names) that are uniquely associated with our 
enterprise.  These publications are accepted without further review.  
The next round would be for additional publications from any and all of 
our labmembers that were not discovered in the first round.  For 
Stanford researchers, it's pretty easy to ensure uniqueness of 
individuals since the libraries have a database of ORCID's for Stanford 
students, faculty, and staff. For non-Stanford researchers, the search 
is done on their names and associated orgs (an additional step is needed 
to verify the standard name of the org.)  For this round, additional 
filters are needed to validate use of our facilities, such as "SNF" or 
"SNSF", where we need to be sure this indicates Stanford, rather than 
"Skilled Nursing Facility" or the "Swiss National Science Foundation" - 
though Sara found instances where "SNSF" meant both!).  Or names of 
equipment or capabilities which are fairly unique to our facilities.  
This is actually a fun project, if you like puzzles and have the time, 
as you get to learn a lot about your facility, and the people and 
research areas you serve.

2.  The researchers.  We ask researchers to fill in an online survey 
form with their publications for the year, enticing them with drawings 
for gift cards for the local eatery.  It's amazing how many people are 
motivated by gift cards (and yes, the Coupa Cafe is a very popular and 
convenient spot.) To be honest, the bulk of what we get is already 
discovered in the first approach, but there are always some new 
treasures.  Most important, though, is building community awareness 
("the winner in our drawing today is:  Jo Doe!  There's still time to 
submit your publications for tomorrow's drawing.  And please remember to 
credit our shared facilities in your next pub!")

Our Libraries group is encouraging us (and other campus shared 
facilities) to make sure that everyone on staff has registered ORCID's.  
This is part of an overall push for a cultural shift to use 
acknowledgements to credit staff and others who make significant 
contributions, but not at the co-author level.  The Libraries are also 
encouraging us to adopt RRID's (like ORCID's, but for non-personnel 
resources) for our individual facilities and even individual equipment.  
RRID's are used more broadly in bio/pharma and can even be used to 
denote individual lot numbers of reagents, for those institutions with 
the diligence and wherewithal to ensure compliance, this kind of 
notebook-level detail is essential for data reproducibility. There are 
also time stamps associated with each RRID, so it can be used to 
identify the configuration individual piece of equipment at a specific 
time - provided people are diligent in documenting this info.  The idea 
is that RRID's would be part of the methods addendums and researchers' 
electronic notebooks. This kind of cyberinfrastructure would make it way 
easier to measure the impact of our facilities on the research 
enterprise -- someday in the not too distant future...

I would love to hear what other facilities do -- and would welcome any 
discussions and thoughts about ORCID's and RRID's in facilities --

Cheers -

Mary

-- 
Mary X. Tang, Ph.D.
Managing Director
Stanford Nanofabrication Facility
Paul G. Allen Building
420 Via Palou Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
https://snf.stanford.edu
mtang at stanford.edu

On 4/25/2023 2:29 PM, Nathanael Sieb wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I have a question for the hive mind about publication 
> acknowledgements.  As most of you do, at 4D LABS we require our users 
> to include us in the acknowledgement section of publications resulting 
> from work in our facility.  This is obviously helpful to show our 
> impact but also helps us track publications through search terms.  It 
> is also beneficial to our staff if they are acknowledged by name, but 
> currently isn't a requirement.
>
> However, we don't have an easy way to make sure this is actually 
> done.  While I'm sure most of our users are great, lately we have been 
> finding some papers that left us out.  When asked about it, the 
> responses varied from silence, to 'sorry I forgot', to 'I'm paying to 
> access the facility'.  I don't have the ability to try to check every 
> paper that might be coming out of here.
>
> So I'm curious, how do other labs deal with this?  Do you have any way 
> to check or just hope for the best?  Do you send out reminders or just 
> have the typical wording included on your websites or forms?  I'm open 
> to any feedback you may have.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Nathanael
>
> *Nathanael Sieb *
> Director of Operations and Administration  | 4D LABS 
> <http://www.4dlabs.ca/>
> Simon Fraser University
> 8888 University Dr., Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6
> T: 778.782.8084 | F: 778.782.3765 | www.4dlabs.ca <http://www.4dlabs.ca>
> Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/4dlabs/> | Twitter 
> <https://twitter.com/4D_LABS> | LinkedIn 
> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/sfu-4d-labs/about/>
>
>
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