The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment (JGSEE)
King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT)
Student Information

Publication Authorship Policies

Endorsed by Professorial Board: April 8, 2005

The following policies are intended to apply to publications involving authors, both staff and students, that are affiliated with the JGSEE

1. Authorship – A person claiming authorship of a scholarly publication must have met the following criteria:

a. Substantial participation in conception and design of the study, or in analysis and interpretation of data.

b. Substantial participation in the drafting of the manuscript or in the substantive editing of the manuscript.

c. Final approval of the version of the manuscript to be published.

d. Ability to explain and defend the study in public or scholarly settings.

2. Acknowledgment – Contributions that do not justify authorship should be acknowledged separately in the notes to the manuscript. These may include general supervision of a research group, assistance in obtaining funding, or technical support.

3. Undeserved Authorship – A claim of authorship by, or assignment of authorship to, persons who may have been associated in some way with a study but do not meet the four criteria in item 1 may constitute an unethical research practice. Such undeserved authorship should not be expected or awarded.

4. Graduate Student Authorship – A graduate student whose thesis research is the major source of material for a publication should have first authorship, and the project advisor should be a later author. If some material from the thesis is used in a review paper, proposal, progress or final report written by the project advisor, a reference to the material’s origin is sufficient. The graduate student should not expect joint authorship in this case.

5. Senior Authors/Project Advisor – The senior author has special responsibilities when it comes to publications.

a. If portions of a students thesis material are used by the project advisor in a review paper, prior to the original publication of the thesis work, the advisor must be sure that publication of the material does not jeopardize the subsequent publication of the thesis related material.

b. The senior author / project advisor has the responsibility to help the authors involved in a publication to agree upon the order of authorship among the study participants. As projects proceed, agreements regarding authorship may need to be changed. It is the responsibility of the senior author to assure that the contributions of all study participants are properly recognized.

c. The senior author / project director is generally listed as the Corresponding Author on papers submitted for publication. The responsibility for being corresponding author may be assigned to another appropriate individual by the senior author. The corresponding author needs to be relatively easy to locate, contact and communicate with before, during and after the publication of the paper.

6. Disputes Over Authorship – Disagreements over authorship, e.g. who has a right to be an author or the order of authorship, should be resolved by the Senior Author in collegial consultation with the other authors. When this process cannot reach resolution, the Senior Author should arrange for arbitration by the Executive Board of the School, who may in turn refer the case to the Professorial Board, if necessary, for final resolution of the dispute. During the arbitration process all the authors are expected to refrain from unilateral actions that may damage the authorship interests and rights of the other authors.

7. Accountability – Every author listed on a publication is presumed to have read and approved the final version of the manuscript. Each author is responsible for the integrity of the research being reported.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Many societies that publish technical journals have a specific set of ethical guidelines for authors. Below are some general guidelines, to which authors must adhere.

1. Plagiarism – A submitted manuscript shall not contain plagiarized material or falsified research data. Plagiarism is commonly defined as the use or presentation of the ideas or words of another person from an existing source without appropriate acknowledgment to that source.

2. Submitting to Multiple Journals – To ensure that a manuscript is submitted for publication in only one journal at a time, it is not acceptable for an author to submit a manuscript (or manuscripts describing essentially the same matter) to more than one journal at a time. A manuscript may be resubmitted to another journal after it has been rejected for or withdrawn from publication.

3. Previously Published Results – Publication of technical results must be original, not previously published results.

a. A manuscript which is a full paper report of a published communication may be submitted for publication. Some journals publish in a brief form the preliminary or early results for particularly interesting research as a communication or preliminary communication. Authors of such communications are expected to follow this preliminary publication with a full paper describing the research. The author has the responsibility to inform the editor of the previously published communication that a full paper describing the research is being submitted.

b. Issuance in a scientific journal, in a book offered for public distribution, in a serial issued by a commercial publishing company, or in a widely available governmental document are all regarded as publication. Reports distributed to very limited and defined distribution lists may not constitute publication.

c. Papers that are presented at conferences and appear in conference proceedings and distributed to participants of the symposium are not regarded as published. Hence, this allows the full paper to also be submitted to a journal for publication and wider distribution.

d. Scientific results have come to be printed and distributed by such varied means that it has become necessary to define as accurately as possible what constitutes prior publication. Electronic posting of preprints to services that provide or purport to provide archiving and the ability to cite a specific location for the paper constitutes publication. If the preprint is removed from the archive, it is no longer considered published.