In case of multi-organization and uni based projects,
funding organizations can be and are too often are a force for hindering
interdisciplinary efforts . They think you are trying to confuse them
and things go pretty bad and review process blocks multidisciplinary
work. But if by crossing all the mountains of such things, you get funding approved or go for computational projects with university approval or personal resources (for mini projects in free time) and somehow drag relevant people into the project and start it, ton of other problems pop up.
Collaboration decreases competition we will have and multi-disciplinary research always creates more exciting stuff but it is not with out its cost and in present times. Cost mostly outweigh the benefits. In my case, it certainly did.
I have a long list of the problems I encountered during my on-line project collaborations, both in and cross-country.
One major problem is allocating authorship credit in a large collaborative research.
Once you start working together, after a little input, other person stops putting in which means you can't kick that person out and can't keep him still in. It is also not always the case that multiple authors means that a
collaboration has taken case.
Correspondence is also a major issue, senior would like to have that even though wants the formatting and heck of submission to be done by the junior.
Some are such late responders and cause unnecessary delays and one can't continue to submit revisions etc without approval of all authors.
In some cases, horrific things happen like they take your data and soon after that design a relevant or corollary type thing of your project and leave this hanging mid-air and start working on the new project as independent investigators.
If they come to know that your are collaborating because you are not an expert in that thing, exploitation mounts up.
To overcome such problems, interested people should read
'A brief guide to research collaboration for the young scholar' published by Elsevier at
https://www.elsevier.com/connect/a-brief-guide-to-research-collaboration-for-the-young-scholar
Following is the guideline framework proposed by leading scientists to avoid problems in collaborative work. It could be modified to suit your own needs.
Co-author agreement for a scientific project
Overall goals and vision
We have agreed to
collaborate in scientific research and publish our results in a scientific
paper (or perhaps several papers). We agree to the following guidelines as we
work together toward this goal. This agreement ends after the paper is
published, data are archived, and media inquires conclude.
We enter into this
agreement voluntarily, and we can leave the agreement voluntarily as described
below.
Who will do what?
Team members are
expected to make contributions as specified during the formation of the Team.
These responsibilities might include carrying out research, contributing specimens
and data, analyzing data, and writing the paper.
The paper will be
led by an acknowledged Project Leader (often the principal investigator,
research group leader, or graduate supervisor). The Leader will facilitate
decision-making and communication among the Team. The Leader may be the person
who started the project, who invited members to join the Team, who is expected
to do the most work on the project, or who is head of a research group. In some
cases, particularly for small groups, the Project will be managed through
collective decisions or some other method.
Once the Team is
formed, any decisions on adding new co-authors or Team members should be made
by consensus rather than individual decisions.
Data for this
project belong to the Team for the purposes of this paper. Data will be managed
by the people who generate them and shared as needed for analysis. Upon
publication, the data will likely be deposited into a permanent, publicly
accessible archive, such as DataONE, and in accordance with journal
policies. The data will be credited to the people who created them and will be
linked to this paper through the metadata.
Authorship, credit, and responsibility
Authorship will be
limited to those who have contributed substantially to the paper. If a member
of the Team does not contribute substantially as initially agreed, that person
will be removed as a co-author, as determined by the Leader in consultation
with the Team.
The Leader will
determine the order of authorship for the co-authors based on contributions to
the project. In practice the Leader is often be the first, last or
corresponding author.
If appropriate to
the journal, the acknowledgements of the paper will describe each co-author's
specific contributions. The contributions of other collaborators who are not
co-authors will also be described in the acknowledgements.
All co-authors
share some degree of responsibility for the entire paper as an accurate,
verifiable research report. Co-authors are responsible for the accuracy of
their contributions, but may have only limited responsibility for other
results.
All co-authors must
give their permission for publication prior to submission of each version of
the paper.
All co-authors can
give presentations of this paper after publication, using material in the paper
and dataset, providing they reference the paper and their co-authors. Ideally,
they will also notify the co-authors of these presentations beforehand.
All co-authors can
respond to media inquiries relating to this paper. Press releases should
include the names and contact information of all co-authors. Team members
should acknowledge the contributions of other co-authors during interviews and
encourage reporters to contact them.
Contingencies and communication
The Leader will
manage Team communication by organizing regular communications, such as email
updates or phone calls. The default might be one communication per month, with
more frequent communications when necessary.
All Team members
agree to reply to emails and phone call concerning the project, especially
drafts of the paper, within a reasonable period of time, such as within one
week.
All Team members
agree to notify the rest of the team prior to sharing the manuscript with
people outside the Team. Team members will be given a chance to comment prior
to sharing.
No Team member can
block publication of the paper except because of concerns related to scientific
soundness — e.g., the data collection, analyses and presentation were done
incorrectly. Concerns related to policy, management, or scientific implications
are not grounds for a co-author to block publication. If a majority of Team
members believe the paper should be published based on sound science, the paper
will move forward. Every reasonable effort should be made by the Leader and
others to reach a consensus on moving forward with a publication.
Team members may
voluntarily remove themselves from the project, and from co-authorship, at any
point if they no longer have time for the project or they disagree with some
aspect of the project or paper. If a Team member voluntarily leaves the project
or is asked to leave the Team because they are opposed to the paper being published,
the Team members and Leader will need to discuss with the dissenting member if
his/her contributions can still be used, and perhaps described in the
Acknowledgements, or will have to be removed from the paper.
Team members are
free to develop their own collaborations and directions using the ideas and
data in the paper, once it is published. Team members should make every
reasonable effort to inform each other when starting new collaborations and
spin-off projects that result from this paper. In practice, the Team members
may continue to work together on follow-up projects, but this needs to be
discussed among the group, and should not be assumed.
Conflict of interest
All Team members
will disclose to the Team any real or perceived conflicts of interest related
to this project and paper.
All Team members
will disclose to the Team whether they or any close family members or
associates will benefit financially from this project and paper.
