A PhD student who was a co-author on a previous paper (helped with 1 experiment) is asking for the raw files for multiple extensive figures to use in their PhD thesis presentation.
I created each of these figures and ran all experiments, they did not help.
Any advice for whether I should provide the figures and if so, under what stipulations? I do feel somewhat uncomfortable providing given the situation.
What kind of thesis is this? A single book, or a collection of papers?
If it's the later, then it would be normal for a student to need the raw image files of all figures from the collaborative papers included in the thesis so that all the papers can be put into the same format in the formatting process. The papers will be included with all authors listed, so there's no issue of attribution.
If it's the former, then the figures should be included with a reference to the original paper in the figure caption just as any previously published figure which is used should be, whether it comes from a paper the student was involved with or not. (Note in this case if the thesis is formerly published then the student may need to apply for copyright permissions from the journals to reproduce previously published figures, just like you would have to with a review paper).
Will you be interested to share if you are given due credit?
If not, you can have a dialogue and make them understand that you are not the owner of those figures as you did not perform the experiments. This is unethical practice to use the figures from the experiment that someone else has performed.
You can, however, teach them how to generate those figures, if that could help them and they have a learning attitude.
If things go bad, you can involve their supervisor to mediate in this matter.
