How can an undergraduate be recognized for work done on a paper, with a fellow PhD student and a professor?

Question

I am an undergraduate student, and recently I was introduced a PhD student in my university's math department.

In a brief interaction with him, he mentioned that he was doing work in Differential Topology, an area which I happen to be self-studying at the moment. I asked him about his research problem, and mentioned what I was self-studying, and he offered me an opportunity to work with his PhD advisor (a former professor of mine), and himself, and stated that they were looking to publish a paper in mid 2018, and I could possibly be listed as a co-author.

He has yet to run the idea past my former professor, but he has stated that my former professor would be all on board with the idea. My former professor likely does not know or remember me, we only had one brief interaction during a class on Discrete Mathematics (coincidentally the interaction was about Differential Topology and some other Differential Geometric stuff, because he saw me reading a book on it before class commenced).

However, my university has no official undergraduate research program, so everything (i.e. any research conducted) will likely be done on an informal basis. My main question is this, how can I protect the work that I do on a project like this? What measures can I take to ensure that whatever work I do is credited, if the paper containing my work is published?

Firstly it should be noted, that regardless of whether or not my work will be recognized on the paper (if any contributions to the paper are made by my part) I still intend to take this opportunity and work with the PhD student and my former professor, mainly as it will be a good learning experience for me on how to properly do research, the possibility of being listed as a co-author is just an added bonus.

Also I'm well aware, that it's probable that I may not make any contribution at all, however I am asking this question in the event that I do contribute some work towards the paper.

If it's of any importance, I have a good relationship, and am somewhat well known by other faculty members (Topologists) in my universities' math department, as they have previously allowed me attend lectures for their courses which are only reserved for students in years above me.

Answer 1

What measures can I take to ensure that whatever work I do is credited, if the paper containing my work is published?

Unlike other answers, I'll mention that it is not unheard of for higher-ups to fail to credit more junior collaborators. So while you have no reason to believe this will happen in your case, some relatively-benign protective measure may be in order.

I would suggest one (or more) of the following:

• Using some relevant on-line collaboration tool - such as a git/mercurial repository for paper drafts, or a Dropbox/Box.com/OwnCloud shared folder through which you exchange files - preferably one which they cannot delete on their own.
• A bit of "wordsmithing" in some of your email exchanges with them so that whoever reads the email exchange understands that either some of the work is assigned to you, or some of the results were obtained by you. Things like doing a bit of planning or roadmapping over email typically achieve this effect without sounding off.
• Engineering one or more occasions in which you and one of the other two are discussing your joint work in the presence of a third party with closer/better relations to you than to them.

The first two you could probably do regardless of wanting to protect yourself; the third one involves at most a bit of bragging, which is understandable for an undergrad and can be minimized.

Each of these reduces the degree of plausible deniability in a theoretical argument about credit, and even more importantly, discourages the very inclination your senior collaborators may have to ignore your contribution.

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A side-note: There could be three scenarios here regarding the extent of your contribution to such work.

1. Sufficient to merit co-authorship
2. Sufficient to merit a "crediting mention" ("The authors wish to thank Ms. Jane Smith for useful comments regarding frobnicating the bar").
3. Less sufficient

... and with you being an undergrad it will be hard for you to tell the difference between these three. So if you feel you're being under-credited, consult other people first, discreetly, for their opinion on this.

Good luck and I hope you don't need any of this advice!

Answer 2

The best thing you can do to ensure your work is recognized and credited is to have honest, open communications with the other people you’re working with. So long as everybody’s clear on who is doing what, and everybody is acting ethically, you shouldn’t run into problems.

Answer 3

However, my university has no official undergraduate research program, so everything (i.e. any research conducted) will likely be done on an informal basis.

Except for very large projects, essentially all research collaboration is done "on an informal basis". You've seen that being on a formal undergraduate research programme and being a PhD student both give some sort of formal basis to a research collaboration and you've incorrectly generalized. For example, if two professors in your department are chatting over coffee and decide to collaborate on something, there is no formal programme that either one is a part of.

Authorship of research papers isn't decided by looking at the staff list of some formal collaboration: it is decided who contributed intellectually to the work. If you, the PhD student and the professor work together on something and that work leads to a paper, you should all be co-authors of that paper. The reason that PhD students' advisors are very often co-authors of papers is that the advisor very often contributes intellectually to their student's work, and not because of the existence of the formal student–advisor relationship.

My main question is this, how can I protect the work that I do on a project like this? What measures can I take to ensure that whatever work I do is credited, if the paper containing my work is published?

In the normal run of events, you shouldn't need to protect anything or do anything to ensure you receive credit (i.e., co-authorship).

Answer 4

You should be listed as a co-author, it is as simple as "you worked, then you should be on the list".

This is a much nicer question than those that start " I did all this work and they refuse to put me on as co-author" or "My work is being published by my supervisor without my name"...