WPI Summer Institute Authorship Agreement
Water Prediction Innovators Summer Institute Authorship Agreement
This agreement describes expectations for authorship order and acknowledgement for scientific products or ideas that emerge from collaborative team projects during the Water Prediction Innovators Summer Institute.
Adopted: June 18, 2025
Revised: February 18, 2026
Scope
The following guidance and agreement apply to all scientific products that emerge from work or significant ideas collaboratively formed by teams during the Water Prediction Innovators (WPI) Summer Institute term. Scientific products include, but are not limited to manuscripts, reports, data publications, software/code publications, and presentations.
Purpose
The WPI Summer Institute routinely generates a rich portfolio of outputs, including the final program report, Capstone presentation, team-led manuscripts published in peer reviewed journals, data publications, software, and conference abstracts. Clear, fair credit-sharing is essential, especially for early-career Fellows whose publication records shape future opportunities. Because participants come from diverse academic cultures (with different norms for how credit is assigned) this agreement lays out common ground for authorship order and acknowledgement. Early, open discussion of these expectations helps ensure that minor misunderstandings do not grow into conflicts as projects mature and plans for scientific products emerge.
Authorship guidance for products produced during the WPI Summer Institute is as follows:
WPI Summer Institute-wide publications
- Final Program Report:
Every Fellow is listed alphabetically by last name as authors in their corresponding team section(s) of the report;
When formally defined as leads or co-leads of specific teams, Theme Leads are listed last (after Fellows) as authors in corresponding team section(s) of the report; alphabetical order is used in cases with more than one Theme Lead;
Graduate advisors of Fellows are noted in the acknowledgements section.
- Capstone Presentation:
Every Fellow is listed in reverse alphabetical order by last name;
Theme Leads are acknowledged.
All other scientific products will follow the guidelines below:
Default authorship model
Every Fellow assigned to a project team is automatically included as an author on any scholarly product that arises from that project team’s collaborative work, because their in-program contributions are presumed to meet the authorship criteria stated below. This is an “opt-out” approach: a Fellow who prefers not to be listed must notify the team in writing. All subsequent references to “all Fellows on the project team” refer to this default inclusion rule. Examples below use “manuscript” as the primary output, but these guidelines apply to other product types as well unless otherwise noted.
Early planning for additional products
By Week 5, each team sets aside time to list potential follow-up products, sketch timelines, and begin the process of identifying which fellows may have bandwidth to lead various products after the WPI Summer Institute ends. Notes from this discussion are saved in the team folder.
A Fellow volunteering to steer a product becomes the “champion” of that product and is the presumed first author, provided they meet minimum authorship criteria.
If a champion later lacks time or support, the team (guided by the Theme Lead) may transfer first-author duties to another Fellow.
When a product’s contributor list does not match the default “all Fellows on the theme,” with a standard opt-out invitation for authorship, the rationale is documented and shared early (e.g., a dataset led and curated entirely by two Fellows may list only those two as authors, with others acknowledged).
Joint first authorship
When contributions truly are equal, the team may designate joint first authors (e.g., “†These authors contributed equally”). Joint first authors appear alphabetically by last name; each may note equal contribution on their CV.
Authorship criteria
A contributor is acknowledged as an author if they
draft or substantially revise part of the manuscript and
provide substantive intellectual or technical input in at least two areas: conception, data generation, curation/analysis, code or figure production, or project coordination and
approve the final version of the product.
Routine proofreading, supervision, or funding acquisition alone do not confer authorship but merit acknowledgement.
All Fellows are assumed to qualify for products from their project team where primary product work took place during the WPI Summer Institute term; Fellows may opt-out of such products in writing. Non-Fellows may be added (opt-in) only when they independently meet the above authorship criteria. Advisors or other colleagues who do not qualify for the authorship criteria are thanked in the acknowledgements. Post-Summer Institute products that are directly related to the team’s work but had little to no significant exploration or progress during the WPI Summer Institute term are treated as opt-in manuscripts for co-authors; it is expected that any intention to develop a post-Summer Institute product is circulated to the full team in a timely way, giving everyone a clear window to offer potential contributions that would meet the authorship criteria before the author list is finalized. The CUAHSI Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is available to explain the policy and mediate disagreements for all parties.
Author order
First author(s) – the champion(s).
Middle authors – ranked by level of contribution; alphabetical if contributions are indistinguishable.
Leadership author(s) – Theme Leads, PIs, or advisors who qualify appear last, regardless of alphabetical order.
Disputes on contribution level are resolved first within the team, then by Theme-Lead mediation, and may be appealed to the CUAHSI CEO.
Open discussion and conflict resolution
Teams are expected to revisit authorship assumptions early and often—preferably at each major project milestone. The pathway for resolving disagreements is:
Team discussion → Theme Lead facilitation → CUAHSI CEO final decision (all steps documented).
Data, code, and reproducibility
Every scholarly product must be underpinned by openly available data and/or code deposited in HydroShare (https://www.hydroshare.org/; preferred) or another FAIR-compliant repository with a DOI. CUAHSI staff will assist with metadata and deposits.
Required acknowledgement
“This research was supported by the Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology (CIROH) under award NA22NWS4320003 from the NOAA Cooperative Institute Program. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOAA.”
Include “Water Prediction Innovators Summer Institute” in general acknowledgements.
