Mentioning ICAN in the acknowledgements of publications

ICAN was established and supported with funds from the DFG, among others. ICAN must therefore always be mentioned in the acknowledgements of publications. This mention is independent of whether the measurements were carried out in application mode or in service mode.

    "Support by the Interdisciplinary Center for Analytics on the Nanoscale (ICAN) of the University of Duisburg-Essen (DFG RIsources reference: RI_00313), a DFG-registered core facility (Project Nos. 233512597 and 324659309), is gratefully acknowledged."

If it is to be emphasised that the measurements were carried out in user operation, the operation used "(user operation)" can be mentioned in brackets after "gratefully acknowledged".

In the case of publications on measurements within the framework of a service project of a coordinated research programme that accesses ICAN services, the funding conditions of the funding body should be used to check whether the respective service project must be explicitly mentioned in addition to the project number of the research programme.

Evaluation of the involvement of ICAN employees

The scientific service work of ICAN staff centres on the analysis of materials from all areas of research in the natural sciences, engineering and medicine. In the interests of scientific quality assurance and the principles of good scientific practice, this naturally requires an open, interactive exchange between users and ICAN staff. ICAN employees are recognised experts in the field of surface and nanoanalysis and should therefore be involved in the discussion of the results. All participants have corresponding participation, utilisation and publication rights and obligations.

Data recording, collection, analysis, evaluation and interpretation are among the work steps which, in the sense of good scientific practice, generally constitute a scientific contribution in their own right and thus justify the claim to co-authorship. The entitlement to co-authorship is not restricted by the payment of utilisation costs. A decision on co-authorship by ICAN employees should therefore be made in agreement with all ICAN employees who were involved in the measurements or analyses, at the latest during the preparation of the publication. A detailed specification of the respective contributions and responsibilities for the publication, e.g. according to the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), is possible and can help to avoid and clarify conflicts.

The affiliation of the ICAN staff is:

    "Interdisciplinary Centre for the Analytics on the Nanoscale (ICAN) and CENIDE, University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), Carl-Benz-Str. 199, 47057 Duisburg, Germany".

If no co-authorship appears justified, a mention in the acknowledgements can be made in agreement with the ICAN employee involved:

    "We are thankful to <Initial><lastname> from the ICAN for help with the <method> measurements."

Irrespective of authorship or acknowledgement, text sections relating to work or measurements from the ICAN should always be agreed in advance with the relevant ICAN staff.

Use of data / analyses in published theses

The use of data recorded by ICAN employees in service operations in published theses such as dissertations is generally approved as long as the origin of the data is made clear and the ICAN and the corresponding ICAN employee are mentioned as the author of the data. In this case, ICAN also strongly recommends that text sections relating to work or measurements from ICAN be discussed in advance with the relevant ICAN staff members.

Publication of primary data

The publication of primary data in repositories is playing an increasingly important role in the current discussion about the FAIR
principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) is playing an increasingly important role. According to the rules of good scientific practice, the publication of primary data is particularly the responsibility of those who collect it. Therefore, with regard to co-authorship, the regulations from the section "Evaluation of the participation of ICAN employees" also apply to primary data.