Questions for collaborators

Although each collaborative research project has distinct features, certain core issues are common to most of them and can be addressed by posing the following questions for team dialogue. The team responses and agreements that result from conversation, memorialized in a shared document, provides for clarity in how the team will work together on their research project and on their relations with each other.

Overall goals

• • What is the overall vision for the collaboration?

• • What are the research issues, goals, and anticipated outcomes or products of the collaboration?

• • When is the collaboration over?

• • When is the project over?

• Who will do what?

• • What are the expected contributions of each participant?

• •Who will write any progress reports and final reports?

• • How and by whom will personnel decisions be made? How and by whom will personnel be supervised?

• • How and by whom will data be managed? How will access to data be managed? How will you handle long- term storage and access to data after the project is complete?

• Authorship and credit

• • What will be the criteria and the process for assigning authorship and credit?

• • How will credit be attributed to each collaborator's institution for public presentations, abstracts, and written articles?

• • How and by whom will public presentations be made?

• • How and by whom will media inquiries be handled?

• • When and how will you handle intellectual property and patent applications?