In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, sociologist Patricia Leavy argues, “let’s give student researchers the credit they deserve.” She notes,

Just as college students often serve as research samples because they are convenient populations for academic researchers, so too do students routinely serve as research assistants and co-authors. Credit and compensation is typically attributed to student collaborators based on individual negotiations with faculty mentors. In other words, whether the student is listed as a research assistant or a co-author, whether the student is listed as the lead author or a secondary author, or how the student’s contribution is both defined and monetarily compensated (especially with a work such as a book) is based on whatever arrangement the student strikes with the researcher (who is usually the student’s professor)…

Credit and compensation should be based on the level of collaboration and how much each collaborator has contributed to the final product; it should not be based on career level. It really is that simple.

Indeed!