Credit where credit’s due : developing authorship strategies in the geosciences

As research institutions seek to professionalize the workplace the use of metrics to assess an individual's performance is becoming increasingly commonplace. For academic researchers this can be achieved through the use of publication metrics such as the number of articles published and number of citations. For non-academic professionals, such as cartographers, field assistants or database programmers, they may have limited inclusion as authors and therefore their contribution to research outputs and outcomes is more difficult to ascertain. This paper outlines the current de facto standards for authorship and proposes some potential solutions for the formal recognition of contributions by professionals to research projects. This is presented through strategies currently being trialed at the Journal of Maps and through the example of map publication at the British Geological Survey.