Use Policies

Prioritization for use of Penn State Cancer Institute shared resources is set by the Executive Leadership Committee. In most cases, use of the facilities is charged back to the principal investigator. The fee charged only recovers the cost of use.

All research tools and work contributed by our shared resources should minimally be acknowledged in any publications. Guidelines for authorship have been established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and similar organizations. These guidelines suggest that if staff scientists from any shared resources have helped to design the experiments, perform data analysis and interpret data, or both, they should be co-authors of papers using those data. As such, shared resource scientists should participate in reviewing pertinent sections of the article and should give final approval to the manuscript wording and conclusions from those sections before publication.

If you publish articles or receive grants using data or tools generated through our shared resources, please:

• Acknowledge the shared resources' contributions for standard services.
• Consider authorship for more significant intellectual and planning contributions.
• Let Cancer Institute leadership know when something is published or a grant is awarded so we can track publications and grants.

These actions are crucial for continued support for the shared resources you depend on, support both from external funding agencies and from internal institutional sources. This funding keeps costs for usage of shared resources as low as possible.