authorship - If I work on a project but don't do research, should I be included as an author on a paper?

This semester I started working with a professor and a PhD student on one of their major projects, which is an application of their research. Though I was not involved with the research that went into developing the "idea" for the project, I have spent a significant amount of my time helping them to actually build the project, and a lot more work is planned.

Would it be typical for someone in my position to be included as a co-author on the paper that motivated the project I'm working on? Again, I wouldn't say that I have done any research myself, but I have done significant work in getting this project built, and the project is the main product / showcase of the research they performed.

Assuming it's reasonable for me to be included on the paper, how should I go about bringing that up?

Answer

Taking your statements at face value (and thus imagining something like the others having designed X and evaluated X in a study, while you implemented X based upon their designs), this sounds like a typical situation where you should be mentioned for having conducted the implementation/practical construction. This should certainly happen in a presentation of the work, and possibly (if the paper has an Acknowledgments section and if space allows for it) also in the written text.

Admittedly, this is at the verge participating in the design / idea of the research at hand (and maybe you even did contribute some detail decisions without realizing), so including you as an author depends a bit on the concrete circumstances - and also on the main authors' personal preference (but then, so might accusations of gift authorship in this case).

As for how to bring this up with the authors, you could ask in a somewhat unspecific way such as "I'm interested in gradually increasing my level of participation in research papers, is there a chance for increasing my contributions and acting as a co-author in the future?" That way, chances are the main authors will immediately get the idea of adding you one way or another in the current paper, while at the same time, you are not burning any bridges by appearing too demanding.