Question: My PhD supervisor (in the field of artificial intelligence) invited me to several meetings with another PhD student. Since I have more knowledge than my supervisor in some topics, I made many suggestions about how this student could improve his methodology. In total, I went to 5 meetings of 3–4 hours each. I could have used this time to do my own research.

When the other student started to write his manuscript, I asked to be an author, since I had contributed directly to the research, but he felt I only deserved to appear in the acknowledgments. So I asked my supervisor to be on the paper and even volunteered to help writing it. My supervisor said “Don't worry about his paper, you have your own things to do, and he is not going to submit this work anytime soon”.

One week later, they submitted the paper to a major conference without my name on it. I felt really insulted that they used my time and skills with no credit to me.

I didn't actively do the research or help write the paper, but I felt I was supervising the student since I have the most experience on this topic. Many academics in my field get their names on papers by just giving suggestions.

What should I do? I am planning on taking it to the head of department.

Answer: 
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> I am planing in taking it to the head of department.
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Let me assure you that this is a bad idea. 99 times out of 100 the department head will not intervene in these matters. Moreover even if they do (again, super unlikely), and you get things your way with this paper, I assure you that this will forever mar your relationship with your advisor. I would be extremely upset if one of my students went over my head like this.

How about you have a discussion with your advisor about how you feel? What constitutes author worthy contribution highly varies between research groups, so I would not be so quick to decide that your contribution suffices (nor am I in a better position than **your advisor** to make this call). Maybe you can be more involved in follow ups? In relating this work to your own? As Buffy mentions, you’re not just letting it go because that’s the way it is, it’s also because being adversarial will have far reaching repercussions beyond this one paper!

In my experience, a collaborative approach pays dividends in the long run: Be the person people want to talk research with!

**EDIT:**
To clarify: It is impossible to judge whether X number of hours warrants coauthorship status, as this is very discipline/relationship related. Some PIs think that even a short conversation about the paper and some suggestions warrant coauthorship, others think that unless you actively participate in writing you shouldn't be a coauthor. 

Unless something outright unethical is happening (e.g. the OP made major contributions, which is not obvious from the OP), I don't think they have a case, certainly not one department head I've met would intervene in..
There are some formal rules around academic ethics in relation to authorship. [Vancouver Protocol](http://storage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-17415557/documents/56640b2c61339C4KMzWo/Vancouver%20Protocol.pdf) states that authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to: 

1. conception and design, the acquisition of the data, and/\* or analysis and interpretation of data  

AND
2. drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content  

AND
3. final approval of the version to be published.

Conditions 1, 2, and 3 must all be met. Specifically, general supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. 

These are actually tough requirements that many authors do not seem to meet, so the reality of ethics w.r.t. authorship is less perfect than it could be. But when complaining formally, you should perhaps refer to formal rules in addition to (or even in place of) citing similar cases where a person that did as much as you did got an authorship regardless of whether he/she was actually entitled to that according to the rules.