The Malversations of Authorship -Current Status in Academic Community and How to Prevent It (original) (raw)
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Background: The knowledge, attitudes and practices of scientific authorship vary across different regions. We conducted this study to understand this variation among medical researchers in India.Methods: An anonymous web-based researcher-survey invited all faculty, researchers and PhD students at Pacific institute of Medical sciences, Udaipur, India. The study design and the questionnaire were approved by the institutional ethics committee. Basic information on study was given to obtain consent for participation. The 30 questions on authorship experience and related issues were based on the statements in International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and other national and international recommendations on authorship. Participants reported their authorship experiences and answered multiple choice questionnaires.Results: The response rate was 36.36% among the participants, who were post-graduate with up to 10 years of research experience. About 62.5% had not been appropri...
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Authorship means both credit and responsibility. Authorship has several related terms that confuse researchers, especially the most junior ones. This narrative review summarizes the definition and criteria of authorship as well as types, number, order, and responsibilities of authors in the medical research. Most of the medical journals endorse the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. However, there is a disagreement about the criteria of authorship. Acknowledgments should include the names whose contributions did not qualify them for authorship. Some forms of authorship are considered acceptable, for example, group author, deceased or incapacitated authors, and co-contributors (e.g., co-first author). While, forms of inappropriate authorship include, among others, honorary author, gift author, ghost author, and guest author. Remedies for authorship misconduct are mentioned in the review.
Iranian Journal of Public Health, 2013
Background: The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge and views of faculty members on criteria for authorship by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), their current practice of choosing the authors, views on gift authorship and problems they had faced concerning authorship. Methods: It was a cross sectional survey from January 2011 to July 2011 among faculty members of various private and public sector medical institutions of Pakistan through a self-administered questionnaire. Main outcome measures included awareness and use of ICMJE criteria, which contribution to research merit authorship and their perceptions about gift authorship. Results: Two hundred eighteen faculty members (180 males, 38 females) participated in the study. One hundred twenty eight (58.7%) were from surgery and allied disciplines. Ninety six percent had published between one to five papers while 60(27.5%) had six to ten papers to their credit. One hundred eleven (50.9%) claimed they were aware about the authorship criteria, only twenty two (19.8%) could name this document. Only four (1.8%) could correctly state this. Only one hundred twenty (55.0%) said that all three criteria's must be met to be eligible for authorship. Ninety three (42.7%) said that they were not included as authors though they deserved it while sixty three said they did not merit but were still included. Forty two (19.3%) said that they were not aware when they were listed as authors. Conclusion: A vast majority of young faculty members are not aware of the existence of authorship criteria and gift authorship is quite common.
New developments in publishing related to authorship
Prilozi / Makedonska akademija na naukite i umetnostite, Oddelenie za biološki i medicinski nauki = Contributions / Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Section of Biological and Medical Sciences, 2014
Aim: To present the inappropriate types of authorship and practice, and the most recent developments related to basic principles and criteria to a fair system for allocating authorship in scientific publications. Methods: An analysis of relevant materials and documents, sources from the internet and published literature and personal experience and observations of the author. Results: Working in multidisciplinary teams is a common feature of modern research processes. The most sensitive question is how to decide on who to acknowledge as author of a multi-authored publication. The pertinence of this question is growing with the increasing importance of individual ecords for professional status and career. However, discussions about authorship allocation might lead to serious conflicts and disputes among coworkers which could even endanger cooperation and successful completion of a research project. It seems that discussion and education about ethical standards and practical guidelines for fairly allocating authorship are insufficient and the question of ethical practices related to authorship in multi-authored publications remains generally unresolved. Conclusion: It is necessary to work for raising awareness about the importance and need for education about principles of scientific communication and fair allocation of authorship, ethics of research and publication of results. The use of various forms of education in the scientific community, especially young researchers and students, in order to create an ethical environment, is one of the most effective ways to prevent the emergence of scientific and publication dishonesty and fraud, including pathology of authorship.
Authorship: Few Myths and Misconceptions
Science and engineering ethics, 2015
This article seeks to address and dispel some of the popular myths and misconceptions surrounding authorship of a scientific publication as this is often misconstrued by beginners in academia especially those in the developing world. While ethical issues in publishing related to authorship have been increasingly discussed, not much has been written about the myths and misconceptions of who might be an author. Dispelling these myths and misconceptions would go a long way in shaping the thoughts and plans of students, junior faculty and researchers in academia especially in the developing world.
French clinical settings Authorship ignorance: views of researchers in
2008
To assess the knowledge and behaviour of researchers regarding criteria for authorship, and the practices of ghost and gift authorship. Design: Semidirective interviews of senior clinical researchers. Setting: University hospital. Participants: Thirty-nine main investigators of clinical research programmes. Main measurements: Awareness and use of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship, and perceptions about ghost and gift authorship. Results: A total of 48 protocols submitted by 42 principal investigators between 1994 and 1996 were identified. Thirty-nine investigators were contacted; 37 (one of whom delegated a co-author) were interviewed between May 2002 and March 2003. Two co-authors of two principal investigators were also interviewed. In all, 42 studies were represented. The interviews lasted for 40-90 minutes and were conducted with openness and respect for confidentiality. The choice of names of co-authors did not follow the ICMJE recommendations. Half of the respondents stated they were aware of criteria for authorship and knew of ICMJE, but most of them did not cite any of the ICMJE criteria among those they applied in deciding authorship. Most of them disagreed with the obligation to meet the three criteria justifying co-authorship because they found these too rigid and inapplicable. Gift authorship was a common practice; 59% of the respondents had been a recipient of gift authorship. Twenty-five (64%) were aware of ghost authorship and the majority considered it questionable and blameworthy. Conclusions: The ICMJE criteria were ignored by clinicians at a university hospital. Ghost and gift authorship were frequent among them. There is a need for French guidelines for authorship to be prepared and implemented.
Publication among academic staff and students: an analysis from the ethical perspective
Investigación y Educación en Enfermería, 2015
This article analyzes, from the ethical perspective, the authorship of particles carried out among students and professors and their potential conflicts. After the literature review, it has been found that the Vancouver criteria that should be fulfilled for the attribution of authorship of an article are not popularly known by students and academic staff. Many problems are posed in this area, among which the following are highlighted: ghost writer, honorary author, and incorrect assignment in the order authors should appear. The professor-student relationship brings with it implicit risks that could lead to conflict, against which it is the academician who should be cautious to curtail any ethical fault when assigning the authors. The measures recommended to avoid conflicts of authorship among students and academic staff are: early assignment of the authors, reflection among academicians, education to students/academic staff, and external control conducted by journal editors. Conclusion is that lack of awareness of the criteria of authorship by academicians and students is the principal problem in the attribution of authorships. It is indispensable to improve this knowledge and look after the application of said criteria in practice.
Context: The authorship issue is a major ethical challenge for professional researchers. Authorship trend is an indirect indicator of professional manner regarding the Medical Education researchers. Aims: This study is conducted to compare the trends of authorship in four high impact journals in the field of Medical Education. Materials and Methods: The authorship trends of two high impact English Journals in Medical Education: The Medical Teacher and the Medical Education versus the two high impact Persian Journals in Medical Education: The Strides in Development of Medical Education Journal and the Iranian Journal of Medical Education (IJME) are compared in this study. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS version 19, Minitab version 17 and Excel add-in Megastat version 10.1 software. Results: The authorship trends of 6699 articles in the four journals of concern are analyzed. Over the past 12 years, the mean number of authors has increased in both the Persian and one of the English Journals. The trend lines of single authored articles in the English Journals and the IJME decreased in a significant manner. However, in the Persian Journals, the percentage of single-author articles is obviously lower than the English Journals. Conclusion: The increasing number of authors per article could be considered as a sign of increased collaborative research or authorship misconducts in this field. Further research is recommended to study the causes and contributing factors in the increasing trend of authorship in the Persian Journals.