Best Practice to Order Authors in Multi/Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Research Publications

A systematic scoping review of the ethics of Contributor Role Ontologies and Taxonomies

Contributor Role Ontologies and Taxonomies (CROTs) provide a standard list of roles to specify individual contributions to research. CROTs most common application has been their inclusion alongside author bylines in scholarly publications. With the recent uptake of CROTs among publishers -particularly the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT)- some have anticipated a positive impact on ethical issues regarding the attribution of credit and responsibilities, but others have voiced concerns about CROTs shortcomings and ways they could be misunderstood or have unintended consequences. Since these discussions have never been consolidated, this review collated and explored published viewpoints about the ethics of CROTs. After searching Ovid Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, 30 papers met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed. We identified eight themes and 20 specific issues related to the ethics of CROTs and provided four recommendations for CROT developers, custodians, or others seeking to use CROTs in their workflows, policy and practice: 1) Compile comprehensive instructions that explain how CROTs should be used; 2) Improve the coherence of used terms, 3) Translate roles in languages other than English, 4) Communicate a clear vision about future development plans and be transparent about CROTs' strengths and weaknesses. We conclude that CROTs are not the panacea for unethical attributions and should be complemented with initiatives that support social and infrastructural transformation of scholarly publications.

Promoting equity, inclusion, and efficiency: A team science approach to the development of authorship guidelines for a multi-disciplinary research team

Large research teams and consortia present challenges for authorship. The number of disciplines involved in the research can further complicate approaches to manuscript development and leadership. The CHARM team, representing a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional genomics implementation study, participated in facilitated discussions inspired by team science methodologies. The discussions were centered on team members' past experiences with authorship and perspectives on authorship in a large research team context. Team members identified challenges and opportunities that were used to create guidelines and administrative tools to support manuscript development. The guidelines were organized by the three values of equity, inclusion, and efficiency and included eight principles. A visual dashboard was created to allow all team members to see who was leading or involved in each paper. Additional tools to promote equity, inclusion, and efficiency included providing standardized project management for each manuscript and making "concept sheets" for each manuscript accessible to all team members. The process used in CHARM can be used by other large research teams and consortia to equitably distribute lead authorship opportunities, foster coauthor inclusion, and efficiently work with large authorship groups.

Should authorship on scientific publications be treated as a right?

Sometimes researchers explicitly or implicitly conceive of authorship in terms of moral or ethical rights to authorship when they are dealing with authorship issues. Because treating authorship as a right can encourage unethical behaviours, such as honorary and ghost authorship, buying and selling authorship, and unfair treatment of researchers, we recommend that researchers not conceive of authorship in this way but view it as a description about contributions to research. However, we acknowledge that the arguments we have given for this position are largely speculative and that more empirical research is needed to better ascertain the benefits and risks of treating authorship on scientific publications as a right.

Authorship Issues When Articles are Retracted Due to Research Misconduct and Then Resubmitted

In the last 20 years, there has been a sharp increase in the incidence of retractions of articles published in scientific journals, the majority of which are due to research misconduct. In some cases, researchers have revised and republished articles that were retracted due to misconduct, which raises some novel questions concerning authorship. Suppose that an article is retracted because one of the authors fabricated or falsified some data, but the researchers decide to salvage the useable data, make appropriate revisions, and resubmit the article for publication. If the person who committed misconduct has made a significant contribution to the research reported in the revised paper, should they be named as an author to recognize this contribution or should they be denied authorship because they committed misconduct? This is a challenging issue because it involves the confluence of two research ethics domains that are usually dealt with separately, i.e., resolution of authorship disputes and adjudication of misconduct findings, as well as potential conflicts among norms that underlie authorship practices and misconduct adjudication. In this paper, we (1) describe some actual cases involving articles that were retracted for misconduct and republished; (2) review policies from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, Committee on Publication Ethics, and top fifteen biomedical journals to determine whether they provide adequate guidance for cases like these; and (3) analyze the ethical and policy issues that may arise in these situations.

An Ethical Exploration of Increased Average Number of Authors Per Publication

This article explores the impact of an Increase in the average Number of Authors per Publication (INAP) on known ethical issues of authorship. For this purpose, the ten most common ethical issues associated with scholarly authorship are used to set up a taxonomy of existing issues and raise awareness among the community to take precautionary measures and adopt best practices to minimize the negative impact of INAP. We confirm that intense international, interdisciplinary and complex collaborations are necessary, and INAP is an expression of this trend. However, perverse incentives aimed to increase institutional and personal publication counts and egregious instances of guest or honorary authorship are problematic. We argue that whether INAP is due to increased complexity and scale of science, perverse incentives or undeserved authorship, it could negatively affect known ethical issues of authorship at some level. In the long run, INAP depreciates the value of authorship status and may disproportionately impact junior researchers and those who contribute to technical and routine tasks. We provide two suggestions that could reduce the long-term impact of INAP on the reward system of science. First, we suggest further refinement of the CRediT taxonomy including better integration into current systems of attribution and acknowledgement, and better harmony with major authorship guidelines such as those suggested by the ICMJE. Second, we propose adjustments to the academic recognition and promotion systems at an institutional level as well as the introduction of best practices.

Credit and Recognition for Contributions to Data-Sharing Platforms Among Cohort Holders and Platform Developers in Europe: Interview Study

Background

The European Commission is funding projects that aim to establish data-sharing platforms. These platforms are envisioned to enhance and facilitate the international sharing of cohort data. Nevertheless, broad data sharing may be restricted by the lack of adequate recognition for those who share data.

Objective

The aim of this study is to describe in depth the concerns about acquiring credit for data sharing within epidemiological research.

Methods

A total of 17 participants linked to European Union–funded data-sharing platforms were recruited for a semistructured interview. Transcripts were analyzed using inductive content analysis.

Results

Interviewees argued that data sharing within international projects could challenge authorship guidelines in multiple ways. Some respondents considered that the acquisition of credit for articles with extensive author lists could be problematic in some instances, such as for junior researchers. In addition, universities may be critical of researchers who share data more often than leading research. Some considered that the evaluation system undervalues data generators and specialists. Respondents generally looked favorably upon alternatives to the current evaluation system to potentially ameliorate these issues.

Conclusions

The evaluation system might impede data sharing because it mainly focuses on first and last authorship and undervalues the contributor’s work. Further movement of crediting models toward contributorship could potentially address this issue. Appropriate crediting mechanisms that are better aligned with the way science ought to be conducted in the future need to be developed.

Reducing tensions and expediting manuscript submission via an authorship agreement for early-career researchers: A pilot study

Authorship can be a source of tension on research teams, in academic/industry collaborations, and between mentors/mentees. Authorship misconduct is prevalent among biomedical researchers, and disputes about authorship can generate tensions that have the potential to disrupt professional relationships and damage careers. Early-career researchers may experience particular challenges navigating authorship both because of inexperience and power differentials; in effect, they lack the language and confidence to have these conversations and may feel unwilling to challenge the status quo. The authors implemented an Authorship Agreement for use when collaborating on a manuscript and hypothesized that using this agreement would reduce authorship tensions and speed time to manuscript submission by helping early-career investigators manage authorship conversations more effectively. The authors surveyed trainees (n = 65) on the prevalence of authorship-related tensions and compared the results from the first survey in 2017 to the final survey in 2020. The decrease in tensions around meeting deadlines was significant (z = 2.59, p = 0.010). The authors believe the effect of an Authorship Agreement on authorship-related tensions has not previously been investigated. This work extends what is known about the prevalence of commonly cited authorship tensions, and provides evidence of the effectiveness of steps that can be taken to alleviate them.

Authorship decision-making in the field of orthopedic surgery and sports medicine

PURPOSE

To facilitate decision-making in authorship positions, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editor (ICMJE) developed a guideline that stipulates criteria authors should meet in order to merit authorship. Authors who did not meet these criteria and still enlisted as authors, are called 'honorary' authors. In this study, the prevalence and characteristics of honorary authorship (HA) is assessed in the field of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine.

METHODS

A survey was distributed among corresponding authors of articles published in 2019 in six Orthopedics-dedicated journals.

RESULTS

479 of the 1392 approached authors responded, leading to a response rate of 34.4%. 91.6% of the respondents were aware of the ICMJE guidelines, whereas 67.8% were aware of the issue of HA. Overall, the prevalence of guideline-based HA was 41.9%, while the prevalence of self-perceived HA was 14.7%. Having a senior member automatically enlisted as author on the departments, was associated with a higher rate of guideline-based HA (OR 5.03) and self-perceived HA (OR 3.31).

CONCLUSIONS

The prevalence of HA in the field of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine is high, but comparable to other medical fields. Transparency in authorship decision-making is crucial to maintain liability in scientific articles.

Author-Suggested, Weighted Citation Index: A Novel Approach for Determining the Contribution of Individual Researchers

A novel scientometric index, named ‘author-suggested, weighted citation index’ (Aw-index) is proposed to indicate the scientific contribution of any individual researcher. For calculation of the Aw-index, it is suggested that during the submission of a scholarly article, the corresponding author would provide a statement, agreed upon by all the authors, containing weightage factors against each author of the article. The author who contributed more to the article would secure a higher weightage factor. The summation of the weightage factors of all the authors of an article should be unity. The citation points a researcher receives from a scholarly publication is the product of his/her weightage factor for that article and the total number of citations of the article. The Aw-index of any individual researcher is the summation of the citation points he/she receives for all his/her publications as an author. The Aw-index provides the opportunity to the group of authors of a multi-authored article to determine the quantum of partial citations to be attributed to each of them. Through an illustrative example, a comparison of the proposed index with the major scientometric indexes is presented to highlight the advantages of the Aw-index.

How to Handle Co-authorship When Not Everyone's Research Contributions Make It into the Paper

While much of the scholarly work on ethics relating to academic authorship examines the fair distribution of authorship credit, none has yet examined situations where a researcher contributes significantly to the project, but whose contributions do not make it into the final manuscript. Such a scenario is commonplace in collaborative research settings in many disciplines and may occur for a number of reasons, such as excluding research in order to provide the paper with a clearer focus, tell a particular story, or exclude negative results that do not fit the hypothesis. Our concern in this paper is less about the reasons for including or excluding data from a paper and more about distributing credit in this type of scenario. In particular, we argue that the notion 'substantial contribution', which is part of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship criteria, is ambiguous and that we should ask whether it concerns what ends up in the paper or what is a substantial contribution to the research process leading up to the paper. We then argue, based on the principles of fairness, due credit, and ensuring transparency and accountability in research, that the latter interpretation is more plausible from a research ethics point of view. We conclude that the ICMJE and other organizations interested in authorship and publication ethics should consider including guidance on authorship attribution in situations where researchers contribute significantly to the research process leading up to a specific paper, but where their contribution is finally omitted.

Factors influencing pharmacy faculty behavior, perceptions, and challenges with determining authorship credit

INTRODUCTION

This study aimed to identify challenges in determining authorship and author order, factors and criteria that influence behavior in determining authorship and author order, and beliefs about authorship and familiarity with guidelines among pharmacy faculty.

METHODS

An online survey was emailed to faculty from three groups of schools categorized by degree of external research funding. Academic discipline and rank, tenure status, years in rank, and gender were queried. Questions were created to determine frequency of authorship justification and author order by specific factors. Power pressures experienced when determining authorship were queried. Three case studies were also included to determine behavior for authorship and authorship order.

RESULTS

A total of 295 usable responses were received (30.2% response rate). A majority of faculty experienced power pressures when determining authorship. Justifying authorship for supervision of student projects and statistical analysis was common. Quantity and quality of contributions were the most common reason for justifying order. Writing substantial sections of an article was ranked the most important component in determining author order. Differences in justifying authorship based on promotion and tenure pressures were noted by academic rank, tenure status, and academic discipline. Familiarity with International Committee for Medical Journal Editors guidelines did not appear to influence behaviors.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a plurality of perceptions and attitudes among faculty in relation to authorship. A model for recognition of contributions is needed. More structured guidance in concert with moral and ethical principles would help to clarify how to best establish authorship and author order.

Is authorship sufficient for today's collaborative research? A call for contributor roles

Assigning authorship and recognizing contributions to scholarly works is challenging on many levels. Here we discuss ethical, social, and technical challenges to the concept of authorship that may impede the recognition of contributions to a scholarly work. Recent work in the field of authorship shows that shifting to a more inclusive contributorship approach may address these challenges. Recent efforts to enable better recognition of contributions to scholarship include the development of the Contributor Role Ontology (CRO), which extends the CRediT taxonomy and can be used in information systems for structuring contributions. We also introduce the Contributor Attribution Model (CAM), which provides a simple data model that relates the contributor to research objects via the role that they played, as well as the provenance of the information. Finally, requirements for the adoption of a contributorship-based approach are discussed.

Authorship Policies at U.S. Doctoral Universities: A Review and Recommendations for Future Policies

Intellectual contribution in the form of authorship is a fundamental component of the academic career. While research has addressed questionable and harmful authorship practices, there has largely been no discussion of how U.S. academic institutions interpret and potentially mitigate such practices through the use of institution-level authorship policies. To gain a better understanding of the role of U.S. academic institutions in authorship practices, we conducted a systematic review of publicly available authorship policies for U.S. doctoral institutions (using the 266 2018 Carnegie-classified R1 and R2 Universities), focusing on components such as specification of authorship criteria, recommendations for discussing authorship, dispute resolution processes, and guidance for faculty-student collaborations. We found that only 24% of the 266 Carnegie R1 and R2 Universities had publicly available authorship policies. Within these policies, the majority (93%) specified criteria for authorship, but provided less guidance about actual processes for applying such criteria (62%), handling authorship disputes (62%), and managing faculty-student author teams (49%). Further, we found that any discussion of dispute resolution practices typically lacked specificity. Recommendations grounded in these findings are offered for institutions to leverage their ability to guide the authorship process by adopting an authorship policy that acknowledges disciplinary diversity while still offering substantive guidance.

Researchers' Perceptions of Ethical Authorship Distribution in Collaborative Research Teams

Authorship is commonly used as the basis for the measurement of research productivity. It influences career progression and rewards, making it a valued commodity in a competitive scientific environment. To better understand authorship practices amongst collaborative teams, this study surveyed authors on collaborative journal articles published between 2011 and 2015. Of the 8364 respondents, 1408 responded to the final open-ended question, which solicited additional comments or remarks regarding the fair distribution of authorship in research teams. This paper presents the analysis of these comments, categorized into four main themes: (1) disagreements, (2) questionable behavior, (3) external influences regarding authorship, and (4) values promoted by researchers. Results suggest that some respondents find ways to effectively manage disagreements in a collegial fashion. Conversely, others explain how distribution of authorship can become a "blood sport" or a "horror story" which can negatively affect researchers' wellbeing, scientific productivity and integrity. Researchers fear authorship discussions and often try to avoid openly discussing the situation which can strain team interactions. Unethical conduct is more likely to result from deceit, favoritism, and questionable mentorship and may become more egregious when there is constant bullying and discrimination. Although values of collegiality, transparency and fairness were promoted by researchers, rank and need for success often overpowered ethical decision-making. This research provides new insight into contextual specificities related to fair authorship distribution that can be instrumental in developing applicable training tools to identify, prevent, and mitigate authorship disagreement.

Authorship stories panel discussion: Fostering ethical authorship by cultivating a growth mindset

Because peer review publication is essential for academic advancement across scientific fields, when authorship is wrongly attributed the consequences can be profound, particularly for junior researchers who are still establishing their professional norms and scientific reputations. Professional societies have published guidelines for authorship, yet authorship dilemmas frequently arise and have harmful consequences for scientific careers. Researchers have noted the complexities of authorship and called for new mechanisms to foster more ethical research cultures within institutions. To address this call, we organized a panel discussion at the Institute for Clinical Research Education at the University of Pittsburgh in which senior faculty members from diverse backgrounds and professional disciplines discussed their own authorship challenges (e.g., renegotiating author order, reconciling inter-professional authorship norms, managing coauthor power differentials) and offered strategies to avoid and/or resolve them. Informed by growth mind-set theory, our storytelling format facilitated an open exchange between senior and junior researchers, situated authorship dilemmas in specific contexts and career stages, and taught researchers how to address authorship challenges not adequately informed by guideline recommendations. Though not empirically assessed, we believe this approach represents a simple, low-cost, and replicable way to cultivate ethical and transparent authorship practices among researchers across scientific fields.

Misconduct and Misbehavior Related to Authorship Disagreements in Collaborative Science

Scientific authorship serves to identify and acknowledge individuals who "contribute significantly" to published research. However, specific authorship norms and practices often differ within and across disciplines, labs, and cultures. As a consequence, authorship disagreements are commonplace in team research. This study aims to better understand the prevalence of authorship disagreements, those factors that may lead to disagreements, as well as the extent and nature of resulting misbehavior. Methods include an international online survey of researchers who had published from 2011 to 2015 (8364 respondents). Of the 6673 who completed the main questions pertaining to authorship disagreement and misbehavior, nearly half (46.6%) reported disagreements regarding authorship naming; and discipline, rank, and gender had significant effects on disagreement rates. Paradoxically, researchers in multidisciplinary teams that typically reflect a range of norms and values, were less likely to have faced disagreements regarding authorship. Respondents reported having witnessed a wide range of misbehavior including: instances of hostility (24.6%), undermining of a colleague's work during meetings/talks (16.4%), cutting corners on research (8.3%), sabotaging a colleague's research (6.4%), or producing fraudulent work to be more competitive (3.3%). These findings suggest that authorship disputes may contribute to an unhealthy competitive dynamic that can undermine researchers' wellbeing, team cohesion, and scientific integrity.

Authorship and justice: Credit and responsibility

According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), those who make significant intellectual contributions to a research project, and accept indirect responsibility for the entirety of the work should be listed as authors. All other contributors should be merely acknowledged. I argue that the ICMJE policy is unjust by consequentialist, deontological, and common sense standards. Because different sorts of contributions are incommensurable, ranking contributions is usually impossible. In particular, privileging intellectual contributions, and banishing non-intellectual contributions (e.g. funding, administration, routine data collection) to the Acknowledgments section is unfair to non-intellectual contributors. Holding contributors responsible for the errors or misconduct of others is also unjust. Contributors should be blamed (and sometimes punished) for all and only their own errors or misconduct. Their punishment should be proportional to the harm done; their blame to the ease with which their errors and misconduct could have been avoided. The ICMJE policy goes wrong by using the outdated, overly constraining practice of authorship as a vehicle for allocation of credit and responsibility. My alternative policy would replace the author byline and Acknowledgment sections of articles with Contributors pages listing all contributors to the research project, along with descriptions of their contributions.

A critical realist synthesis of cross-disciplinary health policy and systems research: defining characteristic features, developing an evaluation framework and identifying challenges

BACKGROUND

Health policy and systems research (HPSR) is an inherently cross-disciplinary field of investigation. However, conflicting conceptualisations about inter-, multi- and transdisciplinary research have contributed to confusion about the characteristics of cross-disciplinary approaches in HPSR. This review was conducted to (1) define the characteristic features of context-mechanism-outcome (CMO) configurations in cross-disciplinary HPSR, (2) develop criteria for evaluating cross-disciplinarity and (3) synthesise emerging challenges of the approach.

METHOD

The paper is a critical realist synthesis conducted in three phases, as follows: (1) scoping the literature, (2) searching for and screening the evidence, and (3) extracting and synthesising the evidence. Five databases, namely the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences and Web of Science, PubMed central, Embase and CINHAL, and reference lists of studies that qualified for inclusion in the review were searched. The search covered peer-reviewed original research, reviews, commentary papers, and institutional or government reports published in English between January 1998 and January 2020.

RESULTS

A total of 7792 titles were identified in the online search and 137 publications, comprising pilot studies as well as anecdotal and empirical literature were selected for the final review. The review draws attention to the fact that cross-disciplinary HPSR is not defined by individual characteristics but by the combination of a particular type of research question and setting (context), a specific way of researchers working together (mechanism), and research output (outcome) that is superior to what could be achieved under a monodisciplinary approach. This CMO framework also informs the criteria for assessing whether a given HPSR is truly cross-disciplinary. The challenges of cross-disciplinary HPSR and their accompanying coping mechanisms were also found to be context driven, originating mainly from conceptual disagreements, institutional restrictions, communication and information management challenges, coordination problems, and resource limitations.

CONCLUSION

These findings have important implications. First, the CMO framework of cross-disciplinary HPSR can provide guidance for researchers engaging in new projects and for policy-makers using their findings. Second, the proposed criteria for evaluating theory and practice of cross-disciplinary HPSR may inform the systematic development of new research projects and the structured assessment of existing ones. Third, a better understanding of the challenges of cross-disciplinary HPSR and potential response mechanisms may help researchers to avoid these problems in the future.

A qualitative study of Equal Co-First Authorship

Over the past several years, there has been a significant increase in the number of scientific articles with two or more authors claiming "Equal Co-First Authorship" (ECFA). This study provides a critical background to ECFA designations, discusses likely causes of its increased use, and explores arguments for and against the practice. Subsequently, it presents the results of a qualitative study that sought the opinion of 19 authors listed among equal first authors of recent publications in leading scientific journals about ECFA designations. Results show that circumstances leading to ECFA designations vary significantly from each other. While the development of policies for these situations would not be easy, participants suggested that the lack of clear and consistent policies regarding the attribution and evaluation of ECFA contributes to tensions amongst ECFA authors and obscures their preferred attributions of credit.

A review of the literature on ethical issues related to scientific authorship

The article at hand presents the results of a literature review on the ethical issues related to scientific authorship. These issues are understood as questions and/or concerns about obligations, values or virtues in relation to reporting, authorship and publication of research results. For this purpose, the Web of Science core collection was searched for English resources published between 1945 and 2018, and a total of 324 items were analyzed. Based on the review of the documents, ten ethical themes have been identified, some of which entail several ethical issues. Ranked on the basis of their frequency of occurrence these themes are: 1) attribution, 2) violations of the norms of authorship, 3) bias, 4) responsibility and accountability, 5) authorship order, 6) citations and referencing, 7) definition of authorship, 8) publication strategy, 9) originality, and 10) sanctions. In mapping these themes, the current article explores major ethical issue and provides a critical discussion about the application of codes of conduct, various understandings of culture, and contributing factors to unethical behavior.

Survey of equal contributions in biomedical research publications

We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 1,540 researchers concerning their experiences with and attitudes toward the ethics of equal contribution (EC) designations in publications. Over half the respondents (58.3%) said they had been designated as an EC at least once. Although most respondents agreed that EC designations can be a useful way of promoting collaborations (81.7%) or resolving disagreements about authorship order (63.3%), a substantial proportion of respondents (38.1%) regarded these designations as useful but ethically questionable. 31.7% of respondents said EC designations are ethically questionable because ECs are difficult to define or measure and 25.9% said they are ethically questionable because people rarely contribute equally. Most respondents (71.8%) agreed that it is unfair to name two people as ECs when they have not contributed equally and that journals (73.4%), research teams (69.5%), and research institutions (63%) should develop policies concerning EC designations. Views concerning the ethics and policies of EC designations were influenced by the race/ethnicity and position of respondents but not by gender. Researchers who had been designated as ECs were less likely to regard this practice as ethically questionable than those who had not.

Suggestions to Improve the Comprehensibility of Current Definitions of Scientific Authorship for International Authors

Much has been said about the need for improving the current definitions of scientific authorship, but an aspect that is often overlooked is how to formulate and communicate these definitions to ensure that they are comprehensible and useful for researchers, notably researchers active in international research consortia. In light of a rapid increase in international collaborations within natural sciences, this article uses authorship of this branch of sciences as an example and provides suggestions to improve the comprehensibility of the definitions of authorship in natural sciences. It assesses whether the definition of authorship provided by the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity can deal with current issues and problems of scientific authorship. Notably, problems that are experienced in project groups with researchers coming from multiple countries. Using theories developed by Jürgen Habermas and Robert Merton, a normative framework is developed to articulate ethical authorship in natural sciences. Accordingly, enriching the current definition of authorship with normative elements and using discipline-specific metaphors to communicate them are introduced as possible ways of improving the comprehensibility of the definition of authorship in international environments. Finally, this article provides a proposal to be considered in the future revisions of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.

Stuck in the middle: a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa, 2014-2016

Background

Collaborations are often a cornerstone of global health research. Power dynamics can shape if and how local researchers are included in manuscripts. This article investigates how international collaborations affect the representation of local authors, overall and in first and last author positions, in African health research.

Methods

We extracted papers on 'health' in sub-Saharan Africa indexed in PubMed and published between 2014 and 2016. The author's affiliation was used to classify the individual as from the country of the paper's focus, from another African country, from Europe, from the USA/Canada or from another locale. Authors classified as from the USA/Canada were further subclassified if the author was from a top US university. In primary analyses, individuals with multiple affiliations were presumed to be from a high-income country if they contained any affiliation from a high-income country. In sensitivity analyses, these individuals were presumed to be from an African country if they contained any affiliation an African country. Differences in paper characteristics and representation of local coauthors are compared by collaborative type using χ² tests.

Results

Of the 7100 articles identified, 68.3% included collaborators from the USA, Canada, Europe and/or another African country. 54.0% of all 43 429 authors and 52.9% of 7100 first authors were from the country of the paper's focus. Representation dropped if any collaborators were from USA, Canada or Europe with the lowest representation for collaborators from top US universities-for these papers, 41.3% of all authors and 23.0% of first authors were from country of paper's focus. Local representation was highest with collaborators from another African country. 13.5% of all papers had no local coauthors.

Discussion

Individuals, institutions and funders from high-income countries should challenge persistent power differentials in global health research. South-South collaborations can help African researchers expand technical expertise while maintaining presence on the resulting research.

Authorship Considerations for Publishing in Pharmacy Education Journals

The distinction of authorship and its associated credit has important implications for academia. Pharmacy education encompasses faculty members from a wide and diverse range of disciplines, including the clinical, basic, and social sciences. These disciplines embody varying traditions and perspectives concerning who qualifies for authorship. As an academy, pharmacy education must do more to equip education researchers with the tools needed to navigate authorship decisions. The following commentary provides examples and recommendations concerning the issue of authorship within pharmacy education. We define authorship, examine authorship guidelines from health professions and education disciplines, and discuss authorship order. We then provide authorship recommendations for pharmacy education with the goal of supporting authorship decisions and further promoting discourse about authorship.

The advantages of peer review over arbitration for resolving authorship disputes

A recent commentary argued for arbitration to resolve authorship disputes within academic research settings explaining that current mechanisms to resolve conflicts result in unclear outcomes and institutional power vested in senior investigators could compromise fairness. We argue here that arbitration is not a suitable means to resolve disputes among researchers in academia because it remains unclear who will assume the costs of arbitration, the rules of evidence do not apply to arbitration, and decisions are binding and very difficult to appeal. Instead of arbitration, we advocate for peer-based approaches involving a peer review committee and research ethics consultation to help resolve authorship disagreements. We describe the composition of an institutional peer review committee to address authorship disputes. Both of these mechanisms are found, or can be formed, within academic institutions and offer several advantages to researchers who are likely to shy away from legalistic processes and gravitate towards those handled by their peers. Peer-based approaches are cheaper than arbitration and the experts involved have knowledge about academic publishing and the culture of research in the specific field. Decisions by knowledgeable and neutral experts could reduce bias, have greater authority, and could be appealed. Not only can peer-based approaches be leveraged to resolve authorship disagreements, but they may also enhance collegiality and promote a healthy team environment.

Patients as research partners; how to value their perceptions, contribution and labor?

Citizen Science refers to the consultation, participation, engagement or involvement of the general public in research. Rationales for this interaction include increased public access and involvement of citizens in research, immersion of community values relevant to research, outreach and educational potential with the public, and ultimately, the democratization of science. This paper focuses on the specific subset of citizen science that seeks to engage "patient partners" in health research to gain the valuable experiential knowledge of those living with a disease. Greater patient engagement in research (PER) can provide researchers with insights about citizen values and needs relevant to determining research priorities, methodology, applications and ethical parameters; this would ideally lead to more effective real-world applications. Over the last decade, projects involving patients partners in research (PPR) have varied from mere tokenism and undervaluation to full involvement and empowerment of patient participants - the former, a subject of criticism, and the latter, promoted as an ideal. In this article, we will argue that the value of that experiential knowledge from patient partners in research should not only be acknowledged through its ongoing use, but also through recognition of participants who contribute to the creation and application of new knowledge. We will explore types of recognition that might be attributed to PPR, including scientific recognition; financial recognition or reward; personal and altruistic recognition; and the benefial outcomes of research applications. We will also consider whether such types of recognition could be applied to the broader field of citizen science.

Resolving authorship disputes by mediation and arbitration

BACKGROUND

Disputes over authorship are increasing. This paper examines the options that researchers have in resolving authorship disputes. Discussions about authorship disputes often address how to prevent disputes but rarely address how to resolve them. Both individuals and larger research communities are harmed by the limited options for dispute resolution.

MAIN BODY

When authorship disputes arise after publication, most existing guidelines recommend that the authors work out the disputes between themselves. But this is unlikely to occur, because there are often large power differentials between team members, and institutions (e.g., universities, funding agencies) are unlikely to have authority over all team members. Other collaborative disciplines that deal with issues of collaborative creator credit could provide models for scientific authorship. Arbitration or mediation could provide solutions to authorship disputes where few presently exist. Because authors recognize journals' authority to make decisions about manuscripts submitted to the journal, journals are well placed to facilitate alternative dispute resolution processes.

CONCLUSION

Rather than viewing authorship disputes as rare events that must be handled on a case by case basis, researchers and journals should view the potential for disputes as predictable, preventable, and soluble. Independent bodies that can offer alternative dispute resolution services to scientific collaborators and/or journals could quickly help research communities, particularly their most vulnerable members.

Ethical Concerns in the Rise of Co-Authorship and Its Role as a Proxy of Research Collaborations

Increasing specialization, changes in the institutional incentives for publication, and a host of other reasons have brought about a marked trend towards co-authored articles among researchers. These changes have impacted Science and Technology (S&T) policies worldwide. Co-authorship is often considered to be a reliable proxy for assessing research collaborations at micro, meso, and macro levels. Although co-authorship in a scholarly publication brings numerous benefits to the participating authors, it has also given rise to issues of publication integrity, such as ghost authorships and honorary authorships. The code of conduct of bodies such as the American Psychological Association (APA) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) make it clear that only those who have significantly contributed to the study should be on the authorship list. Those who have contributed little have to be appropriately “acknowledged” in footnotes or in the acknowledgement section. However, these principles are sometimes transgressed, and a complete solution still remains elusive.

Misuse of Coauthorship in Medical Theses in Sweden

The aim of this study was to explore experiences of authorship issues among persons who have recently received their doctoral degree in medicine in Sweden. A survey was mailed to all who received their PhD at a medical faculty at a Swedish university the first half of 2016. Questions concerned experiences of violations of the first three authorship criteria in the Vancouver rules and of misuse of authorship order in the articles of their thesis, and the respondents' attitudes to these matters. The questionnaire was returned by 285 respondents (68%). According to the majority (53%), the Vancouver rules were not fully respected in the articles of their thesis. A vast majority (97%) found it important that authorship issues are handled correctly, but only 19% responded that their department has a clear and consistently applied policy. We conclude that authorship guidelines are frequently disrespected at medical faculties in Sweden. The universities seem to provide limited support on authorship issues.

Addressing the vexed issue of authorship and author order: A discussion paper

AIMS

To review and discuss authorship and author order in the context of nursing and midwifery publications and to present a set of principles to guide and justify author order.

BACKGROUND

Variation in author order trends is evident across different authors, disciplines and countries. Confusion and conflict between authors give rise to important issues concerning ethics and collaboration and may delay publication. Lack of transparency in authorship practices also impedes judgements when individual contributions are used in support of employment, promotion, tenure and/or research funding applications.

DESIGN

Discussion paper.

DATA SOURCES

A literature search of BioMed Central, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), MEDLINE with Full Text and PubMed for original peer-reviewed papers published in English between 2007 - 2017, in the disciplines of nursing and midwifery.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING

Much is written about authorship practices across disciplines and countries. Despite existing authorship guidelines, author order remains an area of confusion and contention. Disputes about authorship and author order have the potential to cause distrust and breakdowns in research relationships, thereby disrupting nursing and midwifery scholarship and research. The main issues concern honorary and ghost authorship, authorship versus acknowledgement, confusion about collaboration, author order, research students as co-authors, equal author credit and the need for explicit guidelines.

CONCLUSION

Good communication and mutual respect are crucial to the authorship process. However, clear instructions are needed to guide decisions on authorship and author order. It is recommended that the "first-last-author-emphasis" be adopted uniformly internationally across nursing and midwifery research.

Understanding of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Authorship Criteria Among Faculty Members of Pharmacy and Other Health Sciences in Jordan

Authorship represents a critical element of scientific research. This study evaluated the perceptions, attitudes, and practices of Jordanian researchers toward the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship criteria. An anonymous questionnaire was distributed to health sciences faculty ( n = 986), with 272 participants completing the questionnaire. Only 27.2% reported awareness of ICMJE guidelines, yet, 76.8% agreed that all ICMJE criteria must be met for authorship, and 55.9% believed that it is easy to apply the guidelines. Unethical authorship practices were reported by 16.5% to 31.3% of participants. A majority (73%) agreed that violation of authorship criteria is scientific misconduct. Well-defined criteria for authorship need to be disseminated and emphasized in less developed countries through training to avoid authorship disputes and unethical conduct.