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

Applying the good publication practice 2022 guidelines in the Asia-Pacific region: a practical guide

OBJECTIVE

The Asia-Pacific region (APAC) represents a unique environment for the publication of biomedical research, particularly industry-funded research. Awareness and adoption of international guidelines on ethical publication practices continues to increase across APAC, but the reframing and expansion of many of the recommendations in the Good Publication Practice (GPP) 2022 guidelines versus GPP3 published in 2015 have important implications for publishing industry-funded biomedical research in the region.

METHODS

This manuscript provides practical guidance for stakeholders in APAC on interpreting and applying the recommendations made in the GPP 2022 guidelines.

RESULTS

Key focus areas include navigating new opportunities for communicating industry-funded research, such as plain language summaries, social media, and preprints; implementing formal processes to improve the integrity of published research in APAC; and methods of promoting transparency and inclusion when publishing industry-funded research. Key APAC-specific issues, including encore presentations, leadership on publication ethics in the region, access to professional resources, and support for educating regional stakeholders are also discussed.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, this manuscript offers a pragmatic guide for stakeholders in industry-sponsored research on applying GPP 2022 in practice with a focus on effectively integrating these guidelines in an APAC context.

Misuse of co-authorship in Medical PhD Theses in Scandinavia: A Questionnaire Survey

Background

Several studies suggest that deviations from proper authorship practices are commonplace in medicine. The aim of this study was to explore experiences of and attitudes towards the handling of authorship in PhD theses at medical faculties in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Methods

Those who defended their PhD thesis at a medical faculty in Scandinavia during the second half of 2020 were offered, by e-mail, to participate in an online survey. Survey questions dealt with experiences of violations of the first three of the ICMJE authorship criteria and misuse of authorship order in the thesis articles, as well as respondents’ attitudes to these matters. Both questions with fixed response alternatives and questions with free-text responses were used. Quantitative data were analysed statistically using the Table functions in SPSS 25 and Chi-2 tests. Free-text responses were analysed qualitatively using manifest content analysis.

Results

287 valid questionnaires were returned (response rate: 34.1%). Almost half (46.0%) of the respondents reported that the ICMJE authorship criteria were not fully respected in at least one of the papers in their thesis, while a vast majority (96.7%) found it important that authorship is handled according to the ICMJE authorship criteria. 24.4% reported inadequate handling of authorship order in at least one paper. The qualitative results provide a wide spectrum of examples of how the ICMJE authorship criteria are circumvented.

Conclusion

Despite increasing educational efforts to reduce deviations from good research practice at Scandinavian universities, the handling of authorship in medical papers remains problematic.

Awareness and knowledge of manuscript writing and research integrity: A cross sectional survey among graduate students

Graduate students face a variety of barriers when writing manuscripts. The major barrier is inadequate writing experience and training. We aimed to evaluate the awareness and the knowledge of the basic principles in manuscript writing and research integrity among graduate students, and to assess the usefulness of workshops to improve their knowledge about manuscript writing process. A cross sectional survey was developed to evaluate the awareness and the knowledge about the manuscript writing steps and the research integrity among graduate students in Jordan. A one-day workshop about manuscript writing and research integrity was conducted. Students (n = 285) completed the questionnaire. Most participants were female masters'; students. Although 83.8% of the students were aware of the general manuscript structure, most of them were not aware of the basic concepts to write most manuscript sections. Only 22.5% of the students were aware of the authorship criteria. Data showed a lack of knowledge of different practices of scientific misconduct. Barriers in manuscript writing included the lack of focused research methodology courses and the lack of professional workshops and the absence constructive mentorship support. The workshop was useful in introducing the key concepts in manuscript writing. The present study revealed a lack of knowledge among graduate students about manuscript writing and scientific misconduct. Professional workshops are useful in improving students' knowledge.

Exploring Knowledge and Perceptions of Faculty Members about Authorship: A Study from Jordan

Authorship has important implications and carries considerable responsibilities. The present study explored faculty members knowledge and perceptions of authorship at Jordanian universities. For this research a survey was distributed to faculty members at three major universities in Jordan. The study found that only 33% of the participants were aware about International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). In addition, the knowledge of the participants about basic principles of authorship was rated as medium. The number of research and level of ICMJE knowledge was found to exert a significant effect on commitment to authorship principle subscale score. Finally, the majority expressed good authorship believes that graduate students should be the lead authors on the publications that are derived from their thesis. Knowledge about authorship principles among faculty members in Jordan needs improvements.

Knowledge and Perceptions of Honorary Authorship among Health Care Researchers: Online Cross-sectional Survey Data from the Middle East

One of the core problems of scientific research authorship is honorary authorship. It violates the ethical principle of clear and appropriate assignment of scientific research contributions. The prevalence of honorary authorship worldwide is alarmingly high across various research disciplines. As a result, many academic institutions and publishers were trying to explore ways to overcome this unethical research practice. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommended criteria for authorship as guidance for researchers submitting manuscripts to biomedical Journals. However, despite the ICMJE guidelines, honorary authorship is still significantly present across various health research disciplines. The aim of this study was to explore the perceptions and knowledge of health care researchers towards honorary authorship according to the ICMJE guidelines across different health care fields in Jordan, which to our knowledge was never explored before. Data from an electronic survey that was distributed among researchers working in different healthcare fields across several major universities in Jordan, revealed that most of the respondents were assistant professors working mainly in the schools of Medicine and Pharmacy. The majority of the respondents (65.5%) were not aware of the ICMJE authorship guidelines. And, around 37% reported the inclusion of an honorary author, in which the most common non-authorship task reported by 73% of the respondents was reviewing the manuscript. Our findings emphasize the need for national academic and research institutions to address the issue of authorship in their educational programs and internal policies.

No room for ambiguity: The concepts of appropriate and inappropriate authorship in scientific publications

Authorship is the currency of an academic career. Scientific publications have significant academic and financial implications. Several standard authorship guidelines exist, and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) is the most popular amongst them. There are increasing concerns about the ethics of publications with the rise of inappropriate authorship. The most important reason appears to be a lack of knowledge and awareness of the authorship guidelines and what actions constitute unethical behaviors. There is a need to incorporate standard guidelines in medical curricula and conduct structured training and education programs for researchers across the board. The current perspective describes the significant concepts of appropriate and inappropriate authorship, and the possible measures being formulated to shape the future of authorship.

Knowledge and Awareness of Authorship Practices Among Health Science Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has published clear guidelines on the authorship of scientific papers. It is the research team's responsibility to review and ensure those guidelines are met. Authorship ethics and practices have been examined among healthcare professionals or among particular health science students such as medical students. However, there is limited evidence to assess the knowledge of authorship roles and practices among health science students.

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional study to assess the knowledge of authorship guidelines practices among health science students at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A survey was developed and distributed. It covered several domains, including demographic characteristics, participant's knowledge and attitude of authorship practices, knowledge and experience with ghost and guest authorships, and knowledge of institutional authorship policies. Moreover, a score was computed to reflect the respondents' knowledge about authorship practices.

RESULTS

Among the 321 participants who agreed to take the survey, two-thirds agreed with and supported that multi-authored articles' credit allocation should be based on the most significant contribution and contributions to the manuscript writing. Almost 47% agreed that team relationships would influence authorship allocation. The majority of the participants were not aware of their institutional research and publication policies. Also, around 50% of participants were not aware of guest or ghost authorships. Finally, the knowledge score about authorship credits, allocation, contribution, order, and guidelines was higher among students who were assigned as corresponding authors and those who were aware of their institutional authorship guidelines and policies.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, our findings suggest that health science students may have limited knowledge about authorship guidelines and unethical behaviors involved in a scientific publication. Universities and research centers should make more efforts to raise the awareness of health science students regarding authorship guidelines while ensuring that they comply with those guidelines.

AUTHORSHIP MALPRACTICES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Although the variety of research malpractices in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) is similar to those documented in developed nations, authorship misuse and related issues appear to be more prevalent in the former. This article focuses on some authorship-related topics in LMIC, namely authorship disputes, excessive co-authorship and monetary incentives, authorship issues in student-mentor relationships, and authorship patterns in North-South collaborations. Universities and official bodies in LMIC must supervise the integrity of the whole research process, provide instructions on responsible research and authorship, set up the required postgraduate training programs, foster good role models in authorship, and designate an ombudsperson to advice and respond to complaints of researchers, especially students and junior faculty. Lastly, a recent framework that combines descriptive and normative elements and then uses proper metaphors to achieve an ethical definition of authorship useful in international settings is highlighted.

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.

Academic and Scientific Authorship Practices: A Survey Among South African Researchers

Empirical studies of authorship practices in high-income countries have been conducted, while research on this issue is scarce in low- and middle-income countries. A survey was conducted among South African researchers who have published in peer-reviewed journals, to explore their understanding of and ability to apply academic authorship criteria. A total of 967 researchers participated in the survey; 88% of respondents had knowledge of academic authorship criteria, while only 52% found it easy to apply the criteria. More respondents experienced disagreement regarding who qualifies for coauthorship compared with authorship order (59% vs. 48%). Disagreement was mostly linked to different ways of valuing or measuring contributions. Level of agreement with academic authorship criteria was higher than the perceived ability to apply the criteria.