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Authorship: The Hidden Voices of Postgraduate TEFL Students in Iran
Abstract
Although an author is defined as someone who has made substantial contributions to a research study, sometimes power relations in student-supervisor collaborations play a more determining role in attribution of authorship. This article reflects the ideas of eight Iranian postgraduate Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) students about authorship policies and practices at their universities. The interview data indicate that the participants were not involved in authorship decisions and authorship credits were given based on their supervisors’ positions and seniority rather than their contribution to students’ research. The participants also described unfair authorship experiences affecting their motivation, interest in academia, self-confidence, etc. It is recommended that faculty members and policy-makers in TEFL programs in Iran engage in ongoing open discussions about authorship policies and decision-making with students to avoid creating negative feelings and unpleasant experiences for students which might lead to a legacy of unfair authorship practices.
... Öğrencilerin danışmanlara göre üç kat daha fazla etik meseleye/probleme vurgu yaptığını gösteren araştırma sonuçları, adaletsizlik ve haksız yazarlık konularına öğrencilerin danışmanlardan daha fazla değindiğini göstermektedir. Izadinia (2014), proje ekipleri ve tez çalışmalarında bulunmanın yazarlık için yeterli olmadığını, yazarlık hakkının; araştırma tasarımı, verinin toplanması, analizi ya da yorumlanmasına katkı sağlanması, ayrıca araştırma taslağını hazırlama veya hazırlanan taslağa önemli bilimsel, entelektüel katkı sağlanması, yayımlanacak yayının son halinin onaylanması ve yayının her aşamasından sorumlu olunması durumlarında doğacağını Uluslararası Tıp Dergisi Editörleri Komitesini referans göstererek vurgulamaktadır. Aynı çalışmada, yazarlığın pozisyona ya da mesleğe bağlı olmaması gerektiği, rutin teknik desteklerden ziyade önemli derecede entelektüel katılımın olması gerektiği ifade edilmektedir. ...
... Diğer bir açıdan ise öğrencinin alternatifsiz bırakılmış olabileceği akla gelmektedir. Izadinia (2014)'te ortaya konan sonuçlar, görüşme yapılan doktora öğrencilerinin yazarlık kararlarına dâhil olmadığını, yazarlık haklarının öğrencilerin araştırmalara katkılarından ziyade danışmanlarının pozisyonlarına ve kıdemlerine göre verildiğini göstermektedir. Öğrencinin, bu etik ihlal durumuna karşı koyduğunda danışmanı ile çatışmaya gireceği, tezini teslim etme sürecinin uzayacağı gibi varsayılan bir sonla karşılaşacabileceği ifade edilmektedir (Morris, 2008). ...
... Löfström and Pyhältö (2017) reported that ethical problems are mentioned more frequently by students than by supervisors. Citing the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, Izadinia (2014) emphasized that the right to authorship arises when an author contributes to every part of the research and states that authorship should not depend on position or profession but rather on significant intellectual participation than routine technical support. Paul (2011) also stated that the responsibilities of being a co-authorship is distinct from supervision. ...
The research examines the issue of unfair authorship, considered within the scope of scientific publication ethics and the law on intellectual property rights, by analysing the order of the authors of publications derived from the dissertations. To this tendency, tags of one hundred and sixty-one dissertations published in 2015-2019 by the De- partment of Business Administration-Management & Organization categorized by document analysis. The publications derived from those are determined using certain search criteria. In the last stage, descriptive statistics applied by SPSS to see the ethical reflection of the publications. Results show that unethical authorship is approximately 17%. The doctoral students are not the first author though they are the first carrier of the research. Out of 30 universities, 11 had unfair authorship practices and clustered mainly in 5. Discussing results with the gender of the authors and supervisors, titles, and universities show that the subject needs to consider both personal ethical values and the organizational culture. In this respect, the research will practically contribute to raising awareness about ethical violations, developing mechanisms for preventing unethical practices, and shed light on future studies which investigate the causes of unethical situations.
... In the same vein, the most important role of the supervisor in the dissertation is limited to reminding writing points and punctuation. This is while the supervisory loads of one supervisor and one advisor approximately should be 70 percent and 30 percent, respectively (Izadinia, 2014). This finding violates ICMJE recommendations (2019), considering general supervision of the research group as insufficient for authorship credit, and regard authors' contribution to the conception or design of the work as essential for receiving authorship credit. ...
... (Code #10) "In Iran, we have trained our students in a way that they embrace corruption. They will easily say yes to corruption because they see that the teacher, who should actually be in charge of education, is making exploitations and asks Izadinia (2014)asserted that power relations play an essential role in the relationship between the supervisor and the student. For example, many faculties include their names as an author in articles to which they have not made any contribution. ...
Today, the Iranian higher education (IHE) exhibits a paradox. Despite the rapid growth of the higher education system and pervasion of the university institution in Iran, and notwithstanding the increasing number of higher education institutions/students/graduates, and research projects, and the improved position of Iranian universities in international ranking systems, there are concerns about the inefficiency of the university system. It seems that the university in Iran has deviated from its institutional functions and has become afflicted with anomie and malfunctioning and, as Merton (1938) puts it, presents a kind of ritualism. Accordingly, this paper reports on a qualitative study of ritualism in Iranian higher education. The central finding is that ritualism is significantly present in IHE, and especially in research. This ritualism is manifested in 3 domains of causes, indicators and consequences. The findings indicate that indicators of ritualism in IHE: such as quantitativism, certificationism, scientific fashion, and symbolism have resulted in false branding, academic corruption, and system inefficiency. These phenomena have taken root in the universities, albeit influenced by the external environment. Overall, a certain group of factors is suggested as leading to academic ritualism: lack of academic independence, commercialization, international norms (language and ranking systems), and institutional norms (reward systems, hierarchy based on non-academic discourse, and symbolic violence). Such a pattern amounts to a serious malfunctioning of the higher education system.
... In the quantitative part, questionnaires from 31 final-year or recently graduated students (21 final-year and 10 recently graduated students, split equally between master's and bachelor's programs), 27 ASs, and four RMTs were analyzed. For the qualitative part, open coding was conducted using grounded theory, and themes were extracted from the data itself (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2019;Izadinia, 2014). Inferential analysis was then used to analyze significant differences between the different groups' responses (Malechwanzi et al., 2016). ...
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We are grateful to the editor-in-chief, members of the Editorial Board and the reviewers for accepting only high quality articles in this issue.
We seize this opportunity to thank them for their great collaboration. The Editorial Board is composed of renowned people from across the world. Each paper is reviewed by at least two blind reviewers.
We will endeavour to ensure the reputation and quality of this journal with this issue.
... In the quantitative part, questionnaires from 31 final-year or recently graduated students (21 final-year and 10 recently graduated students, split equally between master's and bachelor's programs), 27 ASs, and four RMTs were analyzed. For the qualitative part, open coding was conducted using grounded theory, and themes were extracted from the data itself (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2019;Izadinia, 2014). Inferential analysis was then used to analyze significant differences between the different groups' responses (Malechwanzi et al., 2016). ...
Students at universities of applied sciences (UAS) tend to overlook the importance of using scientific literature in their final year projects (FYP), which could affect the quality of their research. This paper explores how UAS students use scientific publications and theories/research frameworks for empirical research in their FYPs. Data were collected from 1) questionnaire completed by 31 final-year and recently graduated students, and 31 academic supervisors and Research Methods teachers, and 2) evaluation of 18 FYPs in an international UAS in the Netherlands. The samples were randomly selected from the university’s formal database (i.e., sampling frame). The analysis of the data led to the discovery of some key factors, such as lack of knowledge in selecting literature, inability to conduct an effective literature review and inability to develop a suitable conceptual/theoretical framework, which hindered the engagement of UAS students with scientific literature. Students’ lack of knowledge in conducting a literature review limited the quality of their final year projects and they need specialized workshops to develop their skills in literature research and critical analysis.
... Unethical authorship, where the contribution of a student is not recognised in a publication by the professor, was not only identified as unfair in the above manuscript, but has also been reported to contribute to the perception of injustice by several studies (e.g. Izadinia, 2014). ...
Fairness has recently moved into the spotlight as a core foundation of classroom assessment (CA). However, despite its significance for high-quality CA, fairness definitions and theories have been limited in the literature. Driven by the critiques directed at the ‘inadequacy’ and ‘fuzziness’ around CA fairness and recommendations to conceptualise fairness particularly for CA contexts, this paper aims to provide an explicit definition of CA fairness. Specifically, this paper brings together current scholarship in organisational justice theory and recent findings from the CA fairness literature to offer a more thorough conceptualisation. This conceptualisation not only presents a distinction between justice and fairness, but also provides a novel discussion of the relationship between justice and fairness with consideration for potential effects on students’ learning. The paper concludes with an agenda for further research on CA fairness.
... The authorship of articles is a 'hot issue' among research groups and senior scientists, and ethically sustainable rules for authorship have been written. Despite this, the rights of younger scholars are not easy to safeguard as Izadinia (2014) and Welfare and Sackett (2010) indicate. It is also interesting to notice from the research evidence (Nicholas et al. 2015;UoT and CIBER 2013) In the turbulent worldwide flow of manuscripts, it is challenging to get reviewers and editors to maintain politeness and diplomacy when designing developmental (feedforward) or judgmental (feedback) comments on manuscripts. ...
This research examined the experiences of authors of academic journal articles in the educational sector of all eight universities in Finland. The ethical principles of peer review and best and worst review processes were in focus. Data were gathered by electronic questionnaire, which was completed by 121 respondents who represented well the heterogeneity of the staff in the educational sector. Out of nine ethical principles honesty, constructiveness, and impartiality were appreciated but promptness, balance, and diplomacy were criticized. According to two open questions, a third of authors praised and blamed reviewers as experts and non-experts. The accuracy of feedback was more often present in the best rather than in the worst experienced review processes. Journals’ editors and their decision-making called forth more negative than positive accounts. The results were discussed in the context of ethical codes for reviewers and researchers’ findings regarding the ethical responsibilities to promote good science with thorough, appropriate, and honest feedback and feedforward.
Introduction: The University is a key and determining factor in the progress and development of any country. One of the biggest challenges that threaten the well-being of this pillar is the detrimental phenomenon of academic misbehavior. To prevent and mitigate the impacts of this problem, which has gripped the higher education system; It is crucial to identify indicators of academic misbehavior. This research aims to conduct a comprehensive interpretive structural analysis of the indicators of academic misbehavior in Iranian higher education.
Methodology: This study employs a mixed-method sequential exploratory design, with data collected in two stages (qualitative and quantitative). In the qualitative stage, information was gathered through unstructured interviews with experts and analysis of expert’s speeches and interviews. Initially, unstructured interviews were conducted with 17 targeted experts and university faculty members using purposive-snowball sampling and the "theoretical saturation" criterion. In the second step, 12 speeches and interviews with experts from various media platforms were purposefully selected and subjected to thematic analysis. In the quantitative stage, a questionnaire was developed and administered to a panel of 8 academic staff members to collect data. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) was employed to establish the relationships between the indicators and derive their interpretive structural model.
Findings: The results revealed that the priority indicators of academic misbehavior within the higher education system are as follows: Selling university degrees, bullying, scientific exploitation, negative team building, favoritism, cheating, and scientific plagiarism, and the establishment of markets for the sale of scientific products, and corrupt localizability socializability and false identification.
Conclusion: In the present study, with the structural-interpretive approach, indicators of misbehavior in the Iranian higher education system were prioritized in five levels. So in the first level, the indicator “false identification” was the most effective, and in the fifth level, the three indicators “Selling university degrees”, “bullying” and “scientific exploitation” were the most effective. In general, By identifying and prioritizing these indicators, this study provides a better understanding of the issue and facilitates the adoption of appropriate measures to prevent and mitigate academic misbehavior.
The increasing demands on faculty members and students to conduct research might result in domination in supervisor-student relations across cultural contexts. This study aimed to explore how students’ research relationships with their supervisors are manifested within TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) postgraduate curriculum in Iran’s higher education. In so doing, 17 MA and PhD students, drawing upon phenomenological research, were recruited to participate in the study. The findings, analyzed through thematic analysis, suggest that university professors, by building low-quality, hierarchical relationships in terms of professional and interpersonal relations concerning research
engagement, sustain their power relations which might be construed as accepted norms within Iran’s higher education setting. The study brings ethical behavior into focus to humanize research practice and improve supervision processes/outcomes.
This study set out to identify postgraduates’ problems in writing their theses literature review section. We adopted the exploratory sequential mixed method design. In the quantitative part, we applied descriptive analysis to evaluate 40 completed master theses based on the Akindele’s (2008) guideline. In the qualitative part, 10 postgraduate students took part voluntarily in semi-structured interviews. To analysis the interview data, the raters applied Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis. The results indicate that most students, even proficient ones were not able to synthesize, critique, or explain the literature in their writing. They mainly focused on summarizing other researchers’ findings and interpretations. Other problems dealt with lack of sufficient knowledge and time to complete their literature review, and the deliberate dereliction of some supervisors and professors who do not fulfil their obligations to provide the students with sufficient information about writing it. Solving these problems can not only change students’ negative feelings and experiences in writing their literature review section but also enhance students’ motivation to write any pieces of writing effectively.
Professional psychologists (
N = 57), most of whom were experienced researchers, described incidents (
N = 144) in the supervision of student research that they believed presented ethical problems. Raters identified those incidents that did seem to present ethical problems and sorted them into categories. Although many of the incidents pertained to some aspect of fairness in authorship assignment, 8 additional categories of ethical problems were identified: incompetent supervision, inadequate supervision, supervision abandonment, intrusion of supervisor values, abusive supervision, exploitive supervision, dual relationships, and encouragement to fraud. Each of these ethical problems is discussed, along with several possible remedies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Thematic analysis is a poorly demarcated, rarely acknowledged, yet widely used qualitative analytic method within psychology. In this paper, we argue that it offers an accessible and theoretically flexible approach to analysing qualitative data. We outline what thematic analysis is, locating it in relation to other qualitative analytic methods that search for themes or patterns, and in relation to different epistemological and ontological positions. We then provide clear guidelines to those wanting to start thematic analysis, or conduct it in a more deliberate and rigorous way, and consider potential pitfalls in conducting thematic analysis. Finally, we outline the disadvantages and advantages of thematic analysis. We conclude by advocating thematic analysis as a useful and flexible method for qualitative research in and beyond psychology.
Reports results from respondents (454 American Psychological Association members, 261 psychologists with 5 or more publications, and 117 Veterans Administration psychologists) to a questionnaire concerned with publication credit practices in collaborative research situations. Questionnaire items were presented in terms of hypothetical situations requiring multiple-choice responses in the areas of the paid consultant, continuing research team, authorship order when contributions are equal, and a variety of classes of research assistants. Tentative guidelines are presented on the basis of results obtained. In general, it is noted that neither power nor status should determine credit assignment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Explores the process of determining authorship credit and authorship order on collaborative publications with students. The article presents hypothetical cases that describe relevant ethical issues, highlights ethical principles that could provide assistance in addressing these dilemmas, and makes recommendations to faculty who collaborate with students on scholarly projects. It is proposed that authorship credit and order decisions should be based on the relative scholarly abilities and professional contributions of the collaborators. Furthermore, it is recommended that both faculty and students participate in the authorship decision-making process early in the collaborative endeavor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Authorship is a highly sought attribute, as it is associated with recognition for creativity. In addition, it is associated with multiple benefits such as peer recognition, better evaluation and financial gains. These possibilities spur scientists to author articles, but some take recourse to unethical practice of honorary authorships. Another unethical practice is that of ghostwriting. It is a phenomenon wherein individuals who write the articles are not named as authors and are not even acknowledged to be associated with the manuscript. Reputed and renowned scientists, who have not participated in the conduct of the study or in the manuscript preparation, are enrolled by the industry to allow their names to be mentioned as authors. This phenomenon is harmful not only because it suppresses the contribution of ghost-authors but also because the guest "authors" bestow underserved credibility upon an "industry-written" paper. The readers have no way of knowing the bias that may have crept in. The journal editors, institution, and government agencies need to come together to ensure that these malpractices are curbed by employing various measures such as creating awareness amongst authors, academicians, and administrators; enunciating and implementing policies to dissuade unethical behavior, protecting whistle-blowers, and providing punishments to those indulging in malpractices. All of us should remember that if unchecked, these deviant behaviors have the potential to compromise the credibility of scientific research and scientific publications.
The research conducted by Research Higher Degree (RHD) students forms a vital part of an institution’s overall research effort. Students are generally encouraged to publish their research results and like their academic counterparts, often find it challenging to determine authorship and author order on their publications. The stakes are high. A successful, internationally recognised research career, particularly in academia, is heavily biased to publication quality, number and the order of authors on those publications. This paper will explore, through the eyes of postgraduate student Chris, some of the authorship dilemmas faced by students who publish their thesis research. Chris’ dilemma is real. The questions and answers reported herein are taken from a short questionnaire that was administered to 13 postgraduate students in the biological sciences.
A published article is the primary means whereby new work is communicated, priority is established, and academic promotion is determined. Publication depends on trust and requires that authors be held to standards of honesty, completeness, and fairness in their reporting, and to accountability for their statements. The system of authorship, while appropriate for articles with only 1 author, has become inappropriate as the average number of authors of an article has increased; as the work of coauthors has become more specialized and relationships between them have become more complex; and as both credit and, even more, responsibility have become obscured and diluted. Credit and accountability cannot be assessed unless the contributions of those named as authors are disclosed to readers, so the system is flawed. We argue for a radical conceptual and systematic change, to reflect the realities of multiple authorship and to buttress accountability. We propose dropping the outmoded notion of author in favor of the more useful and realistic one of contributor. This requires disclosure to readers of the contributions made to the research and to the manuscript by the contributors, so that they can accept both credit and responsibility. In addition, certain named contributors take on the role of guarantor for the integrity of the entire work. The requirement that all participants be named as contributors will eliminate the artificial distinction between authors and acknowledgees and will enhance the integrity of publication.
Authorship on scientific articles is an important form of academic productivity. We examined the influence of personal and professional relationships on authorship decisions, particularly as they may conflict with stated criteria of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
We conducted an anonymous e-mail survey of corresponding authors of original research articles in the Archives of Family Medicine, British Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, and the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1999. Assessments were made of how often concerns about personal and professional relationships enter authorship decisions as well as factors affecting authorship if that person does not meet ICMJE criteria.
Of 578 eligible individuals, 292 participated, for a response rate of 50.5%. Personal and professional relationship concerns enter into decisions about who should be named as an author Junior faculty and individuals whose job is dependent on publications were significantly more likely to feel obligated to consider adding an author who doesn't meet ICMJE criteria when that person has administrative power over them. Current strategies to improve the veracity of authorship were endorsed as moderately effective.
Authors arefaced with the difficult task of negotiating interpersonal relationships while allocating authorship according to ICMJE criteria. Mechanisms should be explored to provide greater protection of junior faculty from pressure by senior faculty.
This paper looks at the growth of multiple-authored papers in eight leading economics journals. In 1950, multiple authorship was a relative rarity. By the 1990s, it had become commonplace. An empirical analysis suggests that this growth has not been even over time but appears to have been greatest in the mid-1960s and again since the mid-1970s. Possible reasons for this growth include developments in computer technology. Its implications for the economics profession are briefly discussed. Copyright 1996 by American Economic Association.
Professional psychologists (N = 57), most of whom were experienced researchers, described incidents (N = 144) in the supervision of student research that they believed presented ethical problems. Raters identified those incidents that did seem to present ethical problems and sorted them into categories. Although many of the incidents pertained to some aspect of fairness in authorship assignment, 8 additional categories of ethical problems were identified: incompetent supervision, inadequate supervision, supervision abandonment, intrusion of supervisor values, abusive supervision, exploitive supervision, dual relationships, and encouragement to fraud. Each of these ethical problems is discussed, along with several possible remedies.
One of the most obvious problems in collaborative authorship is omitting authors from a paper. The classic form of omission occurs when two collaborators are in conflict and one leaves the other's name off a paper out of spite. Scientific research is increasingly international in scope and practice. Worldwide, the percentage of science and engineering research articles with authors from more than one country increased from 8 percent in 1988 to 22 percent in 2007, according to the 2010 Science and Engineering Indicators compiled by the US National Science Foundation. Surprise authorship is when a researcher finds out after publication that his or her name appears on a paper. Honorary authorship is often equated with gift authorship, but the motivations are different. Honorary authorship goes to individuals with higher status, as a way of honoring them personally or in their roles as superiors.
This quantitative study provides a description of current and best practices for authorship determination in student– faculty collaborative research. Doctoral students and faculty (N = 1,009) in education‐related disciplines indicated how authorship decisions are made in common practice, how authorship decisions should be made, and their levels of comfort with the process. Their responses highlighted complexities inherent in student–faculty collaborations and informed practical recommendations for counselor educators and students.
The process of advisement in the research of a doctoral dissertation is prolonged and harbors a variety of ethical aspects and issues. In some cases it gives rise to dissatisfaction on the part of both advisor and student regarding the process itself and/or the publication of the dissertation. To ameliorate these problems, the Dissertation Committee of the School of Social Work at the University of Haifa recently set out guidelines for both advisor and doctoral student, in accordance with which both parties will draw up an agreement in advance to suit the student’s research. The present article discusses the components of the advisement process and presents recommendations for an advisor-doctoral student agreement. Although no evaluation was undertaken by the authors to assess the impact of the guidelines agreement, our brief experience with these guidelines reinforces the importance of such an agreement, which can help assure mutual satisfaction on the part of both the advisor and the student.
With collaborations in social work articles on the rise, decisions regarding who gets authorship credit—and who does not—have taken on increased political and economic importance. A literature search of codes of ethics, manuals of style, and relevant articles found little guidance for social workers in this regard. This article solicits feedback from focus groups comprising faculty and doctoral students to identify issues in determining and negotiating co-authorship. Major points for consideration are offered to assist the collaboration of future scholars.
In the academic world, a researcher's number of publications can carry huge professional and financial rewards. This truth has led to many unethical authorship assignments throughout the world of publishing, including within faculty-student collaborations. Although the American Psychological Association (APA) passed a revised code of ethics in 1992 with special rules pertaining to such collaborative efforts, it is widely acknowledged that unethical assignments of authorship credit continue to occur regularly. This study found that of the 604 APA-member respondents, 165 (27.3%) felt they had been involved in an unethical or unfair authorship assignment. Furthermore, nontenured faculty members and women were statistically more likely to be involved in an unethical or unfair assignment of authorship credit than tenured faculty members or men.
Mentoring students through collaborative research can be an effective method for cultivating student development as scholars; but negotiating the division of responsibilities and recognition may be difficult due to the inherent complexities of the relationship between collaborators and the research process itself. A national sample of 440 students and faculty in education and social science disciplines described their positive and negative experiences with authorship determination in student–faculty collaborative research. Qualitative analysis of these responses revealed important themes and informed the development of suggestions for articulating authorship to avoid potential difficulties.
Presents the American Psychological Association's Ethics Code. The document consists of an introduction, a preamble, 6 general principles, and specific standards and rules for conduct by psychologists. Topics covered by the standards include (1) General Standards, (2) Evaluation, Assessment or Intervention, (3) Advertising and Other Public Statements, (4) Therapy, (5) Privacy and Confidentiality, (6) Teaching, Training Supervision, Research, and Publishing, (7) Forensic Activities, and (8) Resolving Ethical Issues. (0 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Determining appropriate authorship recognition in student-faculty collaborative research is a complex task. In this quantitative
study, responses from 1346 students and faculty in education and some social science disciplines at 36 research-intensive
institutions in the United States were analyzed to provide a description of current and recommended practices for authorship
in student-faculty collaborative research. The responses revealed practices and perceptions that are not aligned with ethical
guidelines and a lack of consensus among respondents about appropriate practice. Faculty and student respondents agreed that
students deserve more authorship recognition than they get in common practice but they did not agree on the appropriate authorship
arrangement for several of the collaborative scenarios described in the study or on the relative value of various contributions
to research projects. The misalignment with ethical codes and lack of consensus among the respondents is problematic because
student-faculty collaborative research is common and authored publications are powerful indicators of research competency.
With these detailed results, students and faculty can better anticipate areas where their perspectives are likely to differ
and faculty can work to clarify ambiguous expectations.
KeywordsAuthorship-Order of authorship-Student-faculty collaborative research-Intellectual property
This empirical study concerns the authorship credit decision-making processes and outcomes that occur among coauthors in cases of multiauthored publications. The 2002 American Psychological Association (APA) Ethics Code offers standards for determining authorship order; however, little is known about how these decisions are made in actual practice. Results from a survey of 109 randomly selected authors indicated that most authors were satisfied with the decision-making process and outcome with few disagreements. Participants reported cases of both undeserved authorship being given and omission of deserving contributors' names as coauthors. Some factors associated with authorship decisions included “sense of loyalty or obligation,” “publish or perish pressures,” and “power differentials.” Authors who used APA standards were significantly more satisfied with both the process and outcome of authorship credit decisions.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS COMMENTARY, the title probably irked your professional sensibilities. That's good. During 32 years of publishing, I've experienced two authorship disputes. Both of these problems have demonstrated to me that there is a dis- turbing and pervasive lack of understanding of what authorship on scientific papers means, of the responsibilities that it con- veys, and of how it is determined. The goal of this article is to discuss the ethics and responsibility of authorship and to raise awareness of an issue that is fundamental to the health of our profession. I provide an overview of the extensive discussion of authorship that has been ongoing within the scientific community for over three decades, use personal experiences with authorship disputes to illustrate aspects of this discussion, and provide recommendations on how to resolve and prevent authorship problems. It is my hope that this commentary sparks debate and action that will help to minimize abusive and damaging authorship practices. A Brief History of Scientific Authorship
As emergency medicine comes of age, it is interesting to examine the scientific nature of the specialty as reflected in the literature. Representative volumes of three emergency medicine journals were reviewed for number and type of article, institutional origin, article length, and number of authors. For Annals of Emergency Medicine, (AEM) volumes for 1975, 1980, and 1985 were studied. For The American Journal of Emergency Medicine (AJEM) and The Journal of Emergency Medicine (JEM), articles from the first 12 months of publication (1983 to 1984) and the complete 1986 issue were examined. Analysis of the scientific sections of the journals discloses some interesting trends. While the average article length has remained about the same (four to six pages), the average number of authors per article has steadily risen. The percentage of articles listing an academic origin has remained steady in AEM and JEM, but has risen in AJEM. Multicenter collaborations and basic science articles are appearing with significantly increased frequency. A noteworthy trend is the rise in multiple authorship of articles. There have been significant p less than 10(-4] increases in the number of multiple-authored (more than three authors) articles in AEM and JEM. As reflected by the literature, scientific progress in EM is maintaining a rapid pace. However, there are increasing numbers of papers with multiple authors. Listing of multiple authors on papers has prompted criticism of the literature in other medical specialties. If this trend continues, there may be a risk of compromising the integrity of the published research.
Authorship proliferation in biomedical research has become rampant; the proportion of single-author articles is decreasing, the percentage of multiauthor articles is increasing, and the number of authors per publication is increasing. To determine whether authorship trends in the North American neurosurgical literature parallel trends observed in other areas of the biomedical literature, I studied original neurosurgical research articles published in the past 50 years.
I sampled clinical, anatomic, and laboratory investigations in Neurosurgery and the Journal of Neurosurgery at 10-year intervals from 1945 to 1995. For each research article, I determined the number of authors, the countries of origin, and the educational degrees of the authors.
The mean number of authors per article has increased steadily in the past 50 years, from 1.8 (standard deviation, +/-0.8) authors per article in 1945 to 4.6 (standard deviation, +/-2.1) authors in 1995. The proportion of single-author articles is decreasing; these articles accounted for 43% of articles in 1945 and only 3% of articles in 1995. Increases in the proportions of non-M.D. authors and of articles originating outside the United States were also observed.
The proliferation of multiauthor articles and the decrease in the proportion of single-author articles in the neurosurgical literature parallel trends observed in many other areas of biomedical research. Possible explanations include larger research teams, variable or absent journal criteria for defining authorship, and the increased awarding of "gift" authorships.
Publications are primarily a means of communicating scientific information to colleagues, but they are much more than that. Publications in peer reviewed journals are proof of academic competence, are used as a crucial component in evaluation criteria for academic promotion and fundraising and increase the prestige of research centres and universities. The urgent need for publications has also led to abuses in authorship. In the past the single-author article was the rule, but over the past decades, the average number of authors on scientific manuscripts has drastically increased. In the field of bioethics, however, no research has been undertaken to study whether the percentage of single-author articles is decreasing, the proportion of multi-author articles is increasing or the average number of authors per article is increasing. The objective of this research is to analyze these trends in authorship for the period 1990-2003 in peer reviewed journals in the field of bioethics. In the nine peer reviewed journals from the field of bioethics we studied, we observed a significant increase of the multi-author article and of the average number of authors. This is mainly due to the increase in the number of publications with an empirical design. This growing trend is a challenge for the editors of journals in the field of bioethics to enhance awareness about the value and definition of authorship.
The emphasis on publications for promotion in academic medicine would lead one to the theory that authorship numbers would increase proportionally with this emphasis. To investigate authorship trends across a number of periodicals, we performed a descriptive study comparing two full years of published articles spaced ten years apart from five medical journals.
Physician reviewers each reviewed all articles of one medical journal for the 1995 and 2005 publication years. Reviewed journals included Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), Annals of Emergency Medicine (AnnEM), Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM), Journal of Trauma (JT), and New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). Data collected for each article were number of authors, ordinal number of the corresponding author, type of study described, whether the described study was a multicenter trial, whether authorship listed included a "study group," and whether any author was also an editor of the journal.
A total of 2927 articles were published in the five journals in 1995, and of these, 1401 (47.9%) were analyzed after the exclusion criteria had been applied; for 2005 a total of 3630 articles were published and of these, 1351 (37.2%) were included in the analysis. Across all five journals the mean number of authors per article increased from 4.66 to 5.73 between 1995 and 2005 (P < 0.0001), and four of the five journals individually had statistically significant increases in the number of authors per article. More articles had a journal editor as an author in 2005 (increased from 7.8% to 11.0%, P = 0.004), though no single journal had a statistically significant increase.
We describe a trend of increasing mean authors, editorial authorship, study groups, and multicenter trials over time with fewer solo authors now publishing original research or case reports. The academic medical community must pursue an authorship requirement consensus to assure that a standard of contribution for all authors on a given paper is met.
Are scientists publishing more duplicate papers? An automated search of
seven million biomedical abstracts suggests that they are, report Mounir
Errami and Harold Garner.
Authorship diplomacy crossnational differences complicate allocation of credit and responsibility
- M Anderson
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- M A Shaw
- C C Lepkowski
- R G De Vries
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Postgraduate supervision in education: an overview of the literature
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Johnston, S. (1999). Postgraduate supervision in education: an overview of the literature. Review of Australian
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Challenging the social norms of authorship assignment. Paper presented at the Society for Research into Higher Education Postgraduate and Newer Researchers Conference
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Morris, S. E. (2009). Challenging the social norms of authorship assignment. Paper presented at the Society for
Research into Higher Education Postgraduate and Newer Researchers Conference, Wales, United Kingdom.
Abstract retrieved from http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:223266.
Authorship and Research Higher Degree training: empowering students M. Izadinia National Institutes of Health. Guidelines for the Conduct of Research in the Intramural Research Program at NIH [Online] Authorship and collaboration: Preparing the next generation of social work scholars
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Morris, S. E., Beveridge, C. A., Manathunga, C. (2007). Authorship and Research Higher Degree training: empowering students. In Enhancing Higher Education, Theory and Scholarship, Proceedings of the 30th HERDSA Annual Conference [CD-ROM], Adelaide, 8–11 July. M. Izadinia National Institutes of Health. Guidelines for the Conduct of Research in the Intramural Research Program at NIH [Online]. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (2007). Retrieved 23/11/2013 from http://www1.od. nih.gov/oir/sourcebook/ethic-conduct/Conduct%20Research%206-11-07.pdf. Netting, F. E., & Nichols-Casebolt, A. (1997). Authorship and collaboration: Preparing the next generation of social work scholars. Journal of Social Work Education, 555–564.
- Ιιι Way
Way ΙΙΙ, C. V. (2006). Authorship. Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, 30(4), 368-369.
Guidelines for the Conduct of Research in the Intramural Research Program at NIH [Online] Retrieved 23
- Health
National Institutes of Health. Guidelines for the Conduct of Research in the Intramural Research Program at NIH
[Online]. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (2007). Retrieved 23/11/2013 from http://www1.od.
nih.gov/oir/sourcebook/ethic-conduct/Conduct%20Research%206-11-07.pdf.
Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals
- J Hudson
Hudson, J. (1996). Trends in multi-authored papers in economics. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 10(3),
153-158.
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). (2013). Recommendations for the Conduct,
Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Retrieved 23/11/2013 from
http://www.icmje.org/urm_main.html.
Guidelines for the Conduct of Research in the Intramural Research Program at NIH [Online
National Institutes of Health. Guidelines for the Conduct of Research in the Intramural Research Program at NIH
[Online]. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (2007). Retrieved 23/11/2013 from http://www1.od.
nih.gov/oir/sourcebook/ethic-conduct/Conduct%20Research%206-11-07.pdf.
- American Psychological Association