This document discusses authorship practices in academic research. It notes that authorship is important for career advancement but that collaboration has led to controversial issues around authorship. Guidelines for authorship vary between fields but generally require significant intellectual contributions to the work. Very large author lists have been criticized as diluting individual contributions. Unethical practices like coercive and honorary authorship that violate contribution guidelines undermine the integrity of scientific research. Reform is needed to better recognize different types of contributions and prevent abuse of authorship for career gain.

1. Authorship Of Research Papers
Academic Authorship
How Many Authors Are Too Many?

2. Academic authorship
• Academic authorship of journal articles,
books, and other original works is a means by
which academics communicate the results of
their scholarly work, and build their
reputation among their peers.

3. Academic Authorship

4. Academic authorship
• Authorship is a primary basis that
employers use to evaluate academic
personnel for employment, promotion,
and tenure.

5. Academic Authorship

6. Academic Authorship
• In many disciplines, however, collaboration
is the norm and issues of authorship can be
controversial.

7. Academic Authorship
– In these contexts, authorship can encompass
activities other than writing the article; a
researcher who comes up with an experimental
design and analyzes the data may be considered an
author, even if she or he had little role in
composing the text describing the results.

8. Academic Authorship

9. Academic Authorship
• According to some standards, even writing
the entire article would not constitute
authorship unless the writer was also
involved in at least one other phase of the
project.

10. Academic Authorship

11. Definition
• Guidelines for assigning authorship vary
between institutions and disciplines
• National Institutes of Health revealed that
10% of respondents claimed to have
inappropriately assigned authorship credit
within the last three years.

12. Assigning Authorship

13. Growing number of authors per
paper
• From the late 17th century to the 1920s, sole
authorship was the norm, and the one-paper-
one-author model worked well for distributing
credit.
• Today, shared authorship is common in
most academic disciplines, with the
exception of the humanities, where sole
authorship is still the predominant model.

14. Growing number of authors per
paper
• Large authors lists have attracted some
criticism.
• They strain guidelines that insist that each
author's role be described and that each
author is responsible for the validity of the
whole work.

15. Physics Paper Sets Record With More Than 5,000
Authors
• A physics paper with 5,154 authors has — as
far as anyone knows — broken the record for
the largest number of contributors to a single
research article.

16. Growing number of authors per
paper
• The rise of shared authorship has been
attributed to Big Science—scientific
experiments that require collaboration and
specialization of many individuals.

17. Growing number of authors per
paper
• Alternatively, the increase in multi-
authorship might be a consequence of the
way scientists are evaluated.
• Traditionally, scientists were judged by the
number of papers they published, and later by
the impact of those papers.
• The former is an estimate of quantity and
the latter of quality.

18. Growing number of authors per paper

19. Growing number of authors per
paper
• When each author claims each paper and
each citation as his/her own, papers and
citations are magically multiplied by the
number of authors.
• Furthermore, there is no cost to giving
authorship to individuals who made only
minor contribution and, actually, there is an
incentive to do so.

20. Growing number of authors per paper

21. Growing number of authors per paper
• Finally, the rise in shared authorship may
also reflect increased acknowledgment of
the contributions of lower level workers,
including graduate students and
technicians, as well as honorary authorship,
while allowing for such collaborations to
make an independent statement about the
quality and integrity of a scientific work.

22. Growing number of authors per paper

23. Rules for the order of multiple authors
• Rules for the order of multiple authors in a
list have historically varied significantly
between fields of research.
• Some fields list authors in order of their
degree of involvement in the work, with the
most active contributors listed first; other
fields, such as mathematics or engineering
sometimes list them alphabetically.

24. Rules for the order of multiple authors
• Although listing authors in order of the
involvement in the project seems straight
forward, it often leads to conflict.
• A study in the Canadian Medical
Association Journal found that more than
two-thirds of 919 corresponding authors
disagreed with their co-authors regarding
contributions of each author.

25. Rules for the order of multiple
authors

26. Responsibilities of authors
• Authors' reputations can be damaged if
their names appear on a paper that they do
not completely understand or with which
they were not intimately involved.

27. Responsibilities of authors

28. Responsibilities of authors
• In a notable case, American stem-cell researcher
Gerald Schatten had his name listed on a paper
co-authored with Hwang Woo-suk.
• The paper was later exposed as fraudulent and,
though Schatten was not accused of participating
in the fraud, a panel at his university found that
"his failure to more closely oversee research
with his name on it does make him guilty of
'research misbehaviour.'

29. American stem-cell researcher Gerald Schatten had his name
listed on a paper co-authored with Hwang Woo-suk.
The paper was later exposed as fraudulent

30. Responsibilities of authors
• All authors, including co-authors, are usually
expected to have made reasonable attempts to
check findings submitted for publication.
• Additionally, authors are expected to keep
all study data for later examination even
after publication.
• Both scientific and academic censure can
result from a failure to keep primary data.

31. Responsibilities of authors
• Authors are also commonly required to
provide information about ethical aspects of
research, particularly where research involves
human or animal participants or use of
biological material.

32. Responsibilities of authors

33. Responsibilities of authors
• The International Committee of Medical
Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends that
authorship on a scientific manuscript be based
on the following criteria:

34. Responsibilities of authors
• Substantial contributions to the conception or
design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis,
or interpretation of data for the work
• Drafting the work or critical revision for
important intellectual content
• Approval of the final version
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of
the work to ensure accuracy and integrity of
the work

35. Responsibilities of authors
• The ICMJE recommends that individuals
who contributed to the paper but that do
not meet all four of the above criteria are
acknowledged as contributors.
• The researchers need to understand the
differences between contributors and co-
authors to give appropriate credits.

36. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications

37. The researchers need to understand the differences between
contributors and co-authors to give appropriate credits

38. Hyper-authorship: Reasons and
implications
• There are many reasons for an unusually
long author list.
• Large-scale studies, such as those involved
with the Large Hadron Collider, will inevitably
have many contributors.
• In these cases, hyper-authorship is
impractical but not necessarily fraudulent

39. Hyper-authorship: Reasons and
implications

40. Hyper-authorship: Reasons and
implications
• These studies can be highly valuable because
they promote international collaboration and
expand research frontiers.
• However, it may be more practical to
attribute a single multi-institution project
name to these studies, rather than
thousands of names.

41. Hyper-authorship: Reasons and
implications
• The pressure to publish can lead to
fraudulent authorship practices.
• The number of publications an individual has
dictated the chances of getting research grants,
tenure positions, and successful career as a
whole.

42. Hyper-authorship: Reasons and
implications

43. Hyper-authorship: Reasons and
implications
• To circumvent career failure, scientists
working in the same lab tend to boost their
number of publications by including each
other’s name on their papers.
• This approach yields papers with author lists
far longer than the actual number of
contributors.

44. Hyper-authorship: Reasons and
implications

45. Hyper-authorship: Reasons and
implications
• Some professors have groups so large that they
cannot feasibly contribute to every paper.
• Yet their name consistently appears at the last
author position.
• In an effort to increase the credibility or
recognition of a publication, some scientists
also invite individuals who are well known to
the field as guest authors to the paper. This
undermines the value of authorship.

46. Hyper-authorship: Reasons and
implications

47. Hyper-authorship: Reasons and
implications
• Universities need to tackle the unethical
impact of institutional position on
authorship by allowing junior researchers
the opportunity to anonymously report
pressure placed on them by professors for
last-position authorship.
• Furthermore, limiting group sizes would
help to ensure that professors are able to
make valuable contributions to all projects.

48. Hyper-authorship: Reasons and
implications

49. Reducing hyper-authorship requires changes
in how academic success is assessed
• In most cases, hyper-authorship can be
prevented by adhering to the ICJME
guidelines.
• To properly control authorship, it will be
necessary for authors to provide a statement
explaining how they contributed to the paper.
The journal editor, based on a review of this
statement, could then grant authorship.

50. Reducing hyper-authorship requires changes
in how academic success is assessed
• To prevent fraudulent practices, proper
credit needs to be given to individuals whose
contributions are acknowledged.
• This requires changes in the way academic
success is assessed. Contributions to science
need to be measured in ways other than
authorship on a scientific paper.

51. Reducing hyper-authorship requires changes
in how academic success is assessed

52. Reducing hyper-authorship requires changes
in how academic success is assessed
• For example, instead of using citations to
measure scientific contribution, a system of
credits could be used.
• With this approach, writers, technical
contributors, and supervisors would each be
acknowledged for their specific
contributions.

53. Reducing hyper-authorship requires changes
in how academic success is assessed

54. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications
• Authorship has become a core currency of
modern science, and the main means to
assign credit to researchers.

55. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications
• Sharing credit for scientific discoveries is a
challenge.
• The growing number of authors listed on
papers demands that individual professional
ethics be stronger than ever.

56. Sharing credit for scientific discoveries is
a challenge

57. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications
• If willing to do so, experienced group
leaders can easily take advantage of
inexperienced scientists, and authorship
credit will always flow up the rank ladder.
• The “Matthew Effect” in science describes
how senior scientists can easily benefit through
credit that belongs to junior co-authors.

58. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications

59. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications
• While data are scarce and hard to come by,
the pressure to publish may create
incentives for growing numbers of unethical
authorship deals.

60. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications
• These deals come in many names including
coercive, honorary, guest, gift, ghost, and
duplicated authorship.
• Minimising unethical authorship deals is
challenging when academics may be
unacquainted with formal authorship
criteria.

61. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications

62. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications
• A senior academic is included in
publications just because they are the
gatekeeper to facilities funded with taxpayer
money.
• A senior academic adds additional authors
to a paper even if the first author (often a
junior academic) never spoke to these
additional authors or has no idea about their
contributions.

63. Coercion Authorship

64. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications
• A junior academic adds a senior academic to a
paper simply to improve career prospects, or
potentially bring prestige to facilitate the
publication of the paper.
• A senior academic expects to be given
authorship on all papers produced by their
group regardless of whether they contributed
to the research or not.
• Large research groups including all members in
all papers even when there has been negligible
contribution from some of them.

65. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications

66. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications
• All the options listed above breach our ethics
and codes of conduct, and artificially inflate
the record of senior academics.
• Unethical conduct around authorship is
akin to a lie and undermines the entire
discipline of science.

67. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications

68. Tackling unethical authorship deals
on scientific publications
• Challenging spurious authorship claims of senior
academics is perceived as a career suicide for junior
academics in an environment of short-term
contracts controlled by the group leader.
• The senior academic knows that if the junior
collaborator objects, the choice of whistle-blowing is
daunting.
• The junior academic may think it is far easier and
safer to just add another name to a multi-authored
paper if this culture is already established.

69. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications
• In this case, the junior academic offers payment (by
authorship) to the senior academic in return for
protection in an uncertain academic environment.
• Such authorship schemes erode both scientific and
personal integrity.
• Senior academics should carry most of the burden and
lead from the front by example. High standards of
individual ethics are critical, as is creating and
fostering a culture in which personal ethics are more
valued than research outputs.

70. Tackling unethical authorship deals on
scientific publications
• Educating junior academics not only on the
importance of publishing, but also on how to
properly attribute authorship is a good
starting point.

71. Follow the codes
• There are national and international
guidelines and codes of conduct that
establish clear criteria for shared
authorship.
• For simplicity, some of us follow an
authorship index that works quite well in our
broad field of natural sciences.

72. Authorship Index

73. Follow the codes
• In a research environment with strong
ethics, the leading author should offer
authorship to all who may have a legitimate
authorship claim.
• They should also be open to considering co-
authors whose role may not have been
evident, which can occur in large
interdisciplinary efforts.

74. Follow the codes
• The invited academics should then use even
stronger personal ethics to decide whether they
should accept authorship or opt for a warm
acknowledgement.
• In this way, excluding a colleague who has
made a sufficient contribution is avoided.
Unfair exclusions can also poison academic
environments.

75. Follow the codes

76. Follow the codes
• But in a research environment where
professional ethics are weak, undeserving
authors are unlikely to decline invitations to
become authors.
• Here, the opposite approach should be adopted by
the leading author.
• Co-authors are invited only when the leading
author has confidence the colleague made a
large enough contribution to warrant
authorship.

77. Follow the codes
• When weak ethics or self-interest prevents
action from senior academics, junior
academics should find creative ways to stand
up and retain credit for their discoveries
without committing career suicide.
• Confidential conversations with independent
mentors – that may include an ethics officer or
a director of research – can start a process of
top down change without threatening the
career of the junior academic.

78. The future
• If junior academics don’t take action when
facing unethical authorship deals, the worst
may happen.
• If junior academics accept the masked
exploitation as they develop a publication
portfolio, they replicate the unethical
behaviour of their senior peers and jointly
break codes of conduct.

79. The future

80. The future
• If this unethical behaviour is passed from
one generation to the next, the scale of the
problem will only increase.
• With different generations of scientists vying
for the same pool of funding, a publication
arms-race is likely to develop, to the detriment
of personal and academic integrity.

81. The future
• Ending a culture of unethical authorship deals
can be quite challenging.
• Preventing these deals in the first place is a
responsibility of the entire scientific
community.

83. Terminology
• Honorary Authorship
• Honorary authorship is sometimes granted
to those who played no significant role in
the work, for a variety of reasons.

84. Honorary Authorship

85. Ghost Authorship
• Ghost authorship occurs when an individual
makes a substantial contribution to the
research or the writing of the report, but is
not listed as an author.

86. Ghost authorship

87. Coercion Authorship
• Coercion authorship, where intimidation is
used to gain authorship.

88. Mutual Support Authorship
• Mutual Support Authorship
• Whereby two or more investigators place their
names on each other′s papers to enhance their
perceived productivity.

89. Authorship Ethics
• Authorship Ethics
• Credit of authorship has important academic,
social and financial implications and is bound by
guidelines, which aid in preserving transparency
during writing and publication of research
material so as to prevent violation of ethics

90. Academic Mobbing
• Academic Mobbing
• Academic mobbing is a sophisticated form of
bullying where academicians gang up to
diminish the intended victim through
intimidation, unjustified accusations,
humiliation, and general harassment.
• These behaviours are often invisible to others
and difficult to prove.

91. Academic Mobbing

92. Bullying in authorship
• Bullying in authorship
• Senior researchers - which include principal
investigators, heads of departments, older
professors - actively seek to publish new
research.
• Driven by the imperative to publish, they
sometimes engage in unethical behaviour or
“bullying” of their younger fellows.

93. Bullying In Authorship

94. Authorship Credit
• Authorship Credit
• Authorship confers credit and has important
academic, social, and financial implications.
Authorship also implies responsibility and
accountability for published work.

95. References
• Authorship of research papers: ethical and professional issues for
short‐term researchers
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2564492/
• Academic authorship
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_authorship
• Authorship and Authorship Responsibilities
• https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/resource-library/editorial-
policies/white-paper-on-publication-ethics/2-2-authorship-and-authorship-
responsibilities/
• Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors
• http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-
responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html
• How to Order Author Names and Why That Matters
• https://wordvice.com/journal-article-author-order/
• What is Ghost, Guest, and Gift Authorship in Research?
• https://www.enago.com/academy/authorship-in-research/

96. Thanks…