Hi,

If you co-authored an article, you automatically gain authorship. As to the mistake made on your name, I suggest you try to correct it, otherwise you may loose citations, that will be referred to someone else.

Thank you Avishag for this clarification. I requested for authorship and was denied, that was why I asked the question. So, I thought it could be because of the mistake with the name.

But how do I go about correcting this mistake? I will really appreciate your help if you know. Thanks

Change in author’s name after publication

There are many reasons why an author might want to change their name (marriage, divorce, for example) so the editor should publish a corrigendum, provided the editor receives proof of the identity of the author.

An author should be allowed to have charge of their name, and if they wish to change it, then the editor should accommodate this request by publishing a simple erratum or corrigendum. This would be linked electronically to the publication and would be picked up by Medline automatically. The online version of the paper could also be changed, depending on the policy of the journal. It is not unethical to request a change in your name but the editor must be certain that the author requesting the change is in fact the author of the paper, and the editor should insist on proof of identification.

Inclusive author name change policy

Elsevier supports ‘invisible’ author name changes for transgender authors and other authors with a strong need for privacy, in accordance with the principles informing the Committee on Publication Ethics’ working group.

On request from the author, author names can be directly updated on published papers on Elsevier’s primary publishing platforms, without any correction or other note. Arrangements are then made to update the article metadata in secondary indexation databases such as Scopus, Web of Science and Pubmed, as applicable.

There may be some authors who have less need for privacy and the name change could impact the visibility of their paper, for example, if the first author changes their last name. The name can then be changed directly in the article but a correction/note might be published after discussion with the author.

To arrange a name update, please provide the current name details and list of published journal articles to: [email protected]

https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/inclusive-author-name-changes

It is important you make every effort to correct your name. It is easier if such an error is typographical. However, if it is a total change, that must be done legally. Good luck!.

Thank you Godspower Adu. It's actually a typographical error not a change of name

If it is a typo, then no issues.

If you register for an ORCID number, you will be unambiguously associated with publications that use it. https://orcid.org/

Hello Dr. Olotu,

1. Co-authorship: a co-author is considered as such when he/she made a significant contributions. I am not sure why they would deny you if you made significant contributions to the research... but, as a co-author you have rights. However, there should be some agreement or discussion about it before the research is conducted so everybody understands the terms. Here is one article on several scenarios that could happen and tips about co-authorship:

Co-authors gone bad: https://www.elsevier.com/connect/co-authors-gone-bad-how-to-avoid-publishing-conflicts

2. You can directly contact the editor where your paper was published and explain the mistake. They will probably correct it. The sooner the better.

3. Dr. Maura Zimmerschied was right on the money!. You should register with ORCID where you put your right information, including how your name will be abbreviated. With your ORCID number in hand, you can also contact the editor to explain the mistake and show that you have been registered as Olotu Y. Once you have your name registered with ORCID you need to stick to it.

Best regards!

Thank you Andréa for the detail information.

See "Another researcher has claimed my publications" in https://explore.researchgate.net/display/support/Authorship for instructions how to correct the authorship if a publication was wrongly assigned to another profile instead of yours. But unlike this help page suggests, most probably it was not the other author himself who wrongly claimed authorship, but ResearchGate's automatic algorithm wrongly identified another researcher as the author and assigned your publication to his profile.

It is also possible to indicate an alternative name in your account, see https://explore.researchgate.net/display/support/Updating+your+account+name .