Dear Mahamad,

You seem to mean that numerical weights should be attached to each author of a paper according to the importance of her or his contribution to the work. It is an interesting idea. However, there might be some difficulties as to the international standard of weighting applicable to different research fields.

Regards,

Tatsuo

It is a good idea, but practically not suited for developing countries, where senior researchers are also acting as administrators

Dear Mahamad,

You seem to mean that numerical weights should be attached to each author of a paper according to the importance of her or his contribution to the work. It is an interesting idea. However, there might be some difficulties as to the international standard of weighting applicable to different research fields.

Regards,

Tatsuo

Credits of a research paper can be specified by authors by showing the contribution of respective authors.

It is good idea , no doubt . Conventionally , who is the  corresponding author in a research paper , is by and large considered as the main author , but this also , sometimes is very confusing for many obvious reasons. Many high impact factor  journals have started asking  the authors  to specify the details , who has done what in multiple author research paper.

Anoop:

I'd like to ask if you can provide an example so that I can see how this author credit is reported as I think it is a good idea, especially for faculty who are on tenure track.

Many thanks,

Debra

I don't think it is a must but rather the issue of choice

I believe that a complex system of authorship credit would not be feasible or accepted. There are some publications that list the main authors followed by "with contributions by" authors who had limited input. This seems like a fair way to acknowledge everyone involved in writing the report/paper.

However, contribution often is not about amount, but content. Example: In a 1,200-page report on a proposed property development for a school in a geologically active area, would a 14-page chapter by a geologist be considered a minor contribution? Would an 10-page statistical discussion of predicted population growth in the area over the next 20 years and its' projected increase in school enrollment be minor?

How do we rank what is vital to a publication and thus rank authorship? Who decides?

My thinking is totally different as an author we should not think of our own publicity or our credit for an article.Our article is language,presentation ,& the content of the same speak for itself & in this line the credit of our article automatically come thru our readers.

It is not necessary that the journal should specified our article .It has been observed that if our article is of high nature of excellency sometimes even other journal or a news paper take a notification of such article .

This is my personal opinion 

Actually, in a research paper, various authors have their contributions. Some are having more but some are having less. So, all the authors do not have the same amount of work. So, I think it would be better if the authors divide the credits among themselves according as their work. And the corresponding author of the article should inform the credits distribution among the authors. Once, the paper get accepted, the percentage credits to all the authors get specified on the paper published. 

This may be very helpful when the paper would be considered for some academic works like faculty recruitment, promotions etc.

Hi Mohamad, I think it is not needed. Everyone in the academics knows how it works. Someone who is the first author did the major work (either did the experiment or prepared the first draft). The last author, usually the senior author, the 'money man' who brought the funding to get this work done. All listed authors contributed intellectually to the paper. This is the general understanding.

First, I am not sure if this is a publisher's issue - they don't want to get into any politics as who is the first or last author, who contributed what, and how to credit them. This is something that the authors themselves has to decide. They will not know exactly how the work happened as they have to guess it by the sequence of authors. Hypothetically, if they assign a credit to my work, and disputed it. Can you see the problem? Why should they get into this mess?

Secondly - what is the pressing need for the authors to come with some sort of numerical system? Normally the sequence of authors in an article fade away, when they start to publish 20,50,100, and so on. At some point, they wouldn't even care if they are 2nd, 3rd, or 7th, or the last author. 

Thirdly - you can put me as the first or last author, and submit the paper to a non-ISI indexed or pubmed indexed journal. It is no use for me. Alternatively, you put my name as the 5th, as oppose to first or last, and submit to JAMA - it means a lot to me. With this example, the one that you put my name first, never will be cited, and the later will get frequent citations. 

Finally, your h-index and i-10 index doesn't give priority to where in the authorship your name was listed. Rather it gives importance to where you actually published your work. That's what it really counts.

For me, this idea is a waste of time!

https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=MO90ZXkAAAAJ&hl=en

Dear Pandi-Perumal Seithikurippu Ratnas,

Thank you so much for your nice reply to this question.

However, I have to discuss the following issues.

1) I do not wants publisher to get involved into it but I just wanted that authors should specify their credits as they have worked for it and publisher should mention it on the published article.

2) I do not think that it will be very difficult for publisher if they just add one additional line below the names on the authors which specify credits.

3) Here we are talking about Indexed Journal (SCI) which are having high reputation in the research world.

4) It may be very helpful during faculty recruitment and promotion process.

So, I think publishing specified credits with the names of authors of an article will be a good idea.

Regards

Mahamad Nabab Alam

It is a great idea. I believe that credits to authors of an article is better to be specified by the journal.

Hi Mohamad, 

here is the author contribution section of PLOS:

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MDM ASB MEH SRP. Performed the experiments: MDM MMR WZ. Analyzed the data: MDM MMR ASB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MDM MMR ASB MEH SRP. Wrote the paper: MDM MMR WZ ASB MEH SRP. Obtained permission from institutional ethics committee: MEH MDM. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript prior to publication. 

Of course, the above is a generic statement and every author could potentially use this statement in every other publication. No one would prevent it from using it.

Many standard journals do use the International committee of medical journal editors (ICMJE) uniform disclosure form (http://www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest/). This means that only relevant authors are included based on intellectual contribution, financial and other disclosures are made prior to the publication of the paper.

For an indexed journal, the journal impact factor is very important. When you happen to publish a paper in JAMA with a 4th or 6th authorship, what is the use of the credit system to the author? Your impact will be same as the first or last author because the journal impact factor of JAMA is very high. Similarly, what is the use if you're publishing in a low impact indexed journal as a first author? If you were given an option to pick one, would you pick JAMA (you're a 4th or a 6th author) or the other option (you're the first author)?

For an establishing scientist such as yourself, sure publications are important. That relates to number of publications in a good quality journals. Surely for getting a first faculty position, they would look for the first authored publications. Once you cross the huddle, all you have to do is to do some good quality work and publish in decent journals. That will get you the promotion. Nothing else is needed.

In Egypt for example if you are to be promoted it is essential that the committee weight your role in publication and you get points according to your order on the paper. Perhaps your idea will be useful in such a situation but in other countries all what matters is to publish in an ISI journal. So it is not important.

I am so sorry Debra , i just missed your quarry . As i expressed in my earlier response , some 12 days back , some high impact factor journals have started asking about the contribution of each and every author  in a scientific  manuscript . Here is the PDF file ( Published in Frontiers in Microbilogy ) enclosed to let you know ,  how  the accountability of each author in research manuscript is highlighted .