Honorary and Ghosts also occupy themselves as authors, reasons can be many including influencing positions, to avoid hurdles of existence

I think this is a good point. But I think we already have 3-4 first authors in some publications, so its a reality- but it does not solve the problem (in my opinion). I also think that corresponding authorship should be made a mere administrative "title" for the person to contact. Many times it´s the professor but he/she´ll direct you to the postdoc/PhD who did the work anyway.

I think that it would make more sense if all granting agencies would require a field of "own contribution" for each article one is an author of. Many journals have already the section "author contributions" and that should be made a requirement for all journals as well, so one has the documented evidence for each authors contribution. Then it wouldn´t matter where in the author list your name is. How they´d then rank the different contributions, would be another thing. Would you add up (points for different contributions) or set threshold? Eg. can 20 small contributions (e.g. one experiment + figure) add up to equate to designing the experiments, analysing all data and writing the manuscript? Most likely not. But I think it´d be possible to establish a system who to compare and add up contributions to satisfy the majority of authors.

In the best of all possible worlds, coauthors are content to have their names listed alphabetically. In reality, some agreement is usually reached between coauthors, so that names are arranged in descending order, from the highest contributor to the contributor who contributed less to the content of an article.

It is a very important question, the related one is who should be an author or coauthor?. Sometimes very simple and short published papers have several authors.

I think we should consider contributors instead of authors and in the current publication mode we should include all contributors as "authors" and add a description of each contributors contribution. This would make it transparent to everyone how complex the scientific process is and also make it possible to recognize important contributions, which today is not normally recognized with authorships. For example is getting funding not formally enough to get authorship - even though this is often the only contribution of heads of big groups and departments. Today they are often authors anyway, but without a specification of their contribution, it may seem they did the intellectual work...this needs to be clarified. Concerning the ordering of authors, I think only first and last author can be expected to have contributed differently from the others, but these conventions differ between research areas, so no general rule can be derived.

This is a good question and it has many different answers, depending on circumstances.

The traditional mentor-student relationship has an evolutionary publishing model.   In the beginning, a research student follows the lead of a senior researcher.   In that case, the initial articles are coauthored with the research student's name following the supervisor's name.    At some point in the mentor-student relationship, an evolution occurs in the co-authoring and the research student becomes the lead author in articles coauthored with a supervisor.    This ordering of the names of authors of a research article (with a research student's name first) reflects the increasing contribution by a research student.

If each one in authorship of a paper makes a real contribution and he or she is not just an additional name for borrowing something from the lab or because friendship, anyone deserves the same value.

Thank you all for your vlaubel contibutions.

This is an actual problem. If three laboratories collaborate in a paper, one can expect that 2 or more members of each team would work on the paper and deserve to be included as authors. To be fair with every one, that could imply to have 3-4 "first" authors and 3-4 last/corresponding authors. Will the journals agree with this? An just as important, will the funding agencies agree to equally value their contribution? In relation to this, will the funding agencies be AWARE of it? I am mentioning because I have to confront a recurrent problem. Some Agencies, such as the Instituto Carlos III de Investigación Sanitaria from Spain (equivalent to the Medical Research Council) rely on PubMed. PubMed only shows the e-mail from one author, if more than one is provided in the paper, they just show the one from the first author. My name usually appears last, as the head of the lab, so they don't display it. Therefore, the reviewers always claim I am not a main author, and they grant me with fewer points. I guess they do not go and check the actual article, where my contribution is shown...

Another issue is the NUMBER of authors. If the paper has more than 7, they value it with fewer points. At least in the case of a collaboration between various labs, I find this unfair - and discourages collaboration on top of it!

I am aware that they may be trying to avoid "honorary" authorships, but I think that they should not handle the issue so simplistically...

Honorary and Ghosts also occupy themselves as authors, reasons can be many including influencing positions, to avoid hurdles of existence

Dear @Carlos, the COPE, The Committee on Publication Ethics has published one case that is related to your research question.

http://publicationethics.org/case/role-lead-author?utm_source=All+Subscribers&utm_campaign=3797c934af-COPE_Digest_January_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6eb8aec9d3-3797c934af-263913989

Thanks very much for your contribution Ljubomir!

 "Can we have 3 or 4 first authors and 3-4 corresponding authors in one article?"

In bioscience publications, I have seen 2-3 first authors, and 2 corresponding authors (barely see 3). I haven't seen 4. For first authors with more than one person, in a paper, it generally indicates with an asterisk (*) on the first authors' names, and footnoted: * both (or these authors) contribute equally.

There is so many frauds in academic community regarding the "authorship"! I do know some people who were not aware of their published papers!!! Of course, they were advisers, while their Ph.D candidates published the articles. Of course, sometimes it may be good and ethical practice. The second way of misuse of academic publishing is when colleagues do it mutually, and they multiply the numbers of published papers. Such practice happens before promotions at Universities!!! 

Yes, it is usual that each author contributes with different effort and interest. So, it must be reflected in the order of authors and in their respective contribution.

I would completely support a requirement that each author's contribution be described.

Yes, Mr Pol is right. There are journals in which each author's contribution, in brief, is described. But, this does not happen in the majority of the journals.

Should the contribution of each individual author of an article be valued differently? Yes. Otherwise, one or two authors, in a manner of speaking, will do (or will continue to do) the great part of job, if not whole, and the reward will be the same for all authors. I think that it is a little unfair for the real contributors, isn't it?

Will this different evaluation discourage collaboration? In my opinion, not, if the rules are always the same. Logically, more collaborations 'mean' more papers and this is useful for all.

Can we have 3 or 4 first authors and 3-4 corresponding authors in one article? For me, there must be only one first author, irrespective of their contributions to the paper. Of course, there are cases and statements in which each author contributes equally to the paper. Also, 3-4 corresponding authors are 'too much'. I have seen up to 2 corresponding authors, but, I do not agree with this tactic.

Regards

I agree with Krishnan and Ljubomir that there are many people having honorary and influencing positions who just occupy themselves as authors. There are many cases of mutual multiplication of publications. This is very common also in research community of our region.

For your information: some international organizations such as Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) have introduced a new strategy. They invite several Coordinating Lead Authors (CLA), Lead authors (LA) and contributing authors (CA). In most cases 2 or 3 CLAs, 5-10 or more LAs and 5-6 CAs. All these scientists work together on specific Chapters of IPBES, however, only CLAs and LAs will be listed in the authors list when it is published (CA are just acknowledged).

I think this is also UNFAIR in regard to CAs! Of course, LAs work more on issue and contributing authors just help them. However, to my opinion CAs should be also included in the list of authors.

Thank you all of you for your valuable contributions. I generally agree with the opinions expressed above.

I believe that all researchers whose contribution was essential for the article (the article would not be the way it is without their specific imput) should be listed as authors. And I also agree with all the most relevant authors getting more credit for their special contribution. And this is precisely my point: some granting agencies only give special credit to one or two of these main authors, by default.

And that why I was suggesting - a bit as a "provocation"- to have various "first authors" and various "last authors/ corresponding authors"- which is almost an oximoron!  

My idea was to put forward the notion that, in some cases, due to collaborations among various labs, several researchers deserved special credit for being principal contributors to either the "on hands" side of the paper or for the "design of the experiment/ writing the paper" .   I wanted to point out that evaluation agencies should be aware of it and not be "stingy" in giving credit where credit is due. Both regarding the value of each contributor and the paper itself (ie: a paper should not be consider of "lower value" for listing many authors if the collaboration of various labs was required to make it happen)