I strongly disagree with all types of obligatory authorship. Only the persons who have the minimum requirements for authorship of scientific papers should be listed. The minimum requirements and contributions are hard to define.perhaps journals should provide a  guidance  as to whom gets authorship and in what order.

Authorship refers to the listing of names of participants in all communications, both oral and written, of experimental results and their interpretation to scientific colleagues. Authorship is the fulfillment of the responsibility to communicate research results to the scientific community for external evaluation. Authorship is also the primary mechanism for determining the allocation of credit for scientific advances and thus the primary basis for assessing a scientist's contributions to developing new knowledge. As such, it potentially conveys great benefit, as well as responsibility.

Promiscuous authorship assumes many forms. “Coercive authorship” has been defined as authorship conferred to individuals in response to their exertion of seniority or supervisory status over subordinates and junior investigators. Other forms of authorship abuse include “honorary,” “guest,” or “gift authorships,” which are defined as the awarding of authorship out of respect or friendship, in an attempt to curry favor, and/or to give the paper a greater sense of legitimacy.

Following links are relevant to the question

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2544445/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3469942/

Dear @Yogesh, I think that  all kinds of authorship abuses  are misattribusion and fraudulent practices; scientists should not do so cheap acts.

I strongly disagree with all types of obligatory authorship. Only the persons who have the minimum requirements for authorship of scientific papers should be listed. The minimum requirements and contributions are hard to define.perhaps journals should provide a  guidance  as to whom gets authorship and in what order.

Authorship refers to the listing of names of participants in all communications, both oral and written, of experimental results and their interpretation to scientific colleagues. Authorship is the fulfillment of the responsibility to communicate research results to the scientific community for external evaluation. Authorship is also the primary mechanism for determining the allocation of credit for scientific advances and thus the primary basis for assessing a scientist's contributions to developing new knowledge. As such, it potentially conveys great benefit, as well as responsibility.

Promiscuous authorship assumes many forms. “Coercive authorship” has been defined as authorship conferred to individuals in response to their exertion of seniority or supervisory status over subordinates and junior investigators. Other forms of authorship abuse include “honorary,” “guest,” or “gift authorships,” which are defined as the awarding of authorship out of respect or friendship, in an attempt to curry favor, and/or to give the paper a greater sense of legitimacy.

Following links are relevant to the question

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2544445/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3469942/

Excellent reply by Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan - I agree with his views.

Best wishes

Sundar

Very well explained by Dear Behrouz. In fact, today’s intense competition, where an authorship is a gateway to promotions and other academic and professional incentives, it becomes more important to preserve the sanctity of this process. Each author of a research paper should have participated significantly in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. More often the guidelines are subject to vague misinterpretation by researchers who wish to be included in the authors' list, either wilfully or out of ignorance. A recent surge in Publish or Perish mentality and a rush to increase the number of publication in the resume often resulted in authorship abuse.

It is really an interesting question. I am strongly agreed with the answers of Prof. Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan, and Prof. Abedallah M Rababah.

I had always in mind the question about the multi-authors in a paper (sometimes there are more than 5). OK, in some co-laboratory works like big experiments (like COBE: http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/cobe/ )I can understand it, but so many times so many names, I cannot explain it, especially in medical sciences... As my trials for publishing 'hit on the wall' many times, I think that all those multi-name papers is just one man-slave and the rest people just enjoy the benefits (impact factor etc) ...

Dear @Yogesh, I do not support any kind of obligatory authorship. It is a sort of scientific fraud! 

I have found an interesting paper regarding  " A Suggested Procedure for Determining Order of Authorship In Research Publications"!  

http://artsarmy.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/procedure-for-assigning-authorship-wei-wen.pdf

Dear Yogesh,

I am against all kinds of obligatory authorship. I consider it some kind of plagiarism.

Dear Ljubomir,

And what if the supervisor does not even response to the telephone calls of the PhD student? Should the student then put supervisor as a second author in an article that he wrote?

Forget about encouragement, facilities (it's a joke), financial support (another joke) and other mentioned at the d) of your link, we speak about just a simple 'pick up the phone'...

No, not at all dear @Demetris! Student should not put supervisor to be a second author. Please, read text marked yellow on the first page of the attached paper! I do strongly agree with You!

Dear Mahfuz Judeh - you may call "obligatory authorship" as professionally unethical. I fully agree with you, but this is different from "plagiarism", while "plagiarism" is also professionally unethical.

I say this  only because one should not misunderstand what is meant by plagiarism.

Thank you!

With best wishes

Sundar

I agree with most of the previous discussion especially  Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan and Mehdi Rajabi Asadabadi.

I think if we follow ethics there will no problem.

Thanks Ljubomir, I asked you because I had heard protests for not having included the supervisor's name as a second name in one of my puclications...

In my opinion, the supervisor can be a co-author in the main paper, for  having contributed substantially to it. Then the output is a joint publication

Dear Krishnan - I agree with you that the supervisor can be a co-author in the main paper, but it is to be solely decided by the concerned parties namely the supervisor & the associated student. It is not mandatory - this is the view expressed by people here. To explain further, supervisors like me assign a research problem to our students, guide them all along, suggest them good methods, reference books,  verify results, plots, language and suggest some rewriting of the work etc. This deserves us to add ourselves as main author or co-author (depending on the nature of problem & work done). On the contrary, there are also supervisors who welcome independent research. In their case, the candidates work on the research problem themselves, work on the methodology themselves, bring innovations themselves, validate their results also themselves and supervisor just "supervises".  In the second category, when such candidates publish papers in reputed journals, they add an "Acknowledgements" section and indicate that it was a part of their dissertation guided by so-and-so.

With best wishes

Sundar

Dear Mehdi:

I fully agree with you. Also, "Engineering Ethics" & "Technical Communication" may be included in the curriculum of all engineering students.

With best wishes

Sundar

@Ljubomir, Krishnan, Mehdi, &  Sundarapandian

The politicized scientific environment deeply affects the ethical issues and use of appropriate and transparent authorship criteria.. Further contract researchers (JRF/SRF/RA) are often valued members of research teams who actually carry out the work in labs and field, yet do not receive due credit and recognition for their efforts in the form of authorship. Misappropriation of authorship in this way undermines the integrity of the system. Authorship credit should not be determined by institutional/departmental politics or hierarchy, whereby those with power and status decide who will get the credit.

I fully support the view that it is shameful for a supervisor to put her/his name on  the student's work, without making a contribution to it. At the same time, it is quite acceptable if the work is genuinely co-authored by the student and the supervisor. Also, the student should protest if the supervisor puts any covert pressure for inclusion of her/his name without working for it. 

Dear All,

Kevin Strange’s paper „Authorship: why not just toss a coin?” shows clearly this abuse wide spread in the (pseudo)scientific world.

Promiscuous, coercive, honorary, guest, gift or blackmailed authorships are a real disaster in the scientific evaluation of performances. However, it is a glue which joins an unethical and spiritually as well as financially corrupt alliance netting not only national but even international scientific connections.

The disadvantages if promiscuous authorship and the pseudo-mobster system are well indicated in the paper of Kevin Strange but I think many of us must have vast personnel experiences about it.

I feel everybody can agree that promiscuous authorship is a human fault, an unethical deed in order to get advantage, money, power and false fame. This is an exploitation of weaker, younger colleagues many of them think this behaviour of more powerful people as a normal attitude.

How can you assess the rate of promiscuous authorship in your environment?

I think there is but two opportunities to exclude this plagues of scientific life: correct and ethical behaviour (it is impossible to verify it) and single authorship.

Dear Debi,

What can do a PhD student against the pressure of his/her supervisor? I am curios on opportunities which really work and not on theoretical suggestions which are a dead way.

Dear All,

Voilá, a case study to Debi’s contribution on supervisors’s attitudes. I had a PhD student who sent me her manuscripts to correct them. I was astonished because my name was indicated as a co-author. I corrected the manuscripts and deleted my name and noted that my contribution has not attained the level which can be awarded by a co-authorship and to help PhD students is a task of a supervisor.

I know many scientists(?) who have had no original research ideas or activity but are “living” from their PhD students and colleagues for more than 20-30 years.

I know a big coordinator and hero of promiscuous authorships who 2 or 3 years ago was awarded by a distinguished entomological prize but he has had no entomologic activity for about 20 years. Informally many colleagues were very indignant at it but nobody do anything about it.

Dear All,

I feel this subject (obligatory authorship) that is the real situations had deep marks in the life of many of us. Can you show some examples on the unethical co-authorships you have experienced?

I suggest to everybody to visit another thread on co-authorship:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Who_should_be_among_co-authors_of_the_scientific_paper?_tpcectx=home_feed

Dear, András, your approach on this issue is commendable that set a enlisting example for all concerned.

I am not agreed with obligatory authorship. Now a days it is an emerging problem in research field. It is a GIVE & RETURN Back Policy, benefits to the both persons.

These are serious increasing ethical problems. To control/minimize such a things everyone take a note & must think from now. The Quality MATTERS not the Quantity.

Dear András Bozsik,

I liked all your key points that you expressed. I particularly liked the point: 

"I know many scientists(?) who have had no original research ideas or activity but are “living” from their PhD students and colleagues for more than 20-30 years."

Because i know a bunch of them here in Greece also....

Dear All,

This is very interesting and serious issue to discuss.

May I add and raise one more point which is to some extent also related to this issue: in what order the names of the authors should be listed? Some Journals require that listing of authors names following their surname by alphabetical order. Then the question arise: who is lead author?  Is corresponding author is lead author? 

Appreciate your thoughts.

The corresponding author is the leading team despite the order.

The authors of a paper should be only those who have "actually" helped make it happen without any conflict of interest.

Dear all,

It seems that everyone agrees that it is important to adhere to ethical norms in authorship..

Several authorship guidelines are discussed in the attached article. I have reported the guidelines of a few associations (please the table 2 for more info). 

National Academy of Science

Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work.

National Institute of Health

For each individual the privilege of authorship should be based on a significant contribution to the conceptualization, design, execution, and/or interpretation of the research study.

American Statistical Association

Maintain personal responsibility for all work bearing your name; avoid undertaking work or coauthoring publications for which you would not want to acknowledge responsibility.

American Educational Research Association

All those, regardless of status, who have made substantive creative contribution to the generation of an intellectual product are entitled to be listed as authors of that product.

American Physical Society

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution or interpretation of the research study. All those who have made significant contributions should be offered the opportunity to be listed as authors

http://pareonline.net/pdf/v14n15.pdf

Dear Behrouz,

There are very good laws, rules, human principles in a lot of states, the trouble is that many do not care of them, evade them and the executive authority and university administration keep these rules (and the articles you listed) practically unnecessary! This means that there is a cultural schizophrenia or double standard or simply some believe they are above the laws or ethical conventions.

you are right Ierardi Enzo

There is a difference between THE author and AN author. AN author can have instigated the research and undertaken and trained others to perform a procedure, the outcomes of which may be described by THE author. AN author's "kindling of the flame" must therefore be accredited.

Agree that authorship should be attributed to only those who have in some way contributed in the preparation of the research and helped in presenting the findings in form of article. All others are fake authors in my view. However, there is very common practice of bestowing authorship to Departmental head, or Director of the Institute, where the work has been carried out and justified by saying that the person concerned facilitated the research, but I find it highly improper both for authors and the Head/Director who accepts such things.

Without flame kindlers and facilitators there would be no research. 

I agree that ethics is important in one's professional career.

-Sundar

Dear Roland,

Yes, I agree. Obligatory or false authors do not want to kindling the flame of science they do want to make an easy career and filling their pockets.

Dear All,

Yes, Roland is right: majority of troubles in each field of science, economy, politics etc. has an ethical origin.

Shakespeare - Hamlet Quote:

"This above all: to thine ownself be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man."

(Hamlet :1.3.55-80)

Dear Yogesh et al,

None of us who work hard on our research want to include names of supervisors who do nothing. But once my supervisor contributed, so I'm happy and her name gets in.

But on a second occasion, 1 supervisor got me a research grant, and if I put her name, I had to include 2 more. So I did that. Is there any way we can avoid that? Maybe in another country, another varsity, not here.

Dear Miranda

It is always happens. Don't think it is just at your place. This is a universal issue.

Dear Miranda,

An author is generally considered to be someone who makes substantive intellectual contribution to a work and must take public responsibility and accountability for appropriate portions of the content. Naming supervisor/guide who contributed intellectually in the work and preparation of manuscript as one of the co-author in appropriate sequence is an accepted prevailing practice. No one deserves to be named as co-author merely for helping in attaining research grant or financial support. However, all those played an important role in the facilitating the research but do not qualify for authorship can be acknowledged for their help and support. On the contrary, despite established norms, this unfair practice as mentioned by you is known to occur almost everywhere except some exceptionally principled research organization/ researchers and junior researchers are victims of it mostly. I agree with the statements of Hashem Adnan Kilani and Roland Iosif Moraru. A formal redressal of authorship issues is difficult because of the very reason of their genesis. Authorship should be a predetermined decision by the researcher based on an adequate understanding and synthesis of the guidelines. It also questions one’s professional integrity which one should not fall short.

Dear @Yogesh and @Roland, integrity is the issue! "The Integrity Model enables people to think clearly about the subject of Integrity and articulate that thinking. Everyone has Values, Attitudes and Beliefs. Integrity is not about whether or not we are honest or moral, rather it is whether we can act daily in a way that is a demonstration of our Values, Attitudes and Beliefs."

http://www.dynamiccreation.com.au/viewStory/Integrity+and+Values+Profile

Very well said Dr. Ljubomir, "Integrity is  whether we can act daily in a way that is a demonstration of our Values, Attitudes and Beliefs."

Dear Yogesh, unfortunately we are in a world becoming more and more competitive. People (particularly researchers) want to be better and have more visibility than its "competitors", sometimes under pressure from institutions, sometimes for merely a problem of ego. And research is at the forefront of teaching and assistance, which has made humans deplorable examples of cannibals with their peers. The only way I see it is in education and ethical values , and this is unfortunately more related to the "cradle" of the university training. I understand that we should encourage our students to follow ethical values and it is essential that we be good examples with a serious research and publication, preferably publications that are in use, which can have benefits on society

Dear Vinícius Pedrazzi, you indicated the real situation of the academic world. Research publications which a way to communicate new research finding among audience have now become important for an academic portfolio, often deciding a coveted promotion or appointment, research funding or a fellowship leading to ruthless often unfair competition. The politicized environment in academic and research organizations deeply affected the ethical issue concerning authorship norms as well. You rightly said that the students should be encouraged to follow ethical values but at the same time it is essential for us to set good examples with our sincere and honest approach in research and publication.

While research misconduct cases including " phantom authorship" are on the rise, publication policies have not changed. In my opinion, it is all about ethics. But who should enforce these ethics?

@ Aceil

As research scholars are educated, they should not look for enforcer from outside but from with the SELF CONSCIENCE.

Your point on "phantom authorship" is also agreed, were some influential wield their power to add "names of well known authors" as co-authors.

@ Krishnan Umachandran & Roland Iosif Moraru  - Self conscience is the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action. So as a first step one has to realize that phantom authorship is wrong. But, is it possible for all those learned people who wish to be included in the authors' list by hook or by crook will confess lacking in self conscience. Journals have framed guidelines regarding authorship but they can't ensure their proper observance. Universities/Research Institution administrations can play an effective role by framing indisputable norms on authorship issue and their enforcement strictly and meticulously. Responsibilities of the authors should also be put to test when such a scientific misconduct is detected or brought into the notice of institutional authorities. 

Obligatory Authorship is not suitable for REAL-ACTIVE research publications.

Honorary authors, Ghost authors, Gift authors, Guest authors, and phantom are parasites with no real use.

Dear @Krishnan, good names for different types of the same problem! "Authorship is important because credit and recognition as well as responsibility for the work must be clearly articulated. When people are credited with work they did not perform or cannot defend, this is a serious ethical breach"

http://publicationethics.org/cope-newsletter/2014/aug/cope-digest-publication-ethics-practice-august-2014-vol-2-issue-8

Authorship must be justified for each and every author, before submission all must authors must know and work in it, and it is the responsibility of all authors to share credit or discredit on behalf of any paper published. It is a team work and team responsibility. 

But in few situations some obligatory authorships can't be escaped to zero level due to few good reasons we know well and positions, as per hierarchy and cordial environment, though unnecessary authorships need to be avoided fully. 

@ Dr Kuldeep & Dr Ronald

Of course, research is a team work and every body involved in actual implementation should get due credit in the form of authorship. But due to implicit control by someone in hierarchy, it becomes difficult for researchers, particularly junior ones to ignore the stubborn demand for obligatory authorship from superior authorities. This practice has been known to occur almost universally and junior researchers are victims of it mostly. However, such unprofessional conduct can’t be accepted just to take care of good relationship and cordial environment. Authors should not compromise with principles and remember that obligated assent can’t be an excuse for misconduct. 

Dear Yogesh,

I completely agree with you. Authors should not compromise with principles and remember that obligated assent can’t be an excuse for misconduct.

The COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors is designed to provide a set of minimum standards to which all COPE members are expected to adhere (please see link of 11 page guide)

Section 3.7 of the guide reads as follows:

Editors should provide guidance about criteria for authorship and/or who should be listed as a contributor following the standards within the relevant field.

This is a very good practice and it would be nice if it was adopted in all editors. I may have overlooked but I do not recall to have seen it in the journals I have dealt with!.

As @Behrouz have given COPE's Code of Conduct for Journal Editors, I am giving the link to more of Codes that exist and many Guidelines!

COPE- Committee on Publication Ethics  is a forum for editors and publishers of peer reviewed journals to discuss all aspects of publication ethics. It also advises editors on how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct!

Please, have a look into a flowcharts that are designed to help editors follow COPE’s Code of Conduct and implement its advice when faced with cases of suspected misconduct.

http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines

http://publicationethics.org/

Dear Yogesh, Practically all kinds of Obligatory authorships cannot be avoided to zero, and these will continue in one way or the other.

There are tools to identify authors... Authorship attribution is the following problem:

For a given text, determine the original author of said text among a list of candidate authors.

http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P11-2012

Authorship credit should be based on

Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3. Those who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. 

Dear  Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan I agree with you and as well with many previous shares similar to your opinion.

Well said dear Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan. Nobody should claim or expect authorship without having made substantial and significant contribution in carrying research work and writing of research paper. It is quite unethical. 

Dear Behrouz,

very matching analysis and synopsis of the coauthorship.

Obligatory authorship are discouraged.  There are certain authors who have never read the published paper in which his/ her has been included. Only people who have contributions of skills and thoughts and know the literature of the paper well need to be enlisted while publishing a paper.

Very right dear Sandip, I endorse your views that only those who have contributed significantly at various state of the research work and involved in drafting of the paper and who is competent enough to explain the things and take responsibility of the content of the paper, should be considered for co-authorship.  

Thanks Behrouz - you have put it in a nutshell.

Dear All,

 Obligatory authorship is a destructive behavioral pattern characterized for some countries and cultures. This is counterproductive and makes possible the exploitation of young colleagues or those who do not want to accept the serf relationships existing mainly in paternalistic cultures. Sometimes it is enough to have a look at  the list of publication of some persons to clearly recognize they are professional obligatory authors. I know many of them.

Dear All,

Obligatory authors are a shame for the scientific community.

What do you think on the rate of obligatory authors in your country?

As far as I can assess it in my country, the rate of obligatory authors must be over 20% and about 50% of publications must have one or more obligatory authors.

@Andras - Authorship abuse culture is an ugly truth resulted from the tendency to increase anyway the number of publication in the resume. Situation is more or less similar in India and may be in other parts of the worlds as reflected from the comments of other respondents. 

Dear friends, obligatory authors are people without integrity! Fine blog about this issue - Who deserves to be an author on a scientific paper?

http://retractionwatch.com/2013/03/27/who-deserves-to-be-an-author-on-a-scientific-paper/

Dear all,

It is obvious that in this thread participate researchers who condemn this practice. Nobody will publicly say that he is in favor of such a practice. How extended is this phenomenon? Unfortunately it is not something isolated and insignificant. One has the impression that in order to have better statistics of their universities some governments are in favor of such practice. One of the most negative consequences is the reaction of young and honest beginners who just quit when they realize that they have to make a difficult choice: to exist in the 21st century and to have a medieval mentality. I think that different authorship problems are part of a much bigger and complicated problem.  The researchers who are not beginners should try to clean their neighborhood as much as allow their situation.  

Yesterday I put a file on RG with anonymous reviews on a paper which is in the list of my contributions. My point is that the referees also should be responsible. The editors should pay them for their job and afterwards require honest and qualified job. Meanwhile everything is functioning based on mutual favors and interests. Particularly one can be induced to accept obligatory authorship being blackmailed. I don’t claim that it is the main reason when a referee consciously cheats.  But I believe that light and transparency can help to get rid of all negative practices in the scientific world. Those of you who would like to tell me your thoughts about my attempt are welcome (see  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267150758_Wavelets_in_weighted_norm_spaces).

Article Wavelets in weighted norm spaces

I think, it´s not bad that participants at this QA condemm obl. authorship. That does not mean that this practice, to publish without significant contribution, will not happen. But @Kazaros, I think you will and should respect the integer ideas here in this thread as signs for a better practice..

Dear Hanno,

I guess I have not expressed something well or I am misunderstood. It is obvious that I respect the thoughts and opinions expressed in this thread, Otherwise I will not participate.