Dear Marcel

In an ideal situation names should be added based contributions to the content of the paper. This is rarely the case. Unfortunately adding the names of coauthors is based probably on the compulsion for the main author who contributed for it. There are many reasons such as the professor who provided the research assistantship, the professor who provided a career advancement option, colleague who provided a reciprocal arrangement, etc. Ideally the sequence of names should appear in the order of their contributions. Sometimes the main author may not be present as the leading author depending upon the hierarchy followed in the institute.

Briefly, co-authors are to be added only if they have contributed intellectual input to the research and paper.

OK, but many invest in looking for finances, help with field observations, been involved in collaboration networks to establish collaborations, etc.... . The quality of the research chain and the publications based on the research chain is determined by the weakest part of the chain.... In addition, the origin of an idea is often difficult to determine with precision....

Financial input is acknowledged only in the Acknowledgements section, not the author line. Data gatherers, typists, lab technicians, drawing office staff also. The originator of the idea does not necessarily appear in the author line unless he/she took things further.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, also known as the Vancouver group (2001), states that: “Authorship credit should be based only on:

1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;

2) Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content;

3) Final approval of the version to be published; and

4) Agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work . Conditions 1), 2), 3) and 4) must all be met. The same conditions apply for all co-authors, including your supervisor!

Hello Ian,

I observe that criteria for author selection differ across teams, laboratories, etc. For instance, if I remember well, multi-author papers (let's say >100) in medical sciences include technical/lab staff. Why is there no general consensus about this?

Those that mainly finance studies and are overloaded with administration often have to justify their financing through publications.

What you observe as happening does not make that practice ethical. Is it right to declare that the floor cleaner was an author??

Gift authorship is always unethical, whatever their excuses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_authorship#Honorary_authorship

OK, but authors have to be able to answer to questions from readers concerning any aspect of the publication. If none of the authors were practically involved in the lab or field work themselves (e.g., professors never going into the field to see what is happening at the time of data sampling), how can they adequately provide information of crucial technical details? It would just penalize honesty in science practice, which is even more unethical I think.....

I like this debate so far, I think both Ian and Marcel make some valid points. To add to that, I would like to cite an example. When someone joins a research group that works on a particular research theme, they tend to be oriented in a particular direction as far as their research goes (because they are recruited based on their interest on specific research theme that fits the fuding requirements of the offer, or the doctoral contract). Such orientation is guided by the head of the research group or the research lab director who would often be an authority on the subject (this is very common in the hard sciences). In a way, this person is the one who pulls the strings and tends to orchestrate the research of the entire team. Usually whatever article is written should carry his name in third or fourth position, unless he directly supervises certain PhD students, then his name would appear second.

Hello M.,

You name positions of authorship involving let say 4-5 authors, but there are now publications often involving more than 100 people. Even the first author or publication leader will not be able to determine the relative importance of each person that made a contribution (data sampling, technical support, intellectual idea, style of writing, etc...).

And there are indeed so many unanymous referees or colleagues that helped with thinking and writing....

Yes! Corrected.

Cheers

Let's start with point 1 of the Vancouver group (2001):

1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;

To me, the definition of 'substantial' is not well defined. Substantial, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder... For instance, what is substantial for some, is not substantial for others.

Dear Linda,

yes indeed! So why defining these rules if the rules themselves give room to negotiate or give room to exclude or accept co-authors in some teams, but not in other teams?

1. The referees and friends who helped refine your writing

get thanked in the acknowledgements section, NOT in the author

line.

2. The word "substantial" has the meaning found in any dictionary. I use TheSage.

3. While the official recommendations about co-authoring should be followed as far as is possible, they are only recommendations. There is nothing to stop authors from deciding who the intellectual contributors are. And yes, this freedom can lead to unethical abuses.

4. I recommend that co-authors formally agree on the order and content of the author line before starting. It acts as preventative for possible ugly fights later.

To me a simple rule would be: The authors of a publication should be able to explain every detail of what is written, also from a technical/practical point of view. This implies that those that did field work or lab work not involving the writers should also be added as authors to testify they agree with the content and are available to explain details in methods, data sampling procedures etc... .

A potential practical problem is the author list or those mentioned in acknowledgements can be very long in publications reporting long-term studies that involved students for so many years.

And what about ways to motivate collaborators. For instance, if technical staff is added as a co-author, even if the person does not understand of what has been written, will the person be more motivated in conducting research practice?

@Marcel: Do you wish to revise completely the author line protocol, and expect the world to follow your rough ideas?

I just wish to stimulate thinking..... Can the Vancouver agreement involving the medical sciences, and probably formulated by a biased sample of decision-makers, be applied to any research domain or not?

Ideally it should be based on contributions. In reality it is not!

At least Vancouver took a stand. Medical research usually serves as exemplars. Until we have a better recommendation I advocate Vancouver. At this stage Friedman's ideas have not been accepted.

Interesting discussion

@ Mats - your last response touches on a question previously raised in:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Should_the_first_author_on_a_paper_receive_more_credit_than_the_co-authors

Could co-authorship in an international journal be defined as an internationally approved Certificate in Education showing that the co-author LEARNT about the topic addressed in the publication?

Perhaps a 'signed publication' could be defined as a 'Certificate of Education' approved by specialists in a given field.

Hello Alex,

To stimulate more discussion:

Education: Student 'X' producing workload 'X' will get more or less credits/points, simply depending on the education environment (e.g. those involved in judging the work of student 'X')

Publications as certificates of Education: Student 'X' producing workload 'X' will be indicated as first author, co-author, or will be mentioned in the Acknowledgements or will be ignored in publications, simply depending on the education/research environment (e.g. those involved in judging the work of student 'X')...

Appreciation of effort therefore result from 'student-environment' interactions

Authorship credit should be based on

• Substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data 
• Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
• Final approval of the version to be published
• 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.

There is also a related Question with 76 answers

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_your_opinion_about_Obligatory_Authorship_in_research_publications?

Authorship is a primary basis that employers use to evaluate academic personnel for employment, promotion, and tenure. In academic publishing, authorship of a work is claimed by those making intellectual contributions to the completion of the research described in the work. In simple cases, a solitary scholar carries out a research project and writes the subsequent article or book. In many disciplines, however, collaboration is the norm and issues of authorship can be controversial. 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 he had little role in composing the text describing the results. 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.

If we want to to treat subject in its complexity we should have multidisciplinary approach and then it is expected to have even few co-authors on our paper. Very often it has been done only from practical reason.

In some cases, authors with little or no contribution are added to papers for strategic and political reasons (e.g. obtaining the right to defend the PhD. thesis, providing all team researcher with at least 1 publication a year...) and this unethical behavior comes together with avoiding adding the name of other contributors. Perhaps that a complementary question would be : "what justify to exclude people as coauthors ?"

In other cases, main contributors and writer of a paper that generally send it to other authors for 'internal reviewing' before proper submission, never get a revision from the co-authors nor from the mentor. The manuscript loose interest and the entire work may never be published... what justify to include these coauthors ?

I aim for a subjective assessment of author contribution, similar to:

https://www.yumpu.com/sv/document/view/32701490/trying-an-authorship-index-imber