Authorship Matrix: A Rational Approach to Quantify Individual Contributions and Responsibilities in Multi-Author Scientific Articles

We propose a rational method for addressing an important question—who deserves to be an author of a scientific article? We review various contentious issues associated with this question and recommend that the scientific community should view authorship in terms of contributions and responsibilities, rather than credits. We propose a new paradigm that conceptually divides a scientific article into four basic elements: ideas, work, writing, and stewardship. We employ these four fundamental elements to modify the well-known International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines. The modified ICMJE guidelines are then used as the basis to develop an approach to quantify individual contributions and responsibilities in multi-author articles. The outcome of the approach is an authorship matrix, which can be used to answer several nagging questions related to authorship.     

Proliferation of authors on research reports in medicine

Publication in the biomedical literature is important because it is the major pathway by which new concepts and discoveries are disseminated amongst scientists. In the last 30 years there has been a dramatic increase, not only in the volume of publications but in the number of authors per article as well. This paper summarizes the current literature on authorship and its proliferation in medicine. From the literature it becomes clear that for biomedical articles, the mean number of authors increased from 1.7 in 1960 to 3.1 in 1990, and there are indications that this trend is even greater in clinical medicine such that single authorship almost has disappeared. Formal guidelines of who should be considered an author have been set by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. There are studies suggesting that not all authors on multiauthor papers fulfill these criteria. Inappropriate multiple authorship leads to dilution of authorship responsibility and unjustified citation in curriculum vitae. Recommendations regarding the prevention of inappropriate authorship are given in this paper. This paper is adapted from a lecture presented to a Symposium on Scientific Integrity, Warsaw, Poland, 23 November 1995. Dr. Drenth is a clinical investigator and resident in internal medicine.     

Medical Students’ Decisions About Authorship in Disputable Situations: Intervention Study

In medicine, professional behavior and ethics are often rule-based. We assessed whether instruction on formal criteria of authorship affected the decision of students about authorship dilemmas and whether they perceive authorship as a conventional or moral concept. A prospective non-randomized intervention study involved 203s year medical students who did (n = 107) or did not (n = 96) received a lecture on International Committee of Medical Journal editors (ICMJE) authorship criteria. Both groups had to read 3 vignettes and answer 4 questions related to the distinction between conventional and moral domains. Written justification of student’ choices whether the authorship in a vignette was right or wrong was rated by 4 independent raters as based on justice or a rule. Formal instruction had no effect on students’ decisions on authorship in the vignettes (44, 34 and 39% ICMJE-consistent answers for 3 vignettes, respectively, by students receiving instruction vs. 38, 42 and 30% for those without instruction; P > 0.161 for all vignettes). For all dilemmas, more students decided contrary to ICMJE criteria and considered their decisions to be a matter of obligation and not a choice and to be general across situations and sciences. They were willing to change their decision if a rule was different only for peer situations but not for mentor–mentee situations. The number of students who used rule-based justification of their ICMJE criteria-consistent decisions was significantly higher in the instructed than in the uninstructed group. Instruction about formal authorship criteria had no effect on student’s decisions about authorship dilemmas and their decisions were related to the moral rather than a conventional domain. Teaching about authorship and other professionalism and integrity issues may benefit from interventions that bring intuitive processes into awareness instead of those fostering rule-based reasoning.     

Authorship and sampling practice in selected biomechanics and sports science journals

In some biomedical sciences, changes in patterns of collaboration and authorship have complicated the assignment of credit and responsibility for research. It is unclear if this problem of "promiscuous coauthorship" or "hyperauthorship" (defined as six or more authors) is also apparent in the applied research disciplines within sport and exercise science. This study documented the authorship and sampling of patterns of original research reports in three applied biomechanics (Clinical Biomechanics, Journal of Applied Biomechanics, and Sports Biomechanics) and five similar subdisciplinary journals within sport and exercise science (International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, Journal of Sport Rehabilitation, Journal of Teaching Physical Education, Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Sciences, and Motor Control). Original research reports from the 2009 volumes of these biomechanics and sport and exercise journals were reviewed. Single authorship of papers was rare (2.6%) in these journals, with the mean number of authors ranging from 2.7 to 4.5. Sample sizes and the ratio of sample to authors varied widely, and these variables tended not to be associated with number of authors. Original research reports published in these journals in 2009 tended to be published by small teams of collaborators, so currently there may be few problems with promiscuous coauthorship in these subdisciplines of sport and exercise science.     

Can authorship policies help prevent scientific misconduct? What role for scientific societies?

The purpose of this article is to encourage and help inform active discussion of authorship policies among members of scientific societies. The article explains the history and rationale of the influential criteria for authorship developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, examines questions about those criteria that emerge from authorship policies adopted by several U.S. medical schools, and summarizes the arguments for replacing authorship with the contributor-guarantor model. Finally, it concludes with a plea for scientific societies to play a prominent role in the ongoing debates about authorship and the alternatives as part of their efforts to encourage ethical conduct among their members. Whether or not scientific societies develop authorship policies of their own, they should undertake vigorous educational efforts to keep their new members adequately informed about the importance of authorship practices in ethical scientific research and publication.     

Financial interests of authors in scientific journals: A pilot study of 14 publications

Disclosure of financial interests in scientific research is the centerpiece of the new conflict of interest regulations issued by the U.S. Public Health Service and the National Science Foundation that became effective October 1, 1995. Several scientific journals have also established financial disclosure requirements for contributors. This paper measures the frequency of selected financial interests held among authors of certain types of scientific publications and assesses disclosure practices of authors. We examined 1105 university authors (first and last cited) from Massachusetts institutions whose 789 articles, published in 1992, appeared in 14 scientific and medical journals. Authors are said to “possess a financial interest” if they are listed as inventors in a patent or patent application closely related to their published work; serve on a scientific advisory board of a biotechnology company; or are officers, directors, or major shareholders (beneficial owner of 10% or more of stock issued) in a firm that has commercial interests related to their research. Applying the criteria to the reference population of journals and Massachusetts academic authors, we measured the following frequencies for lead authors: .20 for serving on a scientific advisory board; .07 for being an officer, director, or major shareholder in a biotechnology firm; and .22 for being listed as an inventor in a related patent or patent application. The joint frequency of articles in the journals reviewed with a lead author that meets one of the three conditions is .34. Implications of these results for the new conflict of interest guidelines and disclosure policies are discussed.     

Women in the experimental analysis of behavior

We examined the status of women in the experimental analysis of behavior by comparing authorship by women in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) to authorship by women in three similar journals. For all journals, the percentage of articles with at least one female author, the percentage of authors who are female, and the percentage of articles with a female first author increased from 1978 to 1997. However, the participation by women in JEAB lagged behind participation in the other journals on each measure. Female membership on the editorial board of JEAB also failed to increase from 1978 to 1997. Suggestions are made that may increase the participation of women in the experimental analysis of behavior.     

Conflict of interest policies in science and medical journals: Editorial practices and author disclosures

This study examines the extent to which scientific and biomedical journals have adopted conflict of interest (COI) policies for authors, and whether the adoption and content of such policies leads to the publishing of authors’ financial interest disclosure statements by such journals. In particular, it reports the results of a survey of journal editors about their practices regarding COI disclosures. About 16 percent of 1396 highly ranked scientific and biomedical journals had COI policies in effect during 1997. Less than 1 percent of the articles published during that year in the journals with COI policies contained any disclosures of author personal financial interests while nearly 66 percent of the journals had zero disclosures of author personal financial interests. Nearly three fourths of journal editors surveyed usually publish author disclosure statements suggesting that low rates of personal financial disclosures are either a result of low rates of author financial interest in the subject matter of their publications or poor compliance by authors to the journals’ COI policies.     

Authorship and responsibility in health sciences research: a review of procedures for fairly allocating authorship in multi-author studies

While there has been significant discussion in the health sciences and ethics literatures about problems associated with publication practices (e.g., ghost- and gift-authorship, conflicts of interest), there has been relatively little practical guidance developed to help researchers determine how they should fairly allocate credit for multi-authored publications. Fair allocation of credit requires that participating authors be acknowledged for their contribution and responsibilities, but it is not obvious what contributions should warrant authorship, nor who should be responsible for the quality and content of the scientific research findings presented in a publication. In this paper, we review arguments presented in the ethics and health science literatures, and the policies or guidelines proposed by learned societies and journals, in order to explore the link between author contribution and responsibility in multi-author multidisciplinary health science publications. We then critically examine the various procedures used in the field to help researchers fairly allocate authorship.     

Medical journals' conflicts of interest in the publication of book reviews

The purpose of the study was to assess medical journals’ conflicts of interest in the publication of book reviews. We examined book reviews published in 1999, 2000, and 2001 (N=1,876) in five leading medical journals: Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal (BMJ), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine. The main outcome measure was journal publication of reviews of books that had been published by the journal’s own publisher, that had been edited or authored by a lead editor of the journal, or that posed another conflict of interest. We also surveyed the editors-in-chief of the five journals about their policies on these conflicts of interests. During the study period, four of the five journals published 30 book reviews presenting a conflict of interest: nineteen by the BMJ, five by the Annals, four by JAMA, and two by the Lancet. These reviews represent 5.8%, 2.7%, 0.7%, and 0.7%, respectively, of all book reviews published by the journals. These four journals, respectively, published reviews of 11.9%, 25.0%, 0.9%, and 1.0% of all medical books published by the journals’ publishers. Only one of the 30 book reviews included a disclosure statement addressing the conflict of interest. None of the journals had a written policy pertaining to the conflicts of interest assessed in this study, although four reported having unwritten policies. We recommend that scientific journals and associations representing journal editors develop policies on conflicts of interest pertaining to book reviews. Disclosure: R.M. Davis was North American editor of the BMJ from 1998 to 2001, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association, which publishes JAMA. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy of any organization with which the authors have been affiliated.     

Ethical issues in biomedical research: Perceptions and practices of postdoctoral research fellows responding to a survey

We surveyed 1005 postdoctoral fellows by questionnaire about ethical matters related to biomedical research and publishing; 33% responded. About 18% of respondents said they had taken a course in research ethics, and about 31% said they had had a course that devoted some time to research ethics. A substantial majority stated willingness to grant other investigators, except competitors, access to their data before publication and to share research materials. Respondents’ opinions about contributions justifying authorship of research papers were mainly consistent but at variance with those of many biomedical journal editors. More than half said they had observed what they considered unethical research practices. To increase the chances of getting a grant funded, 27% said they were willing to select or omit data to improve their results; to make publication of their work more likely or to benefit their career, 15% would select or omit data and 32% would list an undeserving author. Of respondents who thought they had been unfairly denied authorship on a paper, or been listed with or asked to list an undeserving author, 75% said they would be willing to list an undeserving author (P<0.001). Having taken a course dealing with research ethics had no effect on stated willingness to select or omit data or to fabricate data in the future, but was positively associated with willingness to grant undeserved authorship (P<0.04). Although these results do not controvert research demonstrating the effectiveness of ethics courses during professional education, they indicate that the research environment is a powerful component of a trainee’s experience and ethical development. Preliminary results of this work were presented in part as a poster at the forumEthics, Values, and the Promise of Science, presented by Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, 25–26 February 1993 in San Francisco, California, USA.     

Disregarded Conflicting Results with Prior Research: A Case Report in a Leading Biomedical Journal

Bibliographic negligence, i.e. omission of citation of the relevant work of other researchers, is possibly the most common type of research misconduct, leading to unfair loss of priority of authorship and undermining the reward system of science. We report a case of bibliographic negligence which we recently suffered from a leading biomedical journal. The case is discussed in the context of the editorial policy of the journal and of relevant ethical guidelines. Scientific journals should develop codes of conduct for citations. In addition, the implications and consequences of bibliographic negligence deserve thorough investigation.     

Publication patterns in developmental psychology: Trends and social networks

Interest in publication patterns has been steady. Journals have instituted policies in an effort to curb bias and provide globally representative research. This study aimed to examine if publication patterns were present in two developmental psychology journals. It also explored the social networks of prominent authors and the prevalence of informal author–editor relationships, searching for any potential power groups. Data were taken from empirical articles published between 2005 and 2014 in Child Development (CD) and The International Journal of Early Childhood (IJEC) data points were geographical authorship affiliation, informal author relationships as established by co‐publishing, and connections to journal editors via identical affiliation. Results confirmed the previously established North American dominance in published research. In CD a strongly interlinked social network was identified between authors over the 10 years, with 15 chief influentialists binding groups of authors together. Results suggest that patterns are still present in published research in the realm of developmental psychology. To conclude, the potential implications of these patterns within developmental psychology are presented.     

An overview and analysis of journal operations, journal publication patterns, and journal impact in school psychology and related fields

This article describes the results of three studies designed to understand better the journal operations, publishing practices, and impact of school psychology journals in recent years. The first study presents the results of a survey focusing on journal operations and peer-review practices that was completed by 61 journal editors of school psychology and aligned journals. The second study presents the results of review and classification of all articles appearing in one volume year for nine school psychology journals (i.e., The California School Psychologist, Canadian Journal of School Psychology, Journal of Applied School Psychology, Journal of School Psychology, Psychology in the Schools, School Psychology Forum, School Psychology International, School Psychology Quarterly, and School Psychology Review). The third study employed multilevel modeling to investigate differences in the longitudinal trends of impact factor data for five school psychology journals listed in the Web of Science (i.e., Journal of School Psychology, Psychology in the Schools, School Psychology International, School Psychology Quarterly, and School Psychology Review). The article addresses implications for authors, editors, and journal editorial teams as well as the status and impact of school psychology journals.     

The use of the effect size in JCR Spanish journals of psychology: from theory to fact

In 1999, Wilkinson and the Task Force on Statistical Inference published "Statistical Methods and Psychology: Guidelines and Explanation." The authors made several recommendations about how to improve the quality of Psychology research papers. One of these was to report some effect-size index in the results of the research. In 2001, the fifth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association included this recommendation. In Spain, in 2003, scientific journals like Psicothema or the International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology (IJCHP) published editorials and papers expressing the need to calculate the effect size in the research papers. The aim of this study is to determine whether the papers published from 2003 to 2008 in the four Spanish journals indexed in the Journal Citation Reports have reported some effect-size index of their results. The findings indicate that, in general, the followup of the norm has been scanty, though the evolution over the analyzed period is different depending on the journal.     

International publication trends of JABA authorship

The present study addressed international publication trends in JABA authorship between 1970 and 1999. First, we analyzed authorship patterns to identify trends in the appearance of new first authors, unfamiliar authors, and frequent contributors. Second, articles were assigned to either a North American or an international category. The data show a decline in the number of articles by new authors and an increase in the publications of frequent contributors from North America. Trends are shown in comparison to those from the American Journal on Mental Retardation.