Credit where credit is due? Regulation, research integrity and the attribution of authorship in the health sciences
Introduction
Health science journals have had long-standing concerns that the names that appear at the top of an article do not reflect its true authorship (Bhopal et al., 1997, Flanagin et al., 1998, Geelhoed et al., 2007, Hewitt, 1957, Martinson et al., 2005, Marusic et al., 2004, Mowatt et al., 2002, Pignatelli et al., 2005, Ross et al., 2008, Sheikh, 2000, Smith, 2001, Swazey et al., 1993). Survey results from both junior and senior researchers indicate these concerns are valid. For example, a British study of 66 staff in the University of Newcastle's medical school found that almost two-thirds of respondents had experienced difficulties; 38 per cent of these with gift and 48 per cent with ghost authorship (Bhopal et al., 1997). In a survey of more than 3000 NIH grant-funded scientists in the USA, 10% of the respondents admitted to ‘inappropriately assigning authorship credit’ (Martinson et al., 2005, p. 737). Likewise, Swazey et al.'s (1993) survey of 2000 US doctoral candidates and faculty found that 30% knew of an instance of ‘inappropriate assigning authorship credit’ by faculty, while Mowatt et al. (2002) showed that at least a third of all Cochrane Reviews had evidence of ghost authorship. Although these surveys are useful in quantifying the extent of misappropriation of authorship they are limited by their inability to identify what the participants understood by the term ‘inappropriate’.
The implications of ghost and gift authorship can be serious. First, concerns about authorship may bring the integrity of the research into question. Quite simply, the people who are putting their names to the research might not be able to attest to a lack of fabrication or falsification of results. If these forms of misconduct were rife, such misrepresentation might be sufficiently high to bias the evidence base in health sciences (Gardner et al., 2005, Pryor et al., 2007). Second, accepting practices that exploit junior colleagues or involve outright falsehoods undermines respect owed to, and the value of, academic research. Finally, any failure to tackle dubious practices may entrench a culture that rewards with funding, promotion and prestige those researchers who, at best, make questionable decisions about attributing authorship (Louis, Holdsworth, Anderson, & Campbell, 2008). Rewarding researchers who develop their own publication record through unfair practices threatens the meaning and value of all track records in the academy. As Rennie and Flanagin (1994, p. 471) warned, if publications are ‘counted as coins to assess academic worth… the value of the coins is obscure’.
Given the potentially serious consequences, one might expect considerable investigation of authorship practices. However very little empirical research has been carried out and, to date, qualitative research in the area has been neglected. In this article, we report the experience and perspectives of 17 researchers working in health research and explore the coherence between these findings and the guidelines, regulations, organisational structures, and cultures which underpin norms of behaviour in publication of health research.
Section snippets
Misrepresenting authorship
Guidelines and regulation relating to assignation of authorship for scientific papers have been primarily driven by the scientific journals that publish the work. The most influential organisation in this respect is the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which under the Vancouver Protocol (Updated 2008) sets the following three conditions for inclusion as an author:
- 1.
Substantial contribution to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation
Organisational policy and the responsible conduct of research
Very few studies have examined the professional norms of research scientists (De Vries et al., 2006, Korenman et al., 1998, Swazey et al., 1993). De Vries et al. (2006, p. 44) were critical of the failure to develop policies which were ‘informed by what researchers see as behaviours that hamper the production of trustworthy science’. Policies, they concluded, seemed to develop on the basis of bureaucratic conceptions of relatively uncommon behaviours such as fabrication, falsification and
Authorship and Australian health researchers
This small study conducted in 2006 used qualitative research methods to examine behaviours in the attribution of authorship for health research publications. We conducted semi-structured interviews of approximately one hour in length with staff and doctoral candidates engaged in health research at two Australian universities, both of which are research-intensive institutions awarding research doctorates. Ethical approval for this study was provided by the appropriate ethics committees of the
Data handling and analysis
Fourteen interviews were recorded for reference and note-taking but were not fully transcribed. In response to requests from participants, three interviews were not recorded, but extensive notes were taken during the interviews. The first author (JS) conducted the interviews and noted emerging themes. JS then listened to the tape of each interview to confirm emerging themes and make detailed notes. Short sections of the interviews which illustrated the themes were anonymised and transcribed.
Authorship
Participants offered several reasons why someone would be included as an author. Not surprisingly, doing the work was seen as the primary reason for including someone as an author. A doctoral student working across clinical sciences and social sciences suggested:
“…if you want to put your name to something as an author you really have to think carefully about the input that you have had and… if you are in a position to put up an argument for what you are stating in the paper.” [DC3]
This view was
Discussion
The integrity of the research publication process is fundamental to the integrity of research as a whole. Society's trust in research findings, including trust in public health guidelines and medical advice, is founded on a belief in the trustworthiness of research scientists. The evidence base on which health decisions, practice guidelines, vaccination regimes, screening programs and drug registration are made, relies to a significant extent upon the integrity of published research. In
Conclusion
Researchers have to maintain a difficult balance between, on the one hand, the demands of personal ethical standards, regulatory guidelines and the example of exemplary mentors and, on the other, the requirements of a perverse reward system, the ever increasing competitiveness in research, and the examples and demands of successful researchers who do not follow the rules. International empirical research is needed in order to establish cultural differences and there is a need for further
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the research participants, the Postgraduate Students' Associations of the universities involved, the Ethics Centre of South Australia and Flinders Institute of Health and Medical Research for their support for this project.
References (37)
- et al.
The social and cultural shaping of medical evidence: case studies from pharmaceutical research and obstetric science
Social Science & Medicine
(2006) - et al.
Authors' reports about research integrity problems in clinical trials
Contemporary Clinical Trials
(2005) Foreign students in plagiarism scandal
The Age
(22/08/2007)- et al.
Authorship criteria and disclosure of contributions: comparison of three general medical journals with different author contribution forms
Journal of the American Medical Association
(2004) - et al.
The vexed question of authorship: views of researchers in a British medical faculty
British Medical Journal
(1997) Guidelines on good publication practice
- et al.
Normal misbehaviour: scientists talk about the ethics of research
Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics
(2006) Who is accountable?
Nature
(2007)- et al.
Prevalence of articles with honorary authors and ghost authors in peer-reviewed medical journals
Journal of the American Medical Association
(1998) - et al.
Authorship decision making: an empirical investigation
Ethics & Behavior
(2007)
The physician writer's book – Tricks of the trade of medical writing
Integrity in scientific research: Creating an environment that promotes responsible conduct
Evaluation of the research norms of scientists and administrators responsible for academic research integrity
Journal of the American Medical Association
Qualitative research methods
Everyday ethics in research: translating authorship guidelines into practice in the bench sciences
Journal of Higher Education
Scientists behaving badly
Nature
Scientist's perceptions of organizational justice and self-reported misbehaviors
Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics
Cited by (70)
Bibliometrics as a promising tool for solving publication ethics issues
2022, HeliyonCitation Excerpt :Ghost authorship is the opposite of previous types and associated with the absence of the name of the actual author in the byline. This practice is most prevalent in the field of biomedical sciences and in pharmaceutics [22], where junior medical personnel often plays the role of ghost authors [25]. Thus, inappropriate authorship is social, ethical, and management problem being one of the types of simulation of research activity [26] resulting in a decrease of a share of quality scientific content [27].
Losing young researchers in the authorship battle, under-reported casualties
2022, Ethics, Medicine and Public HealthFactors influencing pharmacy faculty behavior, perceptions, and challenges with determining authorship credit
2021, Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and LearningCitation Excerpt :As there are differences in publication rates depending on discipline, tenure status, type of institution (public or private), and level of research funding, these variables may influence authorship and author order.8–11 Authors need guidance through these challenges for supporting ethical behavior.12 Best practices for authorship have been stated by the International Committee for Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)13 and World Association of Medical Editors.14
Measuring dissatisfaction with coauthorship: An empirical approach based on the researchers' perception
2019, Journal of InformetricsCitation Excerpt :In any case, the biggest difference between these two measures reflects a separation between the daily practice of scientists and journal editors. This finding is consistent with (Street, Roger, Israel, and Braunack-Mayer (2010) conclusions that the strict norms of scientific editors are often misaligned with the practical and implicit norms that regulate the everyday work of academics. In addition to heterogeneity in study periods and samples, the differences in the results reported in the literature can be attributed to researchers’ narrow focus on a very specific field or subfield (Hoen, Walvoort, & Overbeke, 1998; Slone, 1996; Marušić et al., 2004; Ivaniš, Hren, Sambunjak, Marušic, & Marušic, 2008; Eisenberg et al., 2011; Bonekamp et al., 2012; Eisenberg et al., 2014; Rajasekaran et al., 2014).
The Art of Scientific Writing and Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence
2024, Journal of the Brazilian Chemical SocietyAcademic co-authorship is a risky game
2023, Scientometrics