An article was published in a journal. Seven months later an email was received from an author declaring that he was invited by the lead author of the article to help with statistical analysis and had made significant contributions to the paper. To his surprise, he realised that the article was published and he was not listed as a coauthor.
The editor asked the complaining author to respond to several questions, including: whether he had contributed to the manuscript in accordance with COPE authorship criteria? Was there a written agreement with the lead investigator and other authors to include him as a coauthor of the article for the support he provided: Was he listed, at some point, as an author of the manuscript, and then removed without his knowledge? The author responded that he believed he fulfilled some of the criteria for authorship. He only had a verbal agreement with the main author and he had never been listed on the paper.
The complaining author was included as a coauthor in five articles published in the journal, by the lead and accused author. The lead author maintains that the contribution of the complaining author was not significant to warrant authorship. There are accusations back and forth, phone calls by both parties to the journal offices and to the editor personally.
Question for COPE Council
- What is the most appropriate response in this case?
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance.
Authorship disputes are normally very difficult to adjudicate, and COPE recommends that journals do not enter into such disputes. Furthermore, they recommend that journals may not make authorship changes unless the reasons are clear and all of the authors agree to the change. In this case, authors' institution(s) should be involved, and the dispute should be referred to the authors' institution(s).
The editor should contact the lead author informing them that, unless the parties involved can reach a prompt agreement on this matter themselves, it will be referred to the university, in accordance with the COPE flowchart on adding authors after publication. The editor may also wish to advise the author to consult the COPE discussion document on Authorship.