The corresponding author as well as the co-authors admit that they have omitted one author (author X) who was responsible for a major part of the work in their study.
Author X insists on having full acknowledgment in the authorship line and would not be satisfied with an erratum.
What should I do? Please advise also about whether author X will appear in different citation trackers as one of the co-authors.
The Forum agreed that you can change the author list of a paper that is published online, even if it has a DOI number. As the paper has been published online, it cannot be withdrawn as it is already published. It would have to be retracted, which would not be appropriate in this instance. The editor should issue a correction, with the new
authorship line, but he must first make sure that all of the authors agree to the correction.
The changed authorship line will not appear on PubMed—the original list will still appear—but the correction will be associated with the paper. The editor should check whether other indexing systems follow the same procedures as PubMed.