- CaseOn-going
Authorship dispute regarding author order
A paper was accepted in 2012 but there was a lengthy disagreement between the four authors regarding the order of authorship. The authors were advised that the paper would not be published unless all authors could sign a written agreement on the order of authorship and copyright form. An agreement was received in 2015 that specified the order of authorship and named one of the authors… - Case
Authorship without the author’s knowledge
A paper was rejected on the reviewer’s recommendation. The editor met one of the senior authors at a conference and out of politeness apologised for rejecting his paper. He was surprised to learn that the senior author had no knowledge of this paper and that the corresponding author had written papers using the senior author’s name without his knowledge in the past. This prompted the editor to… - Case
What constitutes authorship?
…make a substantial scientific contribution to the article and that the notice in the acknowledgments was appropriate. Authors X and Y hold similar views as to what author Y's contribution was, but different views on whether this is sufficient for authorship. The editor notified authors X, Y and the administrative head of the institute, and recommended that the parties resolve the matter among… - Case
Disputed authorship
Last year, a paper was published with four named authors. The journal concerned then received a letter from another person claiming that they should also have been credited with authorship. That person (Dr M) had been the second author on an abstract with a similar title presented at a conference, on which the authors of the published paper were also named authors. The journal wrote to the… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship of a commentary
The Forum agreed that it is not necessarily unethical for an associate editor to author a commentary, but in this situation, the associate editor and the original author of the commentary need to explain how the associate editor came to be a co-author. There is a potential issue of coercion, where the associate editor may have persuaded the co-authors to assign them authorship. The second… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship dispute unsatisfactorily resolved by institution
The journal was contacted with a claim to first authorship of a paper currently published online ahead of print. Print publication was put on hold pending the result of the investigation. The claim to first authorship was based on the claimant stating that they had obtained most results published in the paper during their PhD studies under the supervision of the corresponding author, and… - Seminars and webinars
North America Seminar 2014: Persistent identifiers in the authoring process
…Download presentation: Persistent identifiers in the authoring process [PDF, 7400KB]… - CaseOn-going
Inconclusive institutional investigation into authorship dispute
…not to have noticed the mistake at that time. The journal asked Author B to explain the reason for objecting to the erratum. Author B instead replied with an accusation that Author A did not contribute to the experiments or writing of the article and therefore should be removed from the author list. The journal contacted all authors reminding them of the ICMJE authorship criteria and asking… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship dispute
The Forum agreed that the current paper cannot stand in its present form—some form of correction of the literature needs to be done. It is clear that the data are the intellectual property of Dr B, but this is essentially an authorship dispute, and it is up to the authors to resolve it. Although the results of the paper are not in dispute, the editor could decide to retract the paper and tell… - CaseCase Closed
Accusation of non-attribution of authorship
…complainant made contact again saying that he still wanted to be an author so that he could use the reference in his CV. The editor responded sympathetically but concluded that "we published it in good faith on the reasonable assumption that the authorship was agreed. It really isn't appropriate to ask us to re-attribute authorship in this way". We told him that we had now decided to refer the case… - Case
Authorship issue
The editors of a scientific journal were sent a letter of complaint from Drs A and B who noticed that a paper had been published online ahead of the print edition authored by Dr C. Their primary complaint was that they were not included in the authorship and should have been. Other points made in their (rather confusing letters) were that: they had contributed to the paper in the sense… - CaseCase Closed
Requesting authorship after publication
…in this article. However, he believes he should have been listed as an author because the article would not have been possible without his database. We told him that the journal conforms strictly to ICMJE's policy on authorship and asked him for more information on his contributions. Although it appears that he fulfils the first criteria because of his involvement in the original… - CaseCase Closed
Questionable authorship information
…writers are unlikely to be named as authors on primary research articles. However they may qualify for authorship of review articles, for example if they have conducted an extensive literature search.’ We are also concerned that the institutional association may no longer be valid as information elsewhere indicates that the author is now employed elsewhere. The authors have freely disclosed… - CaseOn-going
Authorship dispute
A manuscript was published by journal X and submitted by author A (last author). Author B claims that fraud occurred in relation to authorship for the following reasons. (1) Author A did not take part in producing the data for the paper and has never been a co-author on any version of the manuscript.(2) A paper with very similar content ,which was part of the PhD thesis of author… - Case
Retraction of false authorship
Dr X asked for a statement to be published to the effect that the letter he had published in the journal with two co-authors was not based on any work that he had done, but on that of his colleagues. The editor asked the other two authors why they had signed a copyright form in these circumstances. Both authors stated that they had not signed any such form, and when presented with a copy, state… - CaseOn-going
Inappropriate authorship on students paper
…was questioned on authorship criteria. If it was the supervisor’s project and the students had helped, then why were there so many students listed (13 in all)? If it was the students’ project, which is a requirement of their curriculum, then why was the supervisor the first author? He/she should be acknowledged only. The authors decided to withdraw the article on the grounds that they wanted… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship dispute involving a commercial institution
…this inhouse and that the patent they co-wrote and that overlaps with the article should be enough to determine authorship. For the moment, no action has been taken. Given that the complainant is an associate editor, the journal would like to ensure that all actions have been considered. Question for the Forum What further actions… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship order dispute
…authorship order. The author (Dr D) who is refusing to sign the copyright undertook a substantial early literature review for the manuscript but this was taken over by another colleague (Dr E) when Dr D had to leave due to a long term illness. Dr C was the initiator of the subject matter for the study and oversaw the early directions of Dr D’s efforts. The manuscript was ultimately put together by… - Case
Advice regarding a weird type of content and its authorship
…/> • But what if there are authorship disputes? We would have to mediate them, right? Does this approach to authorship make any sense at all?… - Case
Should editors get involved in authorship disputes?
_ The American did not do the research; he generated the hypothesis that the Finns tested, using the data they had generated. _ He could be a contributor, therefore, as he meets the criteria for authorship, and his money was also accepted, suggesting collaboration. _ The American published a letter in the journal about the Finnish data, so he has been able to respond to the findings. _ It is…