In this webinar, the speakers cover ways of promoting ethical authorship and preventing fraudulent authorship. The CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) system, authorship definitions and policies, and relevant operating procedures and education are reviewed from institutional and publishing perspectives. This session is one of nine webinars as part of the COPE Seminar 2021.
Introduction
Trevor Lane, a publishing and education consultant based in Hong Kong and COPE Council member, began the session with an overview of the types of authorship issues in scholarly publishing and what COPE requires of members to reach the highest standards in authorship. Trevor explored the need for clear contributions using, for example a contributor roles taxonomy such as CRediT, and clear authorship criteria. He also explored where authorship issues become unethical or fraudulent with examples of gift, guest and ghost authorship and others.
Ethical authorship versus fraudulent authorship
Promoting ethical authorship for a positive research culture
Sam Oakley Researcher Development and Integrity Specialist at the University of Glasgow (UofG), spoke about activities at UofG where helping researchers navigate the challenges of publication decisions in a way that supports the highest quality research while also giving them the best opportunities for their careers.
Sam explains how the work institutions do on research culture supports authorship. UofG have guidelines for good practice in research, and a clear misconduct policy and process, supported by internal training and learning. Work on the research culture action plan at UofG since 2015 leads the direction of travel for the university and what it values in research culture. Key to this is societal impact, and the people who are involved in the process: “A better research culture is not an alternative to excellence but rather it is what will enable more of us to excel”.
Why authorship matters
Evan D Kharasch, is the Merel H Harmel Professor of Anesthesiology, Duke University, and the editor in chief of Anesthesiology. Evan began his talk describing the minimum requirements for authorship and understanding the criteria for authorship. There is inflation in the number of authors which is problematic particularly the inclusion of gift, guest or ghost authorship. Moving on to "why do authorship problems exist?", Evan talked about authors, institutions and journals in relation to the factors affecting authorship problems including: credit, reputation, status and financial gains. He then went on to identify what can be done about fraudulent authorship, highlighting examples of policies and practice in Anesthesiology journal for editors, authors, and institutions..
The presentations were followed by a question and answer session.
Useful links
Cooperation between research institutions and journals on research integrity cases COPE Guidelines
CRediT – Contributor Roles Taxonomy
Hong Kong Principles for assessing researchers
Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics
Singapore Statement on Research Integrity
Montreal Statement on Research Integrity in Cross-Boundary Research Collaborations
Related COPE resources
Changes in authorship flowcharts
How to recognise potential authorship problems flowchart
How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers guidelines
Authorship discussion document
Inconclusive institutional investigation into authorship dispute case discussion
Gift, guest or ghost authorship flowchart
Authorship cases discussed at the COPE Forum
Responsible authorship WCRI 2019
About this resource
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