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Martins RS, Mustafa MA, Fatimi AS, Nasir N, Pervez A, Nadeem S. The CalculAuthor: determining authorship using a simple-to-use, fair, objective, and transparent process. BMC Res Notes 2023; 16:329. [PMID: 37951910 PMCID: PMC10640724 DOI: 10.1186/s13104-023-06597-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2023] [Accepted: 10/26/2023] [Indexed: 11/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Authorship determination on a research article remains a largely subjective process. Existing guidelines on authorship taxonomy lack objectivity and are more useful in determining who deserves authorship rather than determining the order of authors. To promote best practices in authorship taxonomy, we developed an authorship rubric that provides a fair, objective, and transparent means of crediting authorship. We christened this tool the "CalculAuthor". The following steps are to be undertaken to create a scoring system based on the requirements of the projects: determining creditable criteria, assigning credit weightages, deciding levels of contribution, determining each author's contribution, calculating authorship scores and ranking. These must be performed by or in close collaboration with the primary investigator (PI), with conflicts being resolved at the PI's discretion. All team members should be informed about the authorship determination process early in the project and their agreement regarding its use must be obtained. While the CalculAuthor was developed to be used in medical research, its customizability enables it to be employed in any field of academia. We recommend that the CalculAuthor be piloted within institutions before its mainstream adoption, and any institution-specific factors should be considered to make the process more efficient and suitable.
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Affiliation(s)
- Russell Seth Martins
- Division of Thoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, JFK University Medical Center, Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, Hackensack Meridian Health (HMH) Network, Edison, NJ, 08820, USA.
| | - Mohsin Ali Mustafa
- CITRIC Center for Clinical Best Practices, Aga Khan University, Karachi, 74800, Pakistan
| | | | - Nosheen Nasir
- Department of Medicine, Aga Khan University, Karachi, 74800, Pakistan
| | - Alina Pervez
- CITRIC Center for Clinical Best Practices, Aga Khan University, Karachi, 74800, Pakistan
| | - Sarah Nadeem
- CITRIC Center for Clinical Best Practices, Aga Khan University, Karachi, 74800, Pakistan
- Department of Medicine, Aga Khan University, Karachi, 74800, Pakistan
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Smith E. "Technical" Contributors and Authorship Distribution in Health Science. SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING ETHICS 2023; 29:22. [PMID: 37341846 DOI: 10.1007/s11948-023-00445-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/02/2022] [Accepted: 05/08/2023] [Indexed: 06/22/2023]
Abstract
In health sciences, technical contributions may be undervalued and excluded in the author byline. In this paper, I demonstrate how authorship is a historical construct which perpetuates systemic injustices including technical undervaluation. I make use of Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual work to demonstrate how the power dynamics at play in academia make it very challenging to change the habitual state or "habitus". To counter this, I argue that we must reconceive technical contributions to not be a priori less important based on its nature when assigning roles and opportunities leading to authorship. I make this argument based on two premises. First, science has evolved due to major information and biotechnological innovation; this requires 'technicians' to acquire and exercise a commensurate high degree of both technical and intellectual expertise which in turn increases the value of their contribution. I will illustrate this by providing a brief historical view of work statisticians, computer programmers/data scientists and laboratory technicians. Second, excluding or undervaluing this type of work is contrary to norms of responsibility, fairness and trustworthiness of the individual researchers and of teams in science. Although such norms are continuously tested because of power dynamics, their importance is central to ethical authorship practice and research integrity. While it may be argued that detailed disclosure of contributions (known as contributorship) increases accountability by clearly identifying who did what in the publication, I contend that this may unintentionally legitimize undervaluation of technical roles and may decrease integrity of science. Finally, this paper offers recommendations to promote ethical inclusion of technical contributors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elise Smith
- Department of Bioethics and Health Humanities, School of Public and Population Health, Member of the Institute for Translational Sciences, University of Texas MedicalBranch, Galveston, TX, USA.
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Carfagno ML, Schweers SA, Whann EA, Hodgson MB, Mittleman KD, Nastasee SA, Sorgenfrei T, Kodukulla MI. Building consensus on author selection practices for industry-sponsored research: recommendations from an expert task force of medical publication professionals. Curr Med Res Opin 2022; 38:863-870. [PMID: 35437066 DOI: 10.1080/03007995.2022.2050111] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Many biomedical journals follow the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations and criteria for authorship. ICMJE criterion 1 provides the basis for selecting authors according to their substantial contributions to the work reported in the publication. Identifying substantial contributions and their application for author selection can be challenging, especially for multicenter studies with large numbers of investigators and contributors. Contributions are not frequently documented during study conduct and authorship decisions may lack transparency, objectivity, and context. METHODS The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) Authorship Task Force surveyed members on authorship practices, reviewed the literature defining substantial contributions to ICMJE criterion 1, and assessed existing tools or algorithms for determining authorship in industry-sponsored research. Contributions were categorized under the four sub-categories of ICMJE criterion 1: study concept and design, acquisition of data, data analysis, and data interpretation. RESULTS Survey findings and literature review confirmed the need for clear and consistent interpretation, application, and documentation of ICMJE criterion 1 for transparent decisions about authorship. The Task Force reached consensus on definitions of substantial contributions to be considered when selecting authors of industry-sponsored research. The subsequent recommendations were grouped according to the sub-categories of ICMJE criterion 1. In addition, the Task Force developed recommendations regarding contributions that do not merit authorship designation. CONCLUSIONS The Task Force recommendations for objective and consistent interpretation of ICMJE criterion 1 will facilitate an author selection process grounded in the core principles of substantial intellectual contribution to the work's conception or design, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data. While these recommendations are focused on author selection practices for industry-sponsored research, they may be applicable to publications in other areas of scientific and biomedical research.
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Teixeira da Silva JA. Multiple co-first authors, co-corresponding authors and co-supervisors: a synthesis of shared authorship credit. ONLINE INFORMATION REVIEW 2021. [DOI: 10.1108/oir-06-2020-0219] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
PurposeAuthorship is the ultimate status of intellectual recognition in academic publishing. Although fairly robust guidelines have already been in place for a considerable amount of time regarding authorship criteria and credit, such as those by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors or Contributor Roles Taxonomy, the lack of reliable verification techniques hamper their accuracy, thereby reducing the validity of authorship claims in such statements. This paper aims to focus on the authorship status and responsibilities of co-first authors and co-corresponding authors.Design/methodology/approachTo appreciate authorship responsibilities in this subset of authors, the broader academic authorship literature, as well as position statements, rules and guidelines, were consulted.FindingsAcademic publishing that relies on metrics is a global multi-billion-dollar business, so strict measures to assess and confirm authorship, which can be intellectually or financially “profitable” among academics that game such metrics, are needed. The current assessment is that there are inconsistent rules for equally credited authors such as co-first authors, co-corresponding authors and co-supervisors. In shared and collaborative authorship, there are also shared authorship-related responsibilities, but these are infrequently discussed, or tend to only be dealt with broadly.Originality/valueWithin the wider, and important, discussion about authorship, which is one of the most central issues in academic publishing, there has been a limited focus on equally credited authors such as co-first authors, co-corresponding authors and co-supervisors. This paper expands and fortifies that discussion.
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Masud N, Masuadi E, Moukaddem A, Omair A, Mohamud M, Al Dubayee M, Althubaiti A, Alnamshan MK, Bawazeer M, AlJasser MI. Development and Validation of Authorship Order Score (AOS) for Scientific Publication. HEALTH PROFESSIONS EDUCATION 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.hpe.2020.04.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/24/2022] Open
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Responsible Conduct of Research and Ethical Publishing Practices: A Proposal to Resolve ‘Authorship Disputes’ over Multi-Author Paper Publication. JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC ETHICS 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s10805-020-09375-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
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Hosseini M, Gordijn B. A review of the literature on ethical issues related to scientific authorship. Account Res 2020; 27:284-324. [PMID: 32243214 DOI: 10.1080/08989621.2020.1750957] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Abstract
The article at hand presents the results of a literature review on the ethical issues related to scientific authorship. These issues are understood as questions and/or concerns about obligations, values or virtues in relation to reporting, authorship and publication of research results. For this purpose, the Web of Science core collection was searched for English resources published between 1945 and 2018, and a total of 324 items were analyzed. Based on the review of the documents, ten ethical themes have been identified, some of which entail several ethical issues. Ranked on the basis of their frequency of occurrence these themes are: 1) attribution, 2) violations of the norms of authorship, 3) bias, 4) responsibility and accountability, 5) authorship order, 6) citations and referencing, 7) definition of authorship, 8) publication strategy, 9) originality, and 10) sanctions. In mapping these themes, the current article explores major ethical issue and provides a critical discussion about the application of codes of conduct, various understandings of culture, and contributing factors to unethical behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammad Hosseini
- Institute of Ethics, School of Theology, Philosophy and Music, Dublin City University , Dublin, Ireland
| | - Bert Gordijn
- Institute of Ethics, School of Theology, Philosophy and Music, Dublin City University , Dublin, Ireland
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Satalkar P, Perneger T, Shaw D. Accommodating an Uninvited Guest: Perspectives of Researchers in Switzerland on 'Honorary' Authorship. SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING ETHICS 2020; 26:947-967. [PMID: 31784940 DOI: 10.1007/s11948-019-00162-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2018] [Accepted: 11/26/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyze the attitudes and reactions of researchers towards an authorship claim made by a researcher in a position of authority who has not made any scientific contribution to a manuscript or helped to write it. This paper draws on semi-structured interviews conducted with 33 researchers at three seniority levels working in biomedicine and the life sciences in Switzerland. This manuscript focuses on the analysis of participants' responses when presented with a vignette describing an authorship assignment dilemma within a research group. The analysis indicates that researchers use a variety of explanations and arguments to justify inclusion of what guidelines would describe as honorary or guest authorship. Fuzzy parameters such as "substantial contribution" lead to varied interpretation and consequently convenient application of authorship guidelines in practice. Factors such as the culture of the research group, the values and practice shaped by the research leaders, the hierarchy and relative (perceived) positions of power within research institutions, and the importance given to publications as the currency for academic success and growth tend to have a strong influence on authorship practice. Unjustified authorship assignment practices can be reduced to some extent by creating empowering research cultures where each researcher irrespective of his/her career stage feels empowered to confidently raise concerns without fearing adverse impact on their professional lives. However, individual researchers and research institutions currently have limited influence on established methods for evaluating academic success, which is primarily based on the number of high impact publications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Priya Satalkar
- Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Bernoullistrasse 28, 4056, Basel, Switzerland.
| | - Thomas Perneger
- Division of Clinical Epidemiology, University Hospital Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - David Shaw
- Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Bernoullistrasse 28, 4056, Basel, Switzerland
- Department of Health, Ethics and Society, Care and Public Health Research Institute, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
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Fang H. Normalized Paper Credit Assignment: A Solution for the Ethical Dilemma Induced by Multiple Important Authors. SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING ETHICS 2018; 24:1589-1601. [PMID: 28936786 DOI: 10.1007/s11948-017-9973-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2017] [Accepted: 08/04/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
With the growth of research collaborations, the average number of authors per article and the phenomenon of equally important authorships have increased. The essence of the phenomenon of equally important authorships is the approximately equal importance of authors, both because of the difficulties in comparing authors' contributions to a paper and some actual research evaluation practices, which (approximately) give full paper credit only to the most important authors. A mechanism for indicating that various authors contributed equally is required to maintain and strengthen collaboration. However, the phenomenon of multiple important authors can cause unfair comparisons among the research contributions and abilities of authors of different papers. This loophole may be exploited. Normalizing the credit assigned to a given paper's authors is an easy way to solve this ethical dilemma. This approach enables fair comparisons of the contributions by the authors of different articles and suppresses unethical behaviour in author listings. Bibliometric researchers have proposed mature methods of normalized paper credit assignment that would be easy to use given the current level of computer adoption.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hui Fang
- State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, No. 163, Xianlin Avenue, Qixia District, Nanjing, China.
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Boyer S, Ikeda T, Lefort MC, Malumbres-Olarte J, Schmidt JM. Percentage-based Author Contribution Index: a universal measure of author contribution to scientific articles. Res Integr Peer Rev 2017; 2:18. [PMID: 29451536 PMCID: PMC5803580 DOI: 10.1186/s41073-017-0042-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2017] [Accepted: 10/13/2017] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Deciphering the amount of work provided by different co-authors of a scientific paper has been a recurrent problem in science. Despite the myriad of metrics available, the scientific community still largely relies on the position in the list of authors to evaluate contributions, a metric that attributes subjective and unfounded credit to co-authors. We propose an easy to apply, universally comparable and fair metric to measure and report co-authors contribution in the scientific literature. METHODS The proposed Author Contribution Index (ACI) is based on contribution percentages provided by the authors, preferably at the time of submission. Researchers can use ACI to compare the contributions of different authors, describe the contribution profile of a particular researcher or analyse how contribution changes through time. We provide such an analysis based on contribution percentages provided by 97 scientists from the field of ecology who voluntarily responded to an online anonymous survey. RESULTS ACI is simple to understand and to implement because it is based solely on percentage contributions and the number of co-authors. It provides a continuous score that reflects the contribution of one author as compared to the average contribution of all other authors. For example, ACI(i) = 3, means that author i contributed three times more than what the other authors contributed on average. Our analysis comprised 836 papers published in 2014-2016 and revealed patterns of ACI values that relate to career advancement. CONCLUSION There are many examples of author contribution indices that have been proposed but none has really been adopted by scientific journals. Many of the proposed solutions are either too complicated, not accurate enough or not comparable across articles, authors and disciplines. The author contribution index presented here addresses these three major issues and has the potential to contribute to more transparency in the science literature. If adopted by scientific journals, it could provide job seekers, recruiters and evaluating bodies with a tool to gather information that is essential to them and cannot be easily and accurately obtained otherwise. We also suggest that scientists use the index regardless of whether it is implemented by journals or not.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stéphane Boyer
- 1Institut de Recherche sur la Biologie de l'Insecte (IRBI) - UMR 7261 CNRS / Université de Tours, Parc Grandmont, 37200 Tours, France
- 2Applied Molecular Solutions Research Group, Environmental and Animal Sciences, Unitec Institute of Technology, Private Bag 92025, Victoria Street West, Auckland, 1142 New Zealand
| | - Takayoshi Ikeda
- Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama Institute for Earth Sciences, 3173-25 Showa-machi, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, 236-0001 Japan
| | - Marie-Caroline Lefort
- 2Applied Molecular Solutions Research Group, Environmental and Animal Sciences, Unitec Institute of Technology, Private Bag 92025, Victoria Street West, Auckland, 1142 New Zealand
- 4Bio-Protection Research Centre, Lincoln University, P. O. Box 85084, Christchurch, 7647 New Zealand
| | - Jagoba Malumbres-Olarte
- 5Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, and Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio), University of Barcelona, Avd. Diagonal, 643, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
- 6Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Jason M Schmidt
- 7Department of Entomology, The University of Georgia, Coastal Plain Experimental Station, 2360 Rainwater Rd, Tifton, GA 31793 USA
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Abstract
Multiple inherent biases related to different citation practices (for e.g., self-citations, negative citations, wrong citations, multi-authorship-biased citations, honorary citations, circumstantial citations, discriminatory citations, selective and arbitrary citations, etc.) make citation-based bibliometrics strongly flawed and defective measures. A paper can be highly cited for a while (for e.g., under circumstantial or transitional knowledge), but years later it may appear that its findings, paradigms, or theories were untrue or invalid anymore. By contrast, a paper may remain shelved or overlooked for years or decades, but new studies or discoveries may actualize its subject at any moment. As citation-based metrics are transformed into "commercial activities," the "citation credit" should be considered on a commercial basis too, in the sense that "citation credit" should be shared out as a "citation dividend" by shareholders (coauthors) averagely or proportionally to their contributions but not fully appropriated by each of them. At equal numbers of citations, the greater number of authors, the lower "citation credit" should be and vice versa. Overlooking the presence of distorted and subjective citation practices makes many people and administrators "obsessed" with the number of citations to such an extent to run after "highly cited" authors and to create specialized citation databases for commercial purposes. Citation-based bibliometrics, however, are unreliable and unscientific measures; citation counts do not mean that a more cited work is of a higher quality or accuracy than a less cited work because citations do not measure the quality or accuracy. Citations do not mean that a highly cited author or journal is more commendable than a less cited author or journal. Citations are not more than countable numbers: no more, no less.
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Affiliation(s)
- Khaled Moustafa
- a Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers , Paris , France
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Smith E, Master Z. Best Practice to Order Authors in Multi/Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Research Publications. Account Res 2017; 24:243-267. [PMID: 28128975 DOI: 10.1080/08989621.2017.1287567] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Misunderstanding and disputes about authorship are commonplace among members of multi/interdisciplinary health research teams. If left unmanaged and unresolved, these conflicts can undermine knowledge sharing and collaboration, obscure accountability for research, and contribute to the incorrect attribution of credit. To mitigate these issues, certain researchers suggest quantitative authorship distributions schemes (e.g., point systems), while others wish to replace or minimize the importance of authorship by using "contributorship"-a system based on authors' self-reporting contributions. While both methods have advantages, we argue that authorship and contributorship will most likely continue to coexist for multiple ethical and practical reasons. In this article, we develop a five-step "best practice" that incorporates the distribution of both contributorship and authorship for multi/interdisciplinary research. This procedure involves continuous dialogue and the use of a detailed contributorship taxonomy ending with a declaration explaining contributorship, which is used to justify authorship order. Institutions can introduce this approach in responsible conduct of research training as it promotes greater fairness, trust, and collegiality among team members and ultimately reduces confusion and facilitates resolution of time-consuming disagreements.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elise Smith
- a Bioethics Programs, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine , University of Montreal , Montreal , Canada.,b National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences , National Institutes of Health, Research Triangle Park , North Carolina , USA
| | - Zubin Master
- a Bioethics Programs, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine , University of Montreal , Montreal , Canada.,c Alden March Bioethics Institute , Albany Medical College , Albany , New York , USA
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Menezes RG, Kharoshah MA, Madadin M, Marakala V, Lasrado S, Al Tamimi DM. Authorship: Few Myths and Misconceptions. SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING ETHICS 2016; 22:1843-1847. [PMID: 26670920 DOI: 10.1007/s11948-015-9742-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2015] [Accepted: 12/08/2015] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
This article seeks to address and dispel some of the popular myths and misconceptions surrounding authorship of a scientific publication as this is often misconstrued by beginners in academia especially those in the developing world. While ethical issues in publishing related to authorship have been increasingly discussed, not much has been written about the myths and misconceptions of who might be an author. Dispelling these myths and misconceptions would go a long way in shaping the thoughts and plans of students, junior faculty and researchers in academia especially in the developing world.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Vijaya Marakala
- International Medical School, Management and Science University, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Savita Lasrado
- Father Muller Medical College and Hospital, Mangalore, India
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Joob B, Wiwanitkit V. Authorship, credit, contribution and problems. EUROPEAN SPINE JOURNAL : OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE EUROPEAN SPINE SOCIETY, THE EUROPEAN SPINAL DEFORMITY SOCIETY, AND THE EUROPEAN SECTION OF THE CERVICAL SPINE RESEARCH SOCIETY 2016; 25:918. [PMID: 26643294 DOI: 10.1007/s00586-015-4351-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/26/2015] [Revised: 11/28/2015] [Accepted: 11/28/2015] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Beuy Joob
- Sanitation 1 Medical Academic Center, Bangkok, Thailand.
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