Honorary Authorship in Radiologic Research Articles: Assessment of Pattern and Longitudinal Evolution

Automatically listing senior members of departments as co-authors is highly prevalent in health sciences: meta-analysis of survey research

A systematic review with meta-analysis was conducted to assess the prevalence of automatically listing (a) senior member(s) of a department as co-author(s) on all submitted articles in health sciences and the prevalence of degrees of support on a 5-point justification scale. Survey research was searched in PubMed, Lens.org, and Dimensions.ai. until January 5 2023. We assessed the methodological quality of studies and conducted quantitative syntheses. We identified 15 eligible surveys, that provided 67 results, all of which were rated as having low quality. A pooled estimate of 20% [95% CI 16-25] (10 surveys, 3619 respondents) of researchers in various health sciences reported that a senior member of their department was automatically listed as an author on all submitted articles. Furthermore, 28% [95% CI 22-34] of researchers (10 surveys, 2180 respondents) felt that this practice was 'never', 24% [95% CI 22-27] 'rarely', 25% [95% CI 23-28] 'sometimes', 13% [95% CI 9-17] 'most of the time', and 8% [95% CI 6-9] 'always justified'. The practice of automatically assigning senior members of departments as co-authors on all submitted manuscripts may be common in the health sciences; with those admitting to this practice finding it unjustified in most cases.Registration of the protocol The protocol was registered in Open Science Framework. Link: https://osf.io/4eywp/ .

Honorary authorship is highly prevalent in health sciences: systematic review and meta-analysis of surveys

A systematic review and meta-analysis of survey research was conducted to estimate honorary authorship prevalence in health sciences. We searched PubMed, Lens.org, and Dimensions.ai. until January 5 2023. Methodological quality was assessed and quantitative syntheses were conducted. Nineteen surveys were included and rated as having low methodological quality. We found a pooled prevalence of 26% [95% CI 21-31] (6 surveys, 2758 respondents) of researchers that perceived co-author(s) as honorary on the publication at issue (when they were not referred to any authorship criteria). That prevalence was 18% [95% CI 15-21] (11 surveys, 4272 respondents) when researchers were referred to Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship criteria, and 51% [95% CI 47-56] (15 surveys, 5111 respondents) when researchers were asked to declare their co-author(s) contributions on the publication at issue (and these were then compared to ICMJE criteria). 10% of researchers [95% CI 9-12] (11 surveys, 3,663 respondents) reported being approached by others to include honorary author(s) on the publication at issue and 16% [95% CI 13-18] (2 surveys, 823 respondents) admitted adding (an) honorary author(s). Survey research consistently indicates that honorary authorship in the health sciences is highly prevalent, however the quality of the surveys' methods and reporting needs improvement.

Scientific Fraud, Publication Bias, and Honorary Authorship in Nuclear Medicine

Our objective was to investigate nuclear medicine scientists' experience with scientific fraud, publication bias, and honorary authorship. Methods: Corresponding authors who published an article in one of the 15 general nuclear medicine journals (according to Journal Citation Reports) in 2021 received an invitation to participate in a survey on scientific integrity. Results: In total, 254 (12.4%) of 1,897 corresponding authors completed the survey, of whom 11 (4.3%) admitted to having committed scientific fraud and 54 (21.3%) reported having witnessed or suspected scientific fraud by someone in their department in the past 5 y. Publication bias was considered present by 222 (87.4%) respondents, and honorary authorship practices were experienced by 100 (39.4%) respondents. Respondents assigned a median score of 8 (range, 2-10) on a 1- to 10-point scale for their overall confidence in the integrity of published work. On multivariate analysis, researchers in Asia had significantly more confidence in the integrity of published work, with a β-coefficient of 0.983 (95% CI, 0.512-1.454; P < 0.001). A subset of 22 respondents raised additional concerns, mainly about authorship criteria and assignments, the generally poor quality of published studies, and perverse incentives of journals and publishers. Conclusion: Scientific fraud, publication bias, and honorary authorship appear to be nonnegligible practices in nuclear medicine. Overall confidence in the integrity of published work is high, particularly among researchers in Asia.

Scientific integrity and fraud in radiology research

PURPOSE

To investigate the view of radiologists on the integrity of their own and their colleagues' scientific work.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Corresponding authors of articles that were published in 12 general radiology journals in 2021 were invited to participate in a survey on scientific integrity.

RESULTS

A total of 219 (6.2 %) of 3,511 invited corresponding authors participated. Thirteen (5.9 %) respondents reported having committed scientific fraud, and 60 (27.4 %) witnessed or suspect scientific fraud among their departmental members in the past 5 years. Misleading reporting (32.2 %), duplicate/redundant publication (26.3 %), plagiarism (15.3 %), and data manipulation/falsification (13.6 %) were the most commonly reported types of scientific fraud. Publication bias exists according to 184 (84.5 %) respondents, and 89 (40.6 %) respondents had honorary authors on their publications in the past 5 years. General confidence in the integrity of scientific publications ranged between 2 and 10 (median: 8) on a 0-10 point scale. Common topics of interest and concern among respondents were authorship criteria and assignments, perverse incentives (including the influence of money, funding, and academic promotions on the practice of research), and poorly performed research without intentional fraud.

CONCLUSION

Radiology researchers reported that scientific fraud and other undesirable practices such as publication bias and honorary authorship are relatively common. Their general confidence in the scientific integrity of published work was relatively high, but far from perfect. These data may trigger stakeholders in the radiology community to place scientific integrity higher on the agenda, and to initiate cultural and policy reforms to remove perverse research incentives.

An Ethical Exploration of Increased Average Number of Authors Per Publication

This article explores the impact of an Increase in the average Number of Authors per Publication (INAP) on known ethical issues of authorship. For this purpose, the ten most common ethical issues associated with scholarly authorship are used to set up a taxonomy of existing issues and raise awareness among the community to take precautionary measures and adopt best practices to minimize the negative impact of INAP. We confirm that intense international, interdisciplinary and complex collaborations are necessary, and INAP is an expression of this trend. However, perverse incentives aimed to increase institutional and personal publication counts and egregious instances of guest or honorary authorship are problematic. We argue that whether INAP is due to increased complexity and scale of science, perverse incentives or undeserved authorship, it could negatively affect known ethical issues of authorship at some level. In the long run, INAP depreciates the value of authorship status and may disproportionately impact junior researchers and those who contribute to technical and routine tasks. We provide two suggestions that could reduce the long-term impact of INAP on the reward system of science. First, we suggest further refinement of the CRediT taxonomy including better integration into current systems of attribution and acknowledgement, and better harmony with major authorship guidelines such as those suggested by the ICMJE. Second, we propose adjustments to the academic recognition and promotion systems at an institutional level as well as the introduction of best practices.

Honorary authorship in health sciences: a protocol for a systematic review of survey research

BACKGROUND

Honorary authorship refers to the practice of naming an individual who has made little or no contribution to a publication as an author. Honorary authorship inflates the output estimates of honorary authors and deflates the value of the work by authors who truly merit authorship. This manuscript presents the protocol for a systematic review that will assess the prevalence of five honorary authorship issues in health sciences.

METHODS

Surveys of authors of scientific publications in health sciences that assess prevalence estimates will be eligible. No selection criteria will be set for the time point for measuring outcomes, the setting, the language of the publication, and the publication status. Eligible manuscripts are searched from inception onwards in PubMed, Lens.org , and Dimensions.ai. Two calibrated authors will independently search, determine eligibility of manuscripts, and conduct data extraction. The quality of each review outcome for each eligible manuscript will be assessed with a 14-item checklist developed and piloted for this review. Data will be qualitatively synthesized and quantitative syntheses will be performed where feasible. Criteria for precluding quantitative syntheses were defined a priori. The pooled random effects double arcsine transformed summary event rates of five outcomes on honorary authorship issues with the pertinent 95% confidence intervals will be calculated if these criteria are met. Summary estimates will be displayed after back-transformation. Stata software (Stata Corporation, College Station, TX, USA) version 16 will be used for all statistical analyses. Statistical heterogeneity will be assessed using Tau² and Chi² tests and I² to quantify inconsistency.

DISCUSSION

The outcomes of the planned systematic review will give insights in the magnitude of honorary authorship in health sciences and could direct new research studies to develop and implement strategies to address this problem. However, the validity of the outcomes could be influenced by low response rates, inadequate research design, weighting issues, and recall bias in the eligible surveys.

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION

This protocol was registered a priori in the Open Science Framework (OSF) link: https://osf.io/5nvar/ .

Authorship decision-making in the field of orthopedic surgery and sports medicine

PURPOSE

To facilitate decision-making in authorship positions, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editor (ICMJE) developed a guideline that stipulates criteria authors should meet in order to merit authorship. Authors who did not meet these criteria and still enlisted as authors, are called 'honorary' authors. In this study, the prevalence and characteristics of honorary authorship (HA) is assessed in the field of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine.

METHODS

A survey was distributed among corresponding authors of articles published in 2019 in six Orthopedics-dedicated journals.

RESULTS

479 of the 1392 approached authors responded, leading to a response rate of 34.4%. 91.6% of the respondents were aware of the ICMJE guidelines, whereas 67.8% were aware of the issue of HA. Overall, the prevalence of guideline-based HA was 41.9%, while the prevalence of self-perceived HA was 14.7%. Having a senior member automatically enlisted as author on the departments, was associated with a higher rate of guideline-based HA (OR 5.03) and self-perceived HA (OR 3.31).

CONCLUSIONS

The prevalence of HA in the field of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine is high, but comparable to other medical fields. Transparency in authorship decision-making is crucial to maintain liability in scientific articles.

A review of the literature on ethical issues related to scientific authorship

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.

Honorary authorship in cardiothoracic surgery

BACKGROUND

Honorary authorship (HA) refers to enlisted authors who did not make sufficient contributions to a paper according to the guidelines, as defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). This study assessed the proportion of, and factors associated with, HA in cardiothoracic surgical literature in 2017.

METHODS

Five cardiothoracic surgery journals were selected based on their impact factors in 2017 for evaluation of HA. Articles were included in the analysis if there was more than 1 listed author and if there was an available E-mail address of the corresponding author. All corresponding authors received an invitation to fill out our survey regarding their paper in 2017.

RESULTS

In total, 1511 authors opened the invitation, resulting in a total of 590 respondents (28.9%); 77.1% of all authors were aware of the ICMJE guidelines and 47.0% were aware of the general issue of HA. A total of 367 (62.7%) authors stated that at least one of the coauthors had performed solely nonauthorship tasks, whereas 148 (25.3%) authors stated that they believed that their article contained at least one honorary author. Having a senior member who was automatically included on all submitted manuscripts and not being aware of the general issue of HA were associated with significantly greater odds of having HA.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results show that, despite the high awareness of the ICMJE guidelines, there is a large discrepancy in perceived HA and guideline-based HA. The authors plead for a better understanding and implementation of the guidelines in a more transparent authorship system.

Post retraction citations among manuscripts reporting a radiology-imaging diagnostic method

Our study aimed to evaluate the trends of post retraction citations of articles reporting a radiology-imaging diagnostic method and to find if a different pattern exists between manuscripts reporting an ultrasound method and those reporting other radiology diagnostic methods. This study reviewed retractions stored in PubMed on the subject of radiology-imaging diagnosis to identify the motivation, time from publication to retraction, and citations before and after retraction. The PubMed database was searched on June 2017 to retrieve the retracted articles, and the Scopus database was screened to identify the post-retraction citations. The full text was screened to see the type of post-retraction citation (positive/negative) and whether the cited article appears or not as retracted. One hundred and two retractions were identified, representing 3.5% of the retracted articles indexed by PubMed, out of which 54 were included in the analysis. Half of the articles were retracted in the first 24 months after publication, and the number of post retraction citations was higher than the number of citations before retraction in 30 out of 54 cases (US methods: 9/20, other diagnostic methods 21/34, P-value = 0.2312). The plagiarism was the most common reason for retraction (31%), followed by repetitive publication (26%), and errors in data/manuscript (24%). In less than 2% of cases, the retracted articles appear as retracted in the text or reference list, while the negative citation is observed in 4.84% among manuscripts reporting an US diagnostic method and 0.32% among manuscripts reporting a diagnostic method other than US (P-value = 0.0004). No significant differences were observed when post retraction weighted citation index (WCI, no. of citations weighted by citation window) was compared to WCI prior retraction (P-value = 0.5972). In light of the reported results, we enumerated some recommendations that could potentially minimize the referral to retracted studies as valid.