Review
Scientific authorship: Part 2. History, recurring issues, practices, and guidelines

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Abstract

One challenge for most scientists is avoiding and resolving issues that center around authorship and the publishing of scientific manuscripts. While trying to place the research in proper context, impart new knowledge, follow proper guidelines, and publish in the most appropriate journal, the scientist often must deal with multi-collaborator issues like authorship allocation, trust and dependence, and resolution of publication conflicts. Most guidelines regarding publications, commentaries, and editorials have evolved from the ranks of editors in an effort to diminish the issues that faced them as editors. For example, the Ingelfinger rule attempts to prevent duplicate publications of the same study. This paper provides a historical overview of commonly encountered scientific authorship issues, a comparison of opinions on these issues, and the influence of various organizations and guidelines in regards to these issues. For example, a number of organizations provide guidelines for author allocation; however, a comparison shows that these guidelines differ on who should be an author, rules for ordering authors, and the level of responsibility for coauthors. Needs that emerge from this review are (a) a need for more controlled studies on authorship issues, (b) an increased awareness and a buy-in to consensus views by non-editor groups, e.g., managers, authors, reviewers, and scientific societies, and (c) a need for editors to express a greater understanding of authors’ dilemmas and to exhibit greater flexibility. Also needed are occasions (e.g., an international congress) when editors and others (managers, authors, etc.) can directly exchange views, develop consensus approaches and solutions, and seek agreement on how to resolve authorship issues. Open dialogue is healthy, and it is essential for scientific integrity to be protected so that younger scientists can confidently follow the lead of their predecessors.

Introduction

Often, the most challenging aspects of being a scientist are dealing with the intricacies of publishing one's research and knowledge. One must do much more than just accurately record the results and methods used in accomplishing these results. The scientist is expected to place the research in a proper context, add new knowledge to a scientific discipline, use proper grammar and style, and accomplish these tasks so that the paper will be published in a journal of choice [1], [2], [3], [4]. In today's world, research is usually a team effort, and the size of the teams grows with the complexity of the research [5]. Therefore, a scientist also must deal with the multi-participant issues such as: allocation of roles and authorship, trust between participants, resolving publication conflicts, and guarding against any perception or actuality of improper behavior [5], [6].

Scientists think about these issues. As one mentors graduate students and postdoctoral fellows (individually and through career-development courses), questions and concerns about publication issues arise. Team leaders and managers must anticipate solutions for and resolve problems about authorship. Scientists have concern about the repercussions that scientists endure when someone abuses the trusts of their fellow scientists through incompetent science, fraud, or misconduct.

Like its companion paper [7], this paper is offered not because there is a crisis in ethical behavior but because an informed scientific community can better meet the challenges surrounding authorship issues. Most citations dealing with authorship issues (which includes editorials, commentaries, etc.) materialize out of the need of editors and others to change practices in order to diminish abuses (fraudulent papers, papers with improper attribution of authorship, etc.) [7], [8]. In addition, most of the authors have been those who deal with issues of abuse or fraud or by those recommending specific changes or viewpoints (e.g., editors).

This paper is written from a different perspective. My intent is to inform scientists (especially younger scientists), editors, reviewers, and scientific administrators about the history of scientific publishing, commonly encountered problems, and efforts to avoid and/or remedy inappropriate practices. This paper is not presented as an authoritative guideline. Instead, this review provides a balanced overview that others can use in their deliberations. By being aware of the issues and some of the potential actions that authors, reviewers, editors, and administrators may take, the quality and worth of scientific publications may be increased.

According to the Encarta Dictionary [9], the word author, when used as a noun, refers to someone who writes some type of text, a professional writer, or the creator of something. This reference states that this word came to the English language during the 14th century via Old French from the Latin word auctor which means “creator, originator.” This ultimately came from augere, “to originate.” We receive further understanding when we realize that the word authority also comes from the same root word. Therefore, before modern times, the authors (including scientific authors) of a work were regarded as both the “originators” and “authorities” of that work.

According to Filmore and Lesney [10], the first modern research journal was initiated in 1665 by the Royal Society of London. The number of articles published in scientific journals was relatively low until the mid twentieth century. Before mid-1900, most scientific efforts and authorships could be clearly traced to single individuals. Early scientists did not depend on large numbers of publications for funding, recognition, hiring, and promotion. Sir Isaac Newton was reportedly reluctant to publish his works and reluctant to publish his name with those works [11]. Other great scientists have relatively few publications, and many of these are single author manuscripts (e.g., Mendel, Potts, and Einstein) [12].

After the Second World War, most areas of modern science began to flourish. From 1951 until 2001, the number of scientific papers per year in chemistry, as tracked by the Chemical Abstract Service (CAS), rose from 50,675 to 606,680; and the number of books rose from 1959 to 4737 [13]. In the medical science arena, the National Library of Medicine Web site [14] states that PubMed [15] provides access to over 12 million MEDLINE citations of works published since the mid-1960s. The number of papers published and cited by PubMed each year has risen from174,638 in 1966 to 529,983 in 2002 (Fig. 1).

What attributes of modern society have spawned such intense efforts in scientific publishing? Many of the reasons beyond the scope of this paper included government endorsements and funding, the commercial appeal of products of science (e.g., health care products, electronics, transportation, and improved food production), improved technology, and increased scientific education. With many of today's necessities and conveniences reliant on modern science, scientists make up a much larger proportion of today's workforce compared to that of a century ago. Even during the last part of the twentieth century, science and engineering jobs increased by 159% between 1980 and 2000 [16]. This 4.9% average annual growth rate is considerably more than the 1.1% rate of the entire workforce [16]. A National Science Foundation analysis of the 2001 doctoral scientist workforce [17] reports that of the 574,890 doctoral scientists in the United States, 140,790 are in the biological and agricultural sciences, 21,390 are in the life sciences, and 111,330 are in the chemical (other than biochemistry) sciences. Supporting the doctoral research scientists in the U.S. are thousands of other research scientists and engineers, technical and support staffs, managerial staffs, and others [16]. Thus, a worldwide explosion in numbers of scientists has resulted in a concurrent upsurge in scientific publications. Using data from the Medline database, Newman estimates that in a 5-year period (1995–1999) 1.0–1.4 million authors produced over 2.1 million papers [18]. He also showed that during that 5-year period the mean number of papers produced was approximately 5.5 (1.1 per year) and that the mean number of authors per paper was nearly 3 [18]. Science publishing, therefore, has become big business; and the potential rewards, benefits, snares, and temptations associated with science have grown. In 2001, Mary Case noted that one scientific publisher generated over a billion dollars in revenue [19]. She also noted that a library's average price (in 2000) for a yearly subscription to a scientific journal was $974, and some journal subscriptions cost more than $10,000 per year. Because research scientists’ careers largely hinge upon publication records, individual scientists also have increased their publication rate [20], [21]. In the field of chemistry, the mean number of publications for academic faculty members has risen from 4.90 articles per 2-year period to 10.77 [22]. Anderson reports that 20 researchers each published at least one paper every 11.3 days during the 1980s, and one author published one paper every 3.9 days for 10 years [23]. This still falls short of the over 1400 papers published by the mathematician Paul Erdös who had over 500 collaborators [24]. Newman [18], however, points out that in the Medline database such highly published authors actually have very little effect on the mean number of publications per author.

Competition for jobs, promotions, and funding is intense [25]. Therefore, scientists support journal and book publications because publications are the fundamental units of information exchange, proof of productivity and creativity, and foundational units for future research and development [26]. When applying for promotions, researchers expect their bibliography to be examined for evidence of productivity (quantity), independence (first and/or senior authorship), and significance (quality) [27]. Today's scientist must also contend with other issues that affect their roles as authors. For example, much of modern science consists of large, multidisciplinary efforts that require multiple scientists and significant supporting elements including technicians, statisticians, scientific managers, and others. Today, the publication records of scientists are used to evaluate both the competence and successes of the scientist. Publication dates are also critical in determining who published a truly original effort and/or is entitled to a patent. Therefore, the ability to obtain jobs, promotions, funding, and recognition is dependent upon the quality and quantity of publications as well as the areas of expertise demonstrated. With publication records being so critical to most scientists, it is not surprising that many exert great effort to publish.

In a Council of Scientific Editors (CSE) white paper [28], Biagioli et al. liken authorship to a coin with the two sides being credit and responsibility. They point out that few would dispute the fairness of this view. However, they believe that the practice of these complementary roles is often separated because of a human tendency to try to maximize one's credit while minimizing one's responsibility. The authors also argue that common definitions of credit and responsibility do not always fit the reality of research practices, and they assert that this creates an atmosphere that breeds misconduct or imposes unrealistic demands on authors.

As the necessity of publication became apparent in the 1970s and 1980s, increasing news of scientific misconduct began to appear, and concerns over matters of authorship emerged [7]. Many publications have highlighted specific types of dilemmas that face modern scientists [4], [5], [6], [11], [19], [29], [30]. Seldom do we see today a single scientist independently conceive, plan, perform, and publish a body of research. In today's world, teams of investigators and technicians apply multidisciplinary approaches to large complex problems. The function and importance of various roles as well as the identification of the lead scientist for a particular segment of research becomes unclear. Therefore, deciding on authorship roles and recognition can present difficult decisions. In addition, egos, job stress and expectations, organizational career-assessment policies, and other factors may tempt individuals to tread at the edge of unethical conduct [31], [32].

The next section is a summary of the types of problems that have appeared in various publications. The section on “Recommended Guidelines” will present a summary of some published guidelines and a brief discussion of some of the implications as seen through the eyes of this writer.

Section snippets

Scientific fraud

Scientific fraud occurs when one deliberately misrepresents the truth [33]. This type of deliberate dishonesty and unethical behavior, that is the most damaging to the name of science and are the hardest to guard against, is reviewed in the companion paper [7].

Unethical conflicts of interest (COI)

When planning, accomplishing, reporting, and reviewing scientific research, the potential for conflicts of interest always exists [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42]. For a scientific author these possibilities include

Guidelines recommended by others

Several groups have reflected on and established guidelines, rules, or regulations pertaining to scientific authorship issues (Table 1). The United Kingdom organization Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) formed in 1997 to provide a sounding board for UK and European editors who were struggling with means of coping with breaches in research and publication ethics [61]. Initially, their efforts centered on bimonthly meetings to examine case studies. By 1999, their discussions led to the COPE

The author's dilemma

In the past, editors were the last barriers to scientific misconduct and bore tremendous responsibility for maintaining the integrity of scientific publication and, therefore, the integrity of science. Consequently, most guidelines, publications, commentaries, and editorials have evolved from the ranks of editors. Although there are relatively few known cases of scientific fraud [7], there is clear agreement that it is inexcusable. However, no consensus exists for a number of perplexing

Conclusions

International and national groups and journals have done an admirable job in clarifying and addressing ethical and practical issues associated with the publishing of scientific information. Editors, especially, are to be commended for not only examining ethical issues but also fostering awareness and providing guidance on how to approach these issues. Resolving authorship issues and formulating authorship policies is full of challenges [66], [70]. One who publishes multiple papers is apt to

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank those postdoctoral fellows and graduate students (too numerous to name) who inspired me to write this article. I also want to thank the following people who reviewed this manuscript and gave valuable suggestions: Linda Birnbaum (USEPA), Carl Blackman (USEPA), Dan Blazer (Duke University), George Hoffman (Holy Cross), Julian Preston (USEPA), Beverly McKim (USEPA), and MaryJane Selgrade (USEPA). The information in this document has been funded in part by the U.S.

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