A Systematic Review of Research on the Meaning, Ethics and Practices of Authorship across Scholarly Disciplines

Abstract

BackgroundThe purpose of this systematic review was to evaluate evidence about authorship issues and provide synthesis of research on authorship across all research fields.MethodsWe searched bibliographical databases to identify articles describing empirical quantitive or qualitative research from all scholarly fields on different aspects of authorship. Search was limited to original articles and reviews.ResultsThe final sample consisted of 123 articles reporting results from 118 studies. Most studies came for biomedical and health research fields and social sciences. Study design was usually a survey (53%) or descriptive study (27%); only 2 studies used randomized design. We identified four 4 general themes common to all research disciplines: authorship perceptions, definitions and practices, defining order of authors on the byline, ethical and unethical authorship practices, and authorship issues related to student/non-research personnel-supervisor collaboration. For 14 survey studies, a meta-analysis showed a pooled weighted average of 29% (95% CI 24% to 35%) researchers reporting their own or others' experience with misuse of authorship. Authorship misuse was reported more often by researcher outside of the USA and UK: 55% (95% CI 45% to 64%) for 4 studies in France, South Africa, India and Bangladesh vs. 23% (95% CI 18% to 28%) in USA/UK or international journal settings.InterpretationHigh prevalence of authorship problems may have severe impact on the integrity of the research process, just as more serious forms of research misconduct. There is a need for more methodologically rigorous studies to understand the allocation of publication credit across research disciplines.

Author attitudes to professional medical writing support

“…Authorship is not that well understood across academia, and journal criteria for authorship can be confusing [23][24][25] . The most well known criteria for ascribing authorship in biomedical articles are those of the International Council of Medical Journal Editors, or ICMJE 21 .…”

Guidelines for Authorship Credit, Order, and Co-Inquirer Learning in Collaborative Faculty-Student SoTL Projects

“…In contrast, status, seniority, and data collection were viewed as unimportant to determining authorship. Marusic, Bosnjak, and Jeroncic (2011) conducted a systematic literature review and limited meta-analysis of research published on the issue of authorship credit. Their summary of the literature on student perspectives suggested that students put significantly higher authorship value on research tasks that are usually given to students: collection of qualitative data, data entry, statistical analyses, writing the literature review or methods sections, and total time spent.…”

Igazságosan vagy testvériesen? Szerzői szerepek és társszerzői részesedések a tudományos publikálásban

“…Marusic és mtsai [5] 123 ilyen témájú vizsgálat alapján készítettek összefoglaló cikket. A főként az orvosbiológiai és társadalomtudományi szakirodalom szerzőségi kérdéseivel foglalkozó vizsgálatokból négy olyan problémakör rajzolódik ki, amely minden szakterületen közös:…”