Authorship Ethics: Issues and Suggested Guidelines for the Helping Professions

Abstract

The authors review the literature and explore common ethical dilemmas related to publishing research. Varying standards are presented to assist professionals and students in their publication endeavors. Joint research collaboration in many graduate programs is encouraged and appears inevitable. Joint research activities may involve student–faculty collaboration or professional peer collaboration. Although many helping professions have ethics codes that address publication issues, there is no standard among them regarding the issue of authorship. Although it appears necessary to follow minimal codes of ethics regarding authorship, consideration of suggested guidelines and aspirational ethics may enhance the professional growth of mental health professionals and students in mental health programs.

How to Write a Thesis and Turn It into Publication

“…In peerreviewed international scientific publications, the first and the last (senior/corresponding) authors are typically the researchers who made the most valuable contributions to the article (13). Doctoral students or fellows are usually authorized as the first authors of theses based on their dissertation research (14). It has been recommended that when there is any question as to who made the primary contribution, the student should receive higher authorship (11).…”

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

“…For SoTL scholars, many of whom engage in interdisciplinary research, the problem becomes even more acute because there are no established guidelines for working across disciplines (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2006). Further, SoTL has increasingly embraced involving students, especially undergraduates, as co-inquirers into SoTL scholarship (Bovill, Cook-Sather, & Felten, 2011;Felten, 2013;Felten, Bagg, Bumbry, Hill, Hornsby, Pratt, & Weller, 2013), and research collaborations between faculty and students involve unique inequalities and power dynamics (Fine & Kurdek, 1993;Thompson, 1994).…”

“…Indeed, recent work has called attention to the importance of recognizing and respecting different disciplinary approaches to SoTL, including the need and value for both quantitative and qualitative approaches (Chick, 2013;Gurung, 2014), and students in all fields could benefit from this type of scholarly collaboration. Nguyen and Nguyen (2006) report that scholarly collaborations with students provide students with unique opportunities to become excited about learning, though Healey, Flint, and Harrington (2014) note that such opportunities to become involved in faculty research are often reserved for only a handful of students. Additionally, such opportunities help students build resumes, gain new skills, expand and further their careers and post-graduate educational opportunities, and increase their autonomy (Kinkead, 2010;Nguyen & Nguyen, 2006).…”

“…Nguyen and Nguyen (2006) report that scholarly collaborations with students provide students with unique opportunities to become excited about learning, though Healey, Flint, and Harrington (2014) note that such opportunities to become involved in faculty research are often reserved for only a handful of students. Additionally, such opportunities help students build resumes, gain new skills, expand and further their careers and post-graduate educational opportunities, and increase their autonomy (Kinkead, 2010;Nguyen & Nguyen, 2006).…”

“…However, collaborative research with students on SoTL that is conducted outside of curricular mandates could preserve faculty members' autonomy in these areas and give them the flexibility to design collaborative experiences as they see fit. From such collaborative research, faculty can develop new skills or improve existing ones, and such collaborations encourage sharing of information and provide opportunities to experience different perspectives (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2006). This last benefit is especially important to SoTL with its frequent interdisciplinary projects and explicit attempts to avoid disciplinary "silo-ing" of scholarship.…”