Authorship Issues and Conflict in the U.S. Academic Chemical Community

Abstract

A survey on credit issues and related “responsible conduct of research” (RCR) behaviors was conducted with academic chemists in Ph.D. granting institutions in the U.S. Six hundred faculty members responded. Fifty percent of the respondents reported not receiving appropriate credit for contributions they had made to projects the results of which had been published, including when they themselves were students. Thirty percent of these individuals discussed this lack of credit with the “offending” individual, and as a consequence of those discussions, a small percentage of individuals were provided either co-authorship or an acknowledgment. The majority who did not enter into a discussion with the “offending” individual reported two primary reasons for not doing so: that they “could not imagine any good coming from such a conversation” and “I was afraid of being in a compromised situation.” A discussion of relationship asymmetry in the academic setting is provided. Confronting one’s colleague regarding credit is compared with whistleblowing, and the possible consequences of blacklisting are discussed. A number of recommendations for minimizing authorship disputes are provided.

Síndrome de Burnout entre mestrandos e doutorandos em enfermagem

“…Thus, conducting educational activities that aim to encourage, clarify and demystify the article writing can be an essential and effective strategy for publication and, consequently, reduce mental distress and exhaustion of the graduate student. (11,22) In a study performed in an Australian university nursing school,, it was reported that the implementation of a strategic plan to engage students and educators was essential to motivate the production of scientific papers. During 20 months, there were workshops on practical aspects of publication, scientific writing, presentation process and paper format, using search engines, where to publish, and other topics relevant to publication.…”

“…These work-shops were conducted by editors of academic journals and experienced researchers, and resulted in an improvement of participants' skills. (22) In addition, considering the reality worldwide, (11,22) there are aspects related to difficulty and the obligation to publish, which may cause tension in graduate students, such as uncertainty about paper acceptance, the contributions and criticism of reviewers, and the publication costs, among others.…”

“…(10) When it does not lead to abandoning the course, lack of adaptation to this reality can generate mental suffering, sleeping difficulties, health problems (physical or psychological), substance abuse, and even suicide. (10,11) Given the above, the following guiding questions emerged: Does burnout syndrome occur in master's and doctoral students of graduate programs in nursing (GPN)? What are the predictive characteristics of the syndrome in these students?…”

Transparent Attribution of Contributions to Research: Aligning Guidelines to Real-Life Practices

“…Furthermore, in collaborative studies, each person's relative contribution is difficult for the research team to determine and for others to understand [23]. As a result, authorship disputes remain a troublesome issue [19,[24][25][26][27].…”

Aberration of the citation

“…Striving to compete is sometimes accompanied with many biases introduced into the body of scientific knowledge alongside its production's path from the attribution of funds to the final phase of publication and citation. Citation biases are one of many other problems in a broader context of unethical practices affecting science and scientific publications, such as authorship issues (Seeman and House 2015) (Seeman and House 2010) (Bennett and Taylor 2003), redundant or duplicate publications (Abraham 2000) (Hennessey et al 2012) (de Vasconcelos and Roig 2015), hyper-authorship (Cronin 2001), bias in editorial decisions (Kotchoubey et al 2015) , and in ethical decision making among university faculty (Medeiros et al 2014), plagiarism (Resnik 2013) (Bird 2002), guest and ghost authorship (Wislar et al 2011) (Ngai et al 2005), research misconducts (Resnik et al 2015) (Spier and Bird 2000) and many other contradictions and pitfalls (Moustafa 2014).…”