Best Practice to Order Authors in Multi/Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Research Publications

Abstract

Misunderstanding and disputes about authorship are commonplace among members of multi/interdisciplinary health research teams. If left unmanaged and unresolved, these conflicts can undermine knowledge sharing and collaboration, obscure accountability for research, and contribute to the incorrect attribution of credit. To mitigate these issues, certain researchers suggest quantitative authorship distributions schemes (e.g., point systems), while others wish to replace or minimize the importance of authorship by using "contributorship"-a system based on authors' self-reporting contributions. While both methods have advantages, we argue that authorship and contributorship will most likely continue to coexist for multiple ethical and practical reasons. In this article, we develop a five-step "best practice" that incorporates the distribution of both contributorship and authorship for multi/interdisciplinary research. This procedure involves continuous dialogue and the use of a detailed contributorship taxonomy ending with a declaration explaining contributorship, which is used to justify authorship order. Institutions can introduce this approach in responsible conduct of research training as it promotes greater fairness, trust, and collegiality among team members and ultimately reduces confusion and facilitates resolution of time-consuming disagreements.

Addressing the vexed issue of authorship and author order: A discussion paper

“…By supporting evidence‐based practice, published research ultimately improves patient care and increases the visibility of nursing and midwifery (Duffy et al., ). In addition, a track record of publication is often required for graduation, promotion, tenure (Conn et al., ; Smith & Master, ) and grant applications (Kornhaber, McLean, & Baber, ; Marušić, Bošnjak, & Jerončić, ). The steady increase in published research across disciplines, including nursing and midwifery, has been accompanied by changing authorship patterns, with more multiauthored papers being published than those submitted by sole authors (Smith & Master, ; Wang, Tang, Bo, Li, & Deng, ).…”

“…Consequently, the authorship criteria listed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) () are not always reflected in current practice (Bourbonniere, Russell, & Goldsmith, ; Kornhaber et al., ). The order of authors listing remains an area of confusion and contention across and in disciplines, cultures and countries (Harzing, Reiche, & Pudelko, ; Lei, Dong, Zhu, & Li, ; Smith & Master, ; Yukawa, Kitanaka, & Yokoyama, ), including nursing and midwifery. Hence, assumptions about individual authors’ contributions based solely on author lists are unlikely to be accurate (Kosmulski, ).…”

“…The ethical, clinical and academic implications of authorship practices, evident in the literature (Johnstone, ; Kornhaber et al., ), indicate the importance of negotiating and establishing protocols for authorship attribution and order of authorship (Clement, ; Moos, ; Smith & Master, ). This requires a clear understanding of individual, institutional and publication‐specific expectations and guidelines.…”

“…However, guidelines are not rules per se and may have little influence on ethical authorship practices (Kornhaber et al., ; Street et al., ). Nor do they offer clear recommendations for determining author contributions or author order (Smith & Master, ). Consequently, nursing and midwifery editors continue to report their concerns about authorship attribution for individuals who did not meet the criteria established by the ICMJE, with dispute resolution taking up more and more of their time (Hayter et al., ; Lasater, ).…”

“…The process may be exacerbated by a lack of a clear distinction between authorship and contributorship (Conn et al., ). While authorship “implies responsibility and accountability for published work” (ICMJE, , p. 2), contributorship is a system based on individuals’ self‐reported contributions through study conception, design, data collection, data analysis and/or writing (Smith & Master, ). Thus, contributors are not necessarily authors (Hayter et al., ).…”