Neutralising fair credit: factors that influence unethical authorship practices

Trinkle, Brad S.; Phillips, Trisha; Hall, Alicia; Moffatt, Barton

doi:10.1136/medethics-2015-103365

Cited by 13 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…[34][35][36] While our methods captured some of the messiness of authorship practices, these narratives did not reflect the conflicted nature of authorship that the literature on responsible conduct of research might suggest. 2,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][17][18][19][20][21] Participants did not narrate overt conflict related to these 24 papers (only three narratives were contested, and these contested elements were subtle) and frequently stressed the helpful actions and resources of team members. Rather than reflecting the improvisational negotiation of conflicting norms, 22 these narratives suggested that authorship is an agreeable space of productive work.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[11][12][13][14][15][16] These studies have also identified factors beyond ICMJE criteria that may influence authorship, including: reciprocity (e.g., to return a favor to someone who helped in some way in the past); feelings of loyalty or obligation, particularly to advisors or mentors; beliefs that the existing criteria do not take into account the important "minutiae of research beyond writing and data reduction"; 15 and institutional and social structures and hierarchies like tenure status, gender, and minority status. 2,11,15,[17][18][19][20][21] Despite guiding criteria, then, the social practice of authorship remains a contested one in that published criteria and enacted practice do not always align.…”

Section: I We and They: A Linguistic And Narrative Exploration Of The Authorship Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

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I, We, andThey: A Linguistic and Narrative Exploration of the Authorship Process

Konopasky

O’Brien

Artino

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Introduction: While authorship plays a powerful role in the academy, research indicates many authors engage in questionable practices like honorary authorship. This suggests that authorship may be a contested space where individuals must exercise agency--a dynamic and emergent process, embedded in context--to negotiate potentially conflicting norms among published criteria, disciplines, and informal practices. This study explores how authors narrate their own and others' agency in making authorship decisions. Method: We conducted a mixed-methods analysis of 24 first authors' accounts of authorship decisions on a recent multi-author paper. Authors included 14 females and 10 males in health professions education (HPE) from U.S. and Canadian institutions (10 assistant, 6 associate, and 8 full professors). Analysis took place in three phases: (1) linguistic analysis of grammatical structures shown to be associated with agency (coding for main clause subjects and verb types); (2) narrative analysis to create a "moral" and "title" for each account; and (3) integration of (1) and (2). Results: Participants narrated other authors most frequently as main clause subjects (n = 191), then themselves (I; n = 151), inanimate nouns (it, the paper; n = 146), and author team (we; n = 105). Three broad types of agency were narrated: distributed (n = 15 participants), focusing on how resources and work were spread across team members; individual (n = 6), focusing on the first author's action; and collaborative (n = 3), focusing on group actions. These three types of agency contained four sub-types, e.g., supported, contested, task-based, negotiated. Discussion: This study highlights the complex and emergent nature of agency narrated by authors when making authorship decisions. Published criteria offer us starting point--the stated rules of the authorship game; this paper offers us a next step--the enacted and narrated approach to the game.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: I We and They: A Linguistic And Narrative Exploration Of The Authorship Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

I, We, andThey: A Linguistic and Narrative Exploration of the Authorship Process

Konopasky

O’Brien

Artino

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…This inadequacy suggests that there are further RCR-related issues among faculty and other university research stakeholders worth exploring. For example, Trinkle et al (2017) found that faculty were able to pressure students into questionable research practices, like egregious honorary authorship, despite their receiving prior RCR training. This finding suggests that variables, beyond receipt of RCR training, influence the culture of RCR adherence on university campuses.…”

Section: Need and Gap For Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflecting on Responsible Conduct of Research: A Self Study of a Research-Oriented University Community

2021

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Research-oriented universities are known for prolific research activity that is often supported by students in faculty-guided research. To maintain ethical standards, universities require on-going training of both faculty and students to ensure Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). However, previous research has indicated RCR-based training is insufficient to address the ethical dilemmas that are prevalent within academic settings: navigating issues of authorship, modeling relationships between faculty and students, minimization of risk, and adequate informed consent. U.S. universities must explore ways to identify and improve RCR concerns for current (faculty) and future researchers (students). This article reports the findings of a self-study (N = 50) of research stakeholders (students and faculty) at a top tier research institution. First, we report on their perceived importance of applying RCR principles. Second, we explore relationships between stakeholder backgrounds (e.g., prior training, field, and position) and how they ranked the degree of ethical concerns in fictitious vignettes that presented different unethical issues university students could encounter when conducting research. Vignette rankings suggested concerns of inappropriate relationships, predatory authorship and IRB violations which were judged as most unethical, which was dissimilar to what sampled researchers reported in practice as the most important RCR elements to understand and adhere to for successful research. Regression models indicated there was no significant relationship between individuals’ vignette ethics scores and backgrounds, affirming previous literature suggesting that training can be ineffectual in shifting researcher judgments of ethical dilemmas. Recommendations for training are discussed.

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“…The authorship form can also help lessen unfair authorship practices that result from power imbalances. For example, Trinkle et al (2017) found that students were more likely to add faculty members as undeserving authors, especially if the faculty member was also their advisor. While our method does not provide a full solution for this problem, we still hope that an emphasis on transparency and clarity on contributions can partially neutralize some of these power imbalances.…”

Section: Solving Common Authorship Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clear, transparent, and timely communication for fair authorship decisions: A practical guide

Gani¹,

Kohl²,

Baalbaki³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Abstract. Authorship conflicts are a common occurrence in academic publishing, and they can have serious implications on the careers and well-being of the involved researchers, as well as the collective success of research organizations. In addition to not inviting relevant contributors to co-author a manuscript, the order of authors, as well as honorary, gift, and ghost authors are all widely recognized problems related to authorship. Unfair authorship practices disproportionately affect those lower in the power hierarchies – early career researchers, women, researchers from the Global South, and other minoritized groups. Here we propose an approach to preparing author lists based on clear, transparent, and timely communication. This approach is aimed to minimize the potential for late-stage authorship conflicts during manuscript preparation by facilitating timely and transparent decisions on potential co-authors and their responsibilities. Furthermore, our approach can help avoid imbalances between contributions and credits in published manuscripts by recording planned and executed responsibilities. We present authorship guidelines which also include a novel authorship form, along with the documentation of the formulation process for a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary center with more than 250 researchers. Other research groups, departments, and centers can use or build on this template to design their own authorship guidelines as a practical way to promote fair authorship practices.

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Neutralising fair credit: factors that influence unethical authorship practices

Cited by 13 publications

References 27 publications

I, We, andThey: A Linguistic and Narrative Exploration of the Authorship Process

I, We, andThey: A Linguistic and Narrative Exploration of the Authorship Process

Reflecting on Responsible Conduct of Research: A Self Study of a Research-Oriented University Community

Clear, transparent, and timely communication for fair authorship decisions: A practical guide

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