CSE's White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications

2.0 ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN PUBLISHING

2.2 Authorship

2.2.1 Authorship and Contributorship Models

In 1985, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) published criteria within the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals that defined authorship. The current ICMJE statement on authorship reads:

• Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3.
• When a large, multi-center group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship defined above and editors will ask these individuals to complete journal-specific author and conflict of interest disclosure forms. When submitting a group author manuscript, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and should clearly identify all individual authors as well as the group name. Journals will generally list other members of the group in the acknowledgments. The National Library of Medicine indexes the group name and the names of individuals the group has identified as being directly responsible for the manuscript.
• Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship.
• All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.
• Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.¹

In the 1990s, this model came under scrutiny, in part because the number of people involved in running clinical trials increased and in part because authors failed to make adequate disclosures.^2,3 The perceived inadequacies in the ICMJE model led some to suggest a complementary model that departed from the more traditional concepts of authorship, in the hope that editors would be better able to elicit actual contributions from authors and to convey a more accurate sense of each author's responsibility for the study.²

This model of "contributorship" has been adopted by a number of major biomedical journals.⁴ The general aim of contributorship disclosure is to have authors describe, based on a contributor taxonomy created by journal editors, exactly what each author did in the process of designing the study, such as accumulating funding for the study; recruiting subjects; coordinating, collecting, and analyzing the data; writing and revising the study; and so forth.³ Under this model, authors are also expected to designate their functional role within the group (eg, principal investigator, coinvestigator, statistician, contributing author).³ It is argued that this additional layer of disclosure contributes to greater transparency on the behalf of authors.⁴ ICJME has pointed out that contributorship is not designed to replace the ICJME criteria for defining "quantity and quality" of authorship but to complement it.¹

2.2.2 Aims of Authorship and Contributorship Models

The rationale behind the ICMJE authorship criteria and contributorship disclosures is to acquire an affirmation from each author and/or contributor on which editors can rely, to disclose publicly to readers what each author did,⁴ and to gain from authors what Jerome Kassirer has described as "public responsibility for [article] content."⁵

What authorship problems are editors specifically trying to identify and address? A range of undesirable types of authorship have been described, including guest authorship, honorary or gift authorship, and ghost authorship.⁴

Guest authorship. Guest authorship has been defined as authorship based solely on an expectation that inclusion of a particular name will improve the chances that the study will be published or increase the perceived status of the publication. The "guest" author makes no discernible contribution to said study and so meets none of the criteria for authorship.

Honorary or gift authorship. Honorary or gift authorship has been defined as authorship based solely on the basis of a tenuous affiliation with a study. A salient example would be "authorship" based on one's position as the head of a department at which the study took place.

Ghost authorship. Ghost authorship is defined as a failure to disclose a contribution that would meet ICMJE criteria for authorship. A common example of ghost authorship is undisclosed contributions of medical writers to the draft of a manuscript.

2.2.3 Authors' Role

Confidentiality. The author-editor relationship is founded on confidentiality. All communication between an author and editor within the context of a specific manuscript is to be held in confidence. Authors should designate a specific contact for all communication about the manuscript throughout peer review and (if accepted) the publication process. Authors should observe journal policy on communication with external peer reviewers (the policy may vary depending on whether a journal uses masked or nonmasked peer review) and should observe journal policy on prepublication embargoes (see 2.6.)

Disclosure. Authors have a responsibility to be forthright when complying with journal submission requirements. This entails disclosure about the originality of the content, a statement of an author's actual contribution to the study, financial and conflict of interest disclosures (some journals also require statements on the regulatory status of any drugs or devices used in the study), and, if applicable, a statement of compliance with standards for human subjects research (Declaration of Helsinki, institutional review board approval, informed consent forms, and/or relevant National Institutes of Health forms). Authors should expect editors to publish all relevant disclosures with their accepted manuscript.

Originality. The authors should provide a statement attesting to the originality of the study they have submitted for consideration. Originality is critical because many journals have limited space and editors may give a low priority to studies that, regardless of scientific accuracy and validity, do not advance the scientific enterprise. Some journals may ask authors to provide copies of reports on other studies (articles, manuscripts, abstracts) related to the study under consideration.

Contributorship. Some journals use a contributorship form, wherein authors attest to their specific contributions. Authors may expect that editors will publish these statements with their accepted manuscript.

Financial and conflict of interest disclosures. Many journals require authors to divulge sources of funding for the study under consideration. Authors should disclose all sources of funding (government, corporate, other) and any products or services (such as materials and equipment, statistical analysis, and scientific writing) provided by third parties in the course of doing the research and reporting the findings (medical writing, statistical analysis). Some journals stipulate that authors disclose financial relationship in dollar amounts and set specific dollar thresholds. Items to be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, expert testimony, patents, and so forth.

Drug and device statements. Some journals require authors to provide a statement on the regulatory status of any drugs or devices used in the study.

Human subjects research. All journals should require formal affirmation that human subjects research on which a submission is based was approved by an institutional review board or complied with the Declaration of Helsinki and that the researchers conducted the study according to acceptable research standards, including obtaining informed consent. Some categories of manuscript submissions may not require institutional review board approval.

Animal research. All journals should require formal affirmation that any research involving animals was approved by an animal research committee and was conducted according to the approved protocol as applies to animal care and experimentation.

2.2.4 Copyright Assignment

In medical publishing, authors are usually expected to assign copyright to the journal publishing their study. In other disciplines (eg, legal publishing) copyright assignment may not be the standard. Assignment of copyright is a legal document in which the authors assign certain rights to the publisher. It is also assumed that the content in question is original and not otherwise under copyright elsewhere (in whole or in part). Authors should ensure that the study under consideration is original and does not contain plagiarized content. In addition, authors should avoid self-plagiarism—that is, reproducing verbatim content from their other publications. Some journal editors may not be willing to consider submissions containing content the authors have published elsewhere because it can be construed as a violation of copyright and may be an indicator that the study only marginally contributes to the literature.

2.2.5 Order of Authorship

The order of authors in the byline is a decision of the authors or study group. Much has been written about the meaning of each place in the byline listing, particularly among the first 6 slots. Authors should not expect editors to become embroiled in disputes among authors over name placement in the byline. Some journals specify how many authors they will accept in the author byline. The number can range between 3 and 25. Authors of biomedical papers may want to consider how the National Library of Medicine lists authors.

2.2.6 Anonymous Authorship

In rare cases, journal editors may publish anonymous content. Such a practice should be discouraged, but it may be necessary if the author can make a credible claim that attaching his/her name to the document could cause serious hardship (eg, threat to personal safety or loss of employment). Because authorship should be transparent, it is not appropriate to allow authors to use pseudonyms for scientific reports. It has been suggested that pseudonyms are acceptable if the article in question is fiction. None of these rare cases obviates the editors' responsibility to collect all relevant disclosures and copyright documents.⁶

2.2.7 Group Authorship

Group authorship, which has become increasingly common in biomedical publishing, occurs when, for example, a group of researchers has collaborated on a multicenter trial, a consensus document, or an expert panel. Because it can be inaccurate and impossible to list all collaborators (because some would not meet basic ICJME authorship criteria and byline space may preclude such a listing), authors need to think about how to communicate credit and responsibility for content. The editors of JAMA have outlined 2 group authorship models⁶:

• Authorship in which each person in the group meets authorship criteria, in which case the group is listed as the author, with the caveat that editors may require at least 1 coauthor to assume the role of content guarantor.
• Authorship in which a select subgroup of the whole is listed in the byline on behalf of the whole.

2.2.8 Deceased Authors

For cases in which a coauthor dies or is incapacitated during the writing, submission, or peer review process, coauthors should obtain disclosure and copyright documentation from a familial or legal proxy.⁶

2.2.9 Acknowledgments

Authors are expected to provide a list of people whose contribution to a study did not qualify them for authorship or, because of journal policy on the number of authors in the author byline, cannot fit in the author byline. Authors should have each person listed in the acknowledgment sign a disclosure form or at least should obtain a signed statement from the people in the group acknowledging that they know their names will appear in the published document.

2.2.10 Multiple Submissions

This practice is acceptable in some other disciplines (eg, legal publishing). In the biomedical sciences, it is not acceptable for authors to submit the report of a study to several journals at the same time, including a manuscript undergoing peer review that has not been formally rejected by the original journal to which the manuscript was submitted. If authors wish to submit the manuscript to another journal, all authors should formally withdraw the manuscript to avoid self-plagiarism misconduct (see section 3.1.3). Authors who violate this standard may find that editors reject their papers as a violation of policy.

If authors want to submit their article to another journal while it is already under consideration elsewhere, then they must send formal notification to the editor of the journal with whom it is under consideration requesting that their study be withdrawn from further consideration. All coauthors must agree to the request for withdrawal and this agreement must be made clear to the editor of the journal with which the study is under consideration. Authors should request formal acknowledgment from the journal to the effect that the editors understand the study has been withdrawn from future consideration. On receipt of notification from the journal acknowledging the withdrawal, the authors may submit their study elsewhere. They should retain a copy of the notification.

2.2.11 Registration of Clinical Trials

In 2004, ICJME adopted a policy on registration of prospective interventional clinical trials. This policy requires, as a condition of submission, that authors or trial sponsors register their trials, prior to subject enrollment, with approved trial registries. Authors should take into consideration whether the journals to which they may want to submit their study have adopted this policy.

2.2.12 Editors' Role

Explanation and enforcement of authorship disclosure. It is the editors' responsibility to establish the authorship criteria by which their journals will abide. The standard by which many biomedical journals operate is that of ICMJE. It is the editors' responsibility to publish their authorship criteria (in print and/or electronic media) and then to enforce these standards by collecting relevant documentation from authors. Collection can take place either at manuscript submission or at some point during the peer review process, preferably prior to any commitment to accept and publish a study. An observational study by Bates et al⁷ suggests that, among 3 highly regarded biomedical publications, the effectiveness of authorship and contributorship policies varies.

Authorship forms. Editors usually require authors to complete and sign documents that confer copyright, attest to compliance with accepted standards in human subjects research (if applicable), attest to the originality of the study under consideration, attest to having participated as an author and reviewed the final submission, and disclose study funding and any conflicts of interest relevant to the study in question. It has been pointed out that authors are not consistent in actually having read these forms and disclosures.⁴ Some journals, rather than accept a simple signature as evidence of compliance, have used a check-box method to draw authors' attention to portions of the documents and disclosures to which they are attesting.

Compliance with requests from funding agencies for access to funded content. Some funding bodies have asked (or in some cases required) authors to make the findings of research funded by their organizations accessible to the public. In 2005, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggested that authors receiving grants from NIH send an electronic file of their manuscript at acceptance to PubMed Central. NIH policy stipulates that authors inform PubMed Central when, during a 12-month window after acceptance, PubMed Central can release the content. Editors of journals that accept biomedical papers should give authors guidance on how they would like authors to instruct PubMed Central; editors should also consider altering their journals' copyright assignment forms if they do not accommodate these requests. The Wellcome Trust (in the United Kingdom) mandates that authors deposit their manuscript in PubMed Central within 6 months of publication. The UK Research Councils has stated that after October 1, 2005, all published research with Research Council funding should be deposited in a "subject-based or institutional e-repository (subject to copyright or licensing agreements)" at or around the time of publication of the article.

(Authorship: Michael Vasko took the lead in writing this section of the white paper on behalf of the CSE Policy Committee. Members of the Policy Committee and the CSE Board of Directors reviewed and commented on it. This section was formally approved by the CSE Board of Directors on September 13, 2006.)

1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. Available at: http://www.icmje.org/#author. Accessed May 2, 2006.
2. Rennie D, Yank V, Emmanuel L. When authorship fails: a proposal to make contributors accountable. JAMA. 1997;278:579-585.
3. Yank V, Rennie D. Disclosure of researcher contributions: a study of original research articles in The Lancet. Ann Intern Med. 1999;130:661-670.
4. Report to the Council of Biology Editors From the Task Force on Authorship. Who's the author? problems with biomedical authorship, and some possible solutions. Science Editor. 2000;23:111-119.
5. Kassirer JP. Authorship criteria. Science. 1995;268:785-786.
6. American Medical Association Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. 9th ed. Baltimore, Md: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins; 1997:89-95.
7. Bates T, Anic A, Marusic M, Marusic A. Authorship criteria and disclosure of contributions. JAMA. 2004;292:86-88.

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Resources and Case Studies

Council of Science Editors. CSE recommendations for group-author articles in scientific journals and bibliometric databases. Available at: http://www.councilofscienceeditors.org/publications/group_authorship.pdf. Accessed May 2, 2006.

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. Available at: http://www.icmje.org/index.html. Accessed May 1, 2006.

National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. Informed consent template for cancer treatment trials (English language). March 4, 2004. Available at: http://www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/understanding/simplification-of-informed-consent-docs/page3. Accessed April 30, 2006.

National Institutes of Health, Office of Human Subjects Research. OHSR Information sheets/forms. Available at: http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/. Accessed May 2, 2006.

University of Texas. Copyright Crash Course. Available at: http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/cprtindx.htm.
Accessed August 22, 2007.

Utiger RD, for the Education Committee, World Association of Medical Editors. A syllabus for prospective and newly appointed editors. Available at: http://www.wame.org/syllabus.htm#policies. Accessed May 1, 2006.

World Medical Association. Policy: World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. October 9, 2004. Available at: http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm. Accessed April 30, 2006.

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