Posted by Stuart Derbyshire on Thursday, August 31, 2000 at 13:29:49:
Hello,
I have not been able to find any other messages in this thread and so apologise if
my comments have already been made by others. I would like to make three
points:
1) The Vancouver criteria are not realistic and are therefore, probably rightly,
ignored. 2) Authorship criteria are consequently vague and arbitrary. 3) Changing
to a new system is a good idea but will have consequences for career paths that
might be unintended.
The Vancouver criteria suggest that all authors should have a significant input to
the design, organisation, analysis and write up of a study. This is over the top, even
with the best will in the world it is rarely possible for more than 3 people to have a
significant input to all areas of a study. The authors would be falling over each
other. In reality the best that is usually achieved is each author offers a specific
expertise and all authors comment on the final draft of the manuscript. Only the
primary author is truly involved in all aspects of the study.
Partly because the Vancouver criteria are too ambitious the "real" criteria for
authorship are completely arbitrary. People who write software and design
equipment might be included as authors on work they have never seen. Physicians
are sometimes included simply for providing patients. On the other hand somebody
might put in a large amount of work organising a study or running the statistics and
only receive an aknowledgement. This is clearly problematic and I applaud the
efforts to make improvements.
The only problem I see is when it comes to assessing someones productivity. At
the moment it is simply a process of counting their publications. Somebody can be
reasonably productive and provide a useful service, say with analysis, and appear
on 8 publications or so each year. It would be a shame if a useful process was
disrupted by what will be perceived as bureacratic diktat. I wonder how the
transition to a new system will be managed and what safeguards are being
considered to prevent unreasonable reorganisation?
Fraternally yours,
Stuart Derbyshire.