Authorship Kazem Heidari

Who is an author?

Decision about Authorship The most sensitive part of writing a paper

An “author” is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study Biomedical authorship continues to have important academic, social, and financial implications.

Criteria for authorship Authorship credit should be based on: Substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content. Final approval of the version to be published Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3

Group author :When submitting a manuscript, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and should clearly identify all individual authors as well as the group name

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 Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Authorship of multi-center trials: All members of the group who are named as authors should fully meet the above criteria for authorship

Order of authors’ names The sequence of authors should be determined by the relative overall contributions to the manuscript.

The order of authorship on the byline should be a joint decision of the co-authors Authors should be prepared to explain the order in which authors are listed.

Some journals now also request that one or more authors, referred to as "guarantors" be identified as the persons who take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article, and publish that information.

First Author The first author should be that person who contributed most to the work, including writing of the manuscript

First Author Should have ... adapted a hypothesis defined precise methods participated in a major way in analysis and interpretation of results written the paper

Lead author = Corresponding author A person who is responsible for ensuring that all other authors review and approve the final version.

Co-Author Should have made significant contributions to the planning and execution of the research, the methods and procedures, the collection and analysis of the data, etc.

Senior Author Formulated the original hypothesis or provided significant intellectual resources & provided constructive criticism of the manuscript & accepted responsibility for the findings and the authorship

Order of authors’s names It is common practice to have the senior author appear last, sometimes regardless of his or her contribution.

For young authors There are two positions that count: first and last. And attached to either position is the status associated with being the author for correspondence.

For young authors The best combination is to be first author and the author for correspondence.

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgments section who provided purely technical help writing assistance department chair who provided only general support Financial and material support

Authorship–What Doesn’t Count Supervision of first author, Chair of dept., Chief of division, director of laboratory, etc. Statistical advice (alone) Data entry, processing, or management Providing or helping obtain space, money, staff, or other resources

Order of authors’ names The senior author sometimes takes responsibility for writing the paper, especially when the research student has not yet learned the skills of scientific writing. The senior author then becomes the corresponding author, but should the student be the first author?

Order of authors’ names Some supervisors put their students first, others put their own names first. Perhaps it should be decided on the absolute amount of time spent on the project by the student (in getting the data) and the supervisor (in providing help and in writing the paper). Or perhaps the supervisor should be satisfied with being corresponding author, regardless of time committed to the project

Order of authors’ names A sensible policy adopted by many supervisors is to give the student a fixed period of time to write the first draft of the paper. If the student does not deliver, the supervisor may then write the paper and put her or his own name first.

Most scientists have their own policy ! Whatever policy your supervisor or colleagues have, there are usually good reasons for them: tradition, experience, or just the plain old selfish genes that we all carry.

How to avoid problems with authorship? Agree with your collaborators that you will follow the international guidelines.

2-Agree before starting the research who will be an author, and if necessary discuss why each person should be an author. (Clarify the requirements)

3- Agree on the tentative order of authors and on who will be corresponding author.

4-Don’t add a senior author to improve the chances of publication

Honorary vs Ghost ! Honorary authors: named authors who have not met authorship criteria Ghost authors : individuals not named as authors but who contributed substantially to the work

- 11% had evidence of ghost authors - 2% had evidence of both. Prevalence of Articles With Honorary Authors and Ghost Authors in Peer-Reviewed Medical Journals - 19% had evidence of honorary authors - 11% had evidence of ghost authors - 2% had evidence of both. (JAMA. 1998;280:222-224)

Honorary authorship Three large studies 26% of 1,014 authors in 10 journals (Shapiro et al 1994) 17% of 884 authors in AJR (Sloan1996) 19% of 809 articles in Ann Intern Med, JAMA, N Engl J Med

Honarary authorship Three specialty journals (Flanagin et al, 1998)— 16% of research articles 26% of review articles 21% of editorials and commentaries

Gost authorship Largest study 11% of 809 articles in Ann Intern Med, JAMA, N Engl J Med Three specialty journals (Flanagin et al, 1998) 13% of research articles 10% of review articles 6% of editorials and commentaries

Authorship–What Doesn’t Count Providing or recruiting study patients or other material Collecting interview data or other specimens or measurements  Coordinating the data collection process

Authors’ contribution vs Contributors

Example for authors’ contribution Shahin Akhondzadeh (principle investigator and statistical support, clinical neuropsychopharmacologist) Mohammad Reza Mohammadi (clinical coordinator, psychiatrist) Hassan Mohajeri (trialist ,resident of psychiatry ) Homayoun Amini (clinical coordinator , psychiatrist )

Comments on Vancouver criteria 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. to be continued

Comments on Vancouver criteria 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. Stuart Derbyshire

Authorship How easy it is to get into gray areas about right and wrong!

Thank you!