“ Issues in Authorship ” Dr Virginia Barbour, Chair, COPE Medicine and Biology Editorial Director,

Publication Ethics: what’s it about? Ensuring the integrity of the scientific literature Part of research ethics more widely Important in ensuring the literature is trusted NB Medicine has often driven publication ethics but no field is immune

Analysis of 16 years of COPE Cases ( ) Team: Irene Hames (COPE Council), Charon Pierson (COPE Council), Natalie Ridgeway (COPE Operations Manager), Virginia Barbour (COPE Chair) Presented at 7 th International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication, 8 September 2013, Chicago COPE case analysis project

Classification of COPE cases, , categories with >7 instances in a 4-year period

Issues related to authorship that have been & remain major topics Authorship itself disputed 45% changes 34% gift 10% ghost 9% Plagiarism (~70% occurred ) in published article 52% in submitted article 38% text recycling 10% (most )

Should we be rethinking authorship? Unique ID Move to contributorship model Micro-attribution Debating issues of credit and responsibility in authorship

Unique Author ID

Contributorship

Where COPE comes in Education of editors and publishers Advice to member editors Facilitate and lead debate on publishing ethics

COPE More than 9000 members International in scope and fully inclusive in subject matter All academic disciplines and fields are now covered, eg: Biomedicine Pure and applied sciences Engineering and technology Arts, humanities and social sciences

COPE resources Flowcharts Guidance eg retractions Discussion documents, eg reviewer guidelines Sample letters Code of Conduct Best Practice guidelines Database of cases Blog/discussion Forum meetings/seminars

Issues to consider Publication ethics is becoming more public and more complex A power imbalance is often at the basis of authorship disputes The research literature is becoming more complex How do we deal with blogs, tweets & other new academic activity? We need an informed debate and acceptance of increased scrutiny and responsibility Does the current academic climate predispose to problems with authorship?

Sources of information on publication/research ethics COPE publicationethics.org/ Council of Science Editors White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications World Congress on Research Integrity wcri2013.org/ Singapore Guidelines on Responsible research publication: international standards for authors WAME ICMJE UKRIO