Resources to support responsible authorship practices

Criteria for authorship

The TTU Graduate School has established acknowledgement of student contributions in published material as a responsibility of faculty who serve as Major Professors [The Role of Academic Advisors, Major Professors, and Committees]

COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) resources about authorship include two minimum requirements for authorship [Authorship | COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics]

1. “making a substantial contribution to the work and…”
2. “…being accountable for the work and its published form.”

Guidance for authorship contributions developed by the NIH Office of Intramural Research identifies complexities that can arise over the course of a project [see https://bit.ly/314njwK]

The Office of Research Integrity offers a training module with 28 guidelines for ethical writing. Guidelines 24 - 27 discuss authorship criteria [Avoiding Plagiarism, Self-plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices: A Guide to Ethical Writing | ORI - The Office of Research Integrity (hhs.gov)]

24. Authorship determination should be discussed prior to commencing research collaboration and should be based on established guidelines, such as those of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.
25. Only those individuals who have made substantive contributions to a project merit authorship in a paper.
26. Faculty-student collaborations should follow the same criteria to establish authorship. Mentors must exercise great care to neither award authorship to students whose contributions do not merit it, nor to deny authorship and due credit to the work of students.
27. Academic or professional ghost authorship in the sciences is ethically unacceptable.

The criteria for authorship developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) include four criteria for authorship and recommendations for meeting the criteria and acknowledging contributions of individuals who do not meet all four [ICMJE | Recommendations | Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors]

2. Who is an Author?

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work
• Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content
• Final approval of the version to be published
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Guidance for describing roles of each author

• Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) is a community-owned taxonomy that can be used to describe each author’s contributions. CRediT is not used to assign authorship, but rather to identify the specific type of contribution made by each author or other contributor. Adopters of CRediT – CRediT (niso.org) identifies journals that have adopted the CRediT taxonomy.
• The Science Student Council of the American Psychological Association has resources and tools to help students and advisors identify and negotiate authorship: Tips for determining authorship credit (apa.org).

Guidance for creating authorship agreements

• Rasmussen et al. 2023 Authorship agreements benefit researchers and research culture. Nature Human Behavior 7:2044-5.
• SharedIt link: Authorship agreements benefit researchers and research culture | Nature Human Behaviour
• Example agreement: Authorship agreement | J. Murrey Atkins Library | UNC Charlotte
• Courses to stimulate discussion with colleagues and students: Take Our Course — the authorship project
• Chapter 12, Setting up Collaborations, from Making the Right Moves, A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty, Second Edition: https://www.hhmi.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/making-the-right-moves-second-edition.pdf.

Strategies to resolve disputes

Disputes about authorship can arise when collaborators differ in their perceptions of who contributes to a work and of who is responsible, accountable, or credited for the work. Authorship disputes should be resolved through informal or, if necessary, formal academic processes. Authors should first try to resolve a dispute informally within the research group. It may be useful to seek advice about how to initiate the discussion from a colleague outside the research group. If the dispute persists, the issue should be taken to the Department Chair or Institute Director. If these steps do not resolve the dispute, graduate students may use the procedures in Section 5 of TTU OP 64.07. Faculty and research staff who dispute the actions taken by the Department Chair or Institute Director may use procedures outlined in TTU OP 74.02 for disputes involving externally-funded research; in all other such cases faculty may use procedures outlined in TTU OP 35.02.

If a credible allegation of plagiarism exists in addition to the authorship dispute, the Dean or Institute Director should consult with the TTU Research Integrity Officer (RIO). The TTU RIO provides resources and guidance to individuals and academic units, and reviews plagiarism allegations under TTU OP 74.08, but does not otherwise participate in the academic processes for resolving authorship disputes.