Strategic Publishing: Authorship complaints

Ethical Authorship Credit

Public Domain image from Pixabay

Ethical authorship credit ensures fairness, transparency, and integrity in academic publishing by properly recognising contributors and maintaining trust in research.

The University of Otago Responsible Practice in Research - Code of Conduct outlines the standards of conduct expected of all staff and students undertaking and supervising research at Otago. Below are the statements regarding publication and authorship:

When creating books, articles or other research outputs, staff and students are responsible for ensuring that all sources are properly acknowledged and, when necessary, permission is obtained to reproduce the copyright material of others.

It is important that all authors listed on the publication shall have contributed in a significant way to the work. The principal author is responsible for the entire publication and should ensure that other authors accept, in writing, responsibility either for the entire paper or for that part of it with which they were concerned.

It is important that authors of publications acknowledge any technical assistance and the source of any funding support.

Papers, articles or abstracts which contain similar data or material and are submitted to several journals must be properly declared to the publishing authorities concerned.

Common Forms of Authorship Misconduct

Ghost, guest and gift authorship are three common types of authorship complaints during the academic publishing processes.

• Ghost authorship happens when someone contributes significantly to a paper but is not listed as an author. It hides real contributions and can particularly mislead readers about who did the most of the work.

  Example: A student researcher wrote most of a paper, but their name was not included in the author's list because the lead author, who was their supervisor, wanted full credit for publication.

• Guest authorship is when someone is listed as an author even though they did not contribute much to the paper. It is, therefore, unfair to those who actually worked on the research.

  Example: A famous professor's name was added to a study to make it look more credible, even though they did not help with the research.

• Gift authorship is when an author’s name is added as a favour or because of personal relationships without real or enough contribution, which can create conflicts of interest and reduce the credibility of the research.

  Example: A researcher added their friends or colleagues as an author to strengthen their social and professional connections, even though they did no work on the paper