Authorship Ethics: A Practical Approach

[...]conferring authorship often results in ethical dilemmas in academic medicine because of uneven power relationships that may impair objective decisions and result in a lack of scientific integrity.1,2 Critically, ethical problems in authorship are much more common than data fabrication, modification, and falsification.3,4 Over the past 50 years, there has been an increase in the number of research papers published with multiple authors.3,5,6 One recent publication had over 5,000 authors, raising the question “What is a valid author?“7 To address this issue, the American Journal of Ophthalmology, the Journal of the American Medical Association Ophthalmology, and the Ophthalmology journal used the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria to define authorship.8 The following 4 criteria were used to define a valid author: 1) substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; 2) drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) final approval of the version to be published; and 4) 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. The reported rates of ghost authorship range from 7.9% to 29%.5,11,12Authorship Order Authorship order should reflect the level of contribution to both the research and the manuscript development.5,9 The first author is the individual who contributed not only the most to elements such as data collection or analysis but also to the writing of the manuscript. The view(s) expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Brooke Army Medical Center, the US Army Medical Department, the US Army Office of the Surgeon General, the Department of the Air Force, the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, or any other agency of the US Government.