This document discusses scholarly authorship standards. It defines authorship criteria as making substantial contributions to conception, design, data analysis, interpretation and drafting or revising work. Forms of unacceptable authorship include guest, gift, ghost and purchasing authorship. Problems with author order include assumptions of first author contributing most and alphabetical order masking contributions. The document recommends agreeing on author order early and using CRediT roles to clarify all project contributors' roles.

1. Quick Take! Unraveling
Scholarly Authorship
P R O F. E R I N O W E N S
S H S U L I B R A R Y

2. Learning Goals
• By the end of this 30-minute session, you will be able to…
– List common criteria that constitute authorship
– Explain forms of unacceptable authorship
– Analyze problems with the order of author names
– Implement a standard method for crediting all project contributors

3. Who IS an author?
• 5,154 authors
• 33-page article
– 9 pages of research
– 24 pages of authors’ names
• Aad, G. et al. (ATLAS Collaboration, CMS Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 191803 (2015).
https://doi.org/10.1103%2FPhysRevLett.114.191803

4. Who IS an author?
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) defined standards which have
been adopted by many others in the scholarly research world
• Authors must have made significant contributions to study ideation and/or design
• Criteria for authorship include:
1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or
interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
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.

5. Who is NOT an author?
• Someone who did not consent to be listed as an author
• Someone who contributed to a paper but do not meet all of the authorship criteria
• Someone who strictly provide oversight, regardless of their professional position
• And (hopefully obvious) someone who did not contribute to a project at all!

6. Unacceptable “authorship”
• Guest authors – crediting someone well-known just for advantages in publication, visibility,
and/or citation
• Gift authors – crediting someone just as a favor
• Ghost author – not including a rightful author
• Anonymous author – publishing under a pseudonym
– Except in rare cases to protect a scholar from anticipated risk/danger
• Authorship for sale – purchasing an author listing
• Some of these problems arise with a power differential (e.g., grad student and advisor)

7. Who comes first, second, ...last?

8. Who comes first, second, ...last?
Recommendation:
Agree on how you will approach
the author order
when you BEGIN the project,
or at least the paper!
Photo by Muhammad Daudy on Unsplash, licensed CC0

9. Giving everyone credit
• CRediT – Contributor Roles Taxonomy – a NISO standard
• Supports transparency
• Gives credit to both author and non-author contributors
– 14 common roles played by researchers
– One person may play multiple roles
– Multiple people may play the same role
– Optionally: Indicate Lead vs Supporting capacity in a role
• All contributors and their roles are listed in the output
– Usually just before the References list

10. Giving everyone credit

11. Giving everyone credit
• Note: Individual journals may require alternate formatting or structured entry of a CRediT
statement as part of their manuscript submission process.
• List of publishers who have officially adopted CRediT

12. Authorship scenarios
SOURCE: Committee on Publication Ethics - https://publicationethics.org/files/Authorship_DiscussionDocument.pdf

13. Authorship scenarios
SOURCE: Committee on Publication Ethics - https://publicationethics.org/files/Authorship_DiscussionDocument.pdf

14. Revisiting our learning goals
• List common criteria that constitute authorship
– Substantial contributions to conception or design; or acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; AND
– Drafting manuscript or revising it critically; AND
– Final approval of version to publish; AND
– Agreement to be held accountable.
• Explain some forms of unacceptable authorship
– Guest, gift, ghost, anonymous, for sale
• Analyze problems with the order of author names
– Order creates assumptions but is not clear; alphabetical order masks some contributions
• Implement a standard method for crediting all project contributors
– Include Author Contribution statements using CRediT roles to clarify exact contributions, author or not

15. Questions Welcome!
Professor Erin Owens
Newton Gresham Library
Sam Houston State University
936-294-4567
eowens@shsu.edu
Photo by Caleb Chen on Unsplash, licensed CC0