Authorship and publication practices
It is vital that the parties involved in research and publication discuss and agree on:
- authorship
- recognition of other contributions
- acknowledgement of sponsors
- declaration of any conflicts of interest
Authorship
The minimum requirement for authorship should be in accord with the Vancouver Protocol, as reflected in the University Code of Conduct for Research (Section 2). According to this, authorship is substantial participation and requires involvement in:- conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data; and
- drafting or revising the important intellectual content.
When creating software a person's contribution is recognised in much the same way as authorship on a paper. The intellectual input may arise not only from the actual writing of the software, but also at the conceptual stage of its development. As such, copyright in the software should be attributed to all those involved in its development.
Order of authors
The University Code of Conduct for Research states that where there is more than one co-author of a research paper, the authors should discuss and reach agreement on the order in which the authors shall be listed.The order would normally follow the conventions of the particular discipline, and/or according to the requirements of the journal the work is to be published in. For instance, the position of last author may be reserved for the principal investigator or department chair in some fields, while in others the senior person is first, with the last author having the smallest contribution. If agreement cannot be reached, the Head of Department should be consulted in the first instance.
Publication practices
- Redundant or fragmented publication
This is the publication of work that overlaps substantially with that already published, or that is intentionally sub-divided into smaller units to increase scholarly productivity. The University Code of Publication states that the publication "of more than one paper based on the same set(s) or subset(s) of data is not acceptable, except where each subsequent paper fully cross-references and acknowledges the earlier paper or papers as the case may be (for example, in a series of closely related work, or where a complete work grew out of a preliminary publication and this is fully acknowledged)." An author "who submits substantially similar work to more than one publisher" must "disclose this to the publishers at the time of submission." - Sources of financial support
Publications must include information on the sources of financial support for the research and must include a disclosure of any potential conflicts of interest. Financial sponsorship that carries an embargo on such naming of a sponsor should be avoided.
Further resource
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines are adhered to by approximately 500 biomedical journals. There are guidelines specific to many other disciplines and research fields.