Authorship and justice: Credit and responsibility

Area of Science:

• Research Ethics
• Scholarly Publishing
• Scientific Integrity

Background:

• Current authorship guidelines by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) distinguish between authors and acknowledged contributors.
• The ICMJE policy mandates significant intellectual contributions and acceptance of responsibility for significant portions of the work for authorship.
• Non-intellectual contributions, such as funding or administration, are relegated to the Acknowledgments section.

Purpose of the Study:

• To critique the existing ICMJE authorship policy based on ethical and practical standards.
• To highlight the inherent unfairness in ranking diverse research contributions.
• To propose an alternative system for acknowledging research contributors.

Main Methods:

• Ethical analysis using consequentialist, deontological, and common-sense frameworks.
• Examination of the commensurability of different types of research contributions.
• Development of an alternative policy for crediting research contributions.

Main Results:

• The ICMJE policy is deemed unjust due to the incommensurability of contributions and unfairness to non-intellectual contributors.
• Holding individuals responsible for others' errors or misconduct is ethically problematic.
• The current system of authorship is an outdated mechanism for allocating credit and responsibility.

Conclusions:

• The ICMJE authorship policy requires revision to ensure fairness and accuracy in recognizing research contributions.
• An alternative policy, featuring a 'Contributors page,' is proposed to list all individuals involved in a research project.
• This alternative system aims to provide transparent and equitable acknowledgment for all contributions, moving beyond the traditional author byline.