Canadian nurses' views on assignment of publication credit for scholarly and scientific work

A total of 184 Canadian nurses who were expected to publish scholarly and/or scientific work or whose roles provide for socialization of nurses in academic endeavours, research, and publication were asked to respond to 42 scenarios. This study replicated, with some modifications, surveys conducted in 1981, 1985, and 1987 to determine the views of American nurses on assignment of publication credit. The scenarios in the present survey required judgements about how authorship and footnote credit should be allocated among groups involved in research and academic writing; in some scenarios all the individuals were nurses (in both clinical and academic settings), while other scenarios featured collaboration between nurses and other health-care professionals or focused on interactions between nursing professors and students. While consensus of greater than 80% was achieved for only 7 of the 42 scenarios (modal responses), the respondents' written comments revealed 2 recurrent themes: that credit should be based entirely on contribution, rather than status; and that, as much as possible, authorship and footnote acknowledgement should be discussed and resolved before contentious issues arise. There was widespread agreement on these 2 principles. However, there was disagreement concerning collaborative academic work, particularly concerning the forms of collaboration that merit authorship credit and the forms that are sufficiently acknowledged through footnoting. Both the model responses and the areas of disagreement are discussed.