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Letters to the Editor |
Department of Medical Imaging, Mount Sinai Hospital, 600 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1X5 e-mail: masch@mtsinai.on.ca
Editor:
In the November 1997 issue of Radiology, the guidelines for authors were revised such that each author is required to identify the manuscript contributions for which he or she is responsible (1). The categories for author contributions are as follows: guarantor of integrity of entire study, study concepts, study design, definition of intellectual content, literature research, clinical studies, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing, and manuscript review. Author contributions are printed on the first page of the article. Radiology began printing the contributions with the January 1998 issue.
It is well recognized that the number of coauthors listed on scientific articles has been increasing over the past several years in most medical journals, including radiology journals (2–6). According to Slone (2), this has become a problem because the number of undeserving authors is also increasing. Authorship is often granted gratuitously to those who have made little, if any, contribution to the research. Slone showed that the prevalence of undeserving coauthorship increased from 9% for articles with three authors to 30% for articles with more than six authors.
There have been attempts to make formal guidelines for claiming coauthorship. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), or the Vancouver Group, has produced five editions of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals; the most recent edition was published in 1997 (7). These guidelines recommend that authorship be awarded to those individuals who make a major contribution to study design and conception or data analysis and interpretation, manuscript preparation or revisions for important intellectual content, and final review and approval of the publishable version. All three of these conditions must be met to gain authorship for the article. The guidelines state that participation only in data acquisition does not justify authorship, and general supervision of the research is not enough to grant authorship. It has been documented that these criteria are difficult to enforce and are often violated (4). Radiology states that the instructions to authors are in agreement with these requirements and defines specific criteria for justifying full authorship (1). However, some authors have not complied with these guidelines.
To determine whether the changes in guidelines for authors in Radiology have affected the number of authors per article, a brief analysis was performed by calculating the mean and SD for the number of authors per article for 22 issues of Radiology, 11 before and 11 after the changes in guidelines for authors (excluding commentaries, messages, perspectives, editorials, and reviews). These were compared by using the Student t test (a difference was considered significant if the P value was less than .05). We analyzed articles with nine or more authors published after the change in guidelines to determine how many authors made minimal contributions, in noncompliance with the guidelines. There was no significant difference between the number of authors per article before and after the changes (P = .38). Of the 43 articles with nine or more authors published after the changes, 37 authors (2%) contributed to only data acquisition, manuscript editing, or manuscript review, and one article had three authors who made no contributions.
The number of authors per article has not significantly decreased, and authors continue to take credit for articles in which they have had little involvement. There is pressure on clinicians to produce research because this is often used (a) when individuals are considered for grants, awards, society memberships, and academic promotions and (b) to stimulate referrals of patients (3,8). "Honorary authorship" is frequently given to senior staff members with the hope that their names may give weight to the article and help it gain acceptance into a journal. This has become a problem because "giving or receiving honorary authorship" is among the examples of "acts generally considered to be instances of serious misconduct" in the Framework for Ethical Conduct of Research, published by the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Toronto (9).
There are risks associated with coauthorship. All coauthors must accept responsibility for the material included in the article, be able to associate themselves with the conclusions of the article, and defend its intellectual content (5,6). According to law, all coauthors have the right to use the material from a publication (including ideas, words, or data) with proper citation and copyright permission (5).
It seems that despite the specific guidelines, articles are still being published with authors who have contributed minimally (to only data acquisition, manuscript editing, or manuscript review) or not at all. Should undeserved authorship be allowed to continue, or should journals become more strict with these guidelines and refuse to publish articles with the names of authors who are undeserving of authorship according to these criteria? Perhaps the guidelines are too difficult for groups to follow, particularly for larger studies, and need to be modified in these circumstances. A possible solution is to have an acknowledgment section for those who have contributed minimally and to recognize contributors and guarantors in addition to authors (4,10,11).
Radiology should be commended for changing the guidelines for authors and for publishing the specific contributions of each author. These contributions give the reader a sense of the extent of work done by individual authors and promote quality and high standards in Radiology articles. Journal editors need to follow the lead of Radiology by revising their guidelines for authors and strictly enforcing them to reduce undeserving coauthorship and maintain high-quality publications. As people get more used to these guidelines, it will be interesting to see whether there will be a subsequent decrease in the number of authors per article.
REFERENCES
Radiology Editorial Office, 1001 East Broad Street, Suite 310, Richmond, VA 23219, e-mail: proto@rsna.org
My compliments to Drs Probyn and Asch for their interest in the topic of authorship and their many insightful comments on the problems associated with it. Authorship should be reserved for those who merit it by virtue of their contributions to a study. Unfortunately, those involved in a study may not always agree as to the level of contribution that actually merits the status of author. The ICMJE established criteria for authorship as part of the uniform requirements for manuscripts that are submitted to biomedical journals (1). The criteria indicate that those listed as authors should have made substantial contributions to the following three categories: (a) "conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data" and (b) "drafting of the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content" and (c) "final approval of the version to be published" (1). Ideally, those listed as authors will have met these criteria.
As Editor of Radiology, I consider it important that authors identify their specific contributions to a given study. This is particularly important because the complexity of many current-day studies might necessitate the collaboration of many individuals, each with different expertise (2). Accordingly, the listing of author contributions began with my first issue as Editor, the January 1998 issue. Articles published early in 1998 were already in progress when I was appointed Editor 3 months earlier, in September 1997. Thus, we at Radiology needed to solicit author contribution information for articles to be published in January 1998 and subsequently. Dr Asch was kind enough to identify for me the article he and Dr Probyn mentioned in their letter as having "three authors who made no contributions." In actuality, these authors did contribute and provided us with the information. However, in the process of gathering the information for the January 1998 issue, the information was inadvertently omitted. Although not pleased that this occurred, I was nevertheless relieved to learn that the article was published in the very first issue listing such information, that is, early in my experience.
In September 1999, Radiology published its extensively revised Publication Information for Authors guidelines. These guidelines expand many of the sections contained in the prior revised version and include several new sections, one specifically outlining the expectations for authorship. We look forward to authors of manuscripts submitted to Radiology familiarizing themselves with these expectations so that we will eventually reach the point where all authors of a given article published in Radiology will have met the ICMJE criteria for authorship. This will undoubtedly require a period of education and understanding, along with recognition of the importance of authorship by the many who submit their material to us for consideration.
We at Radiology appreciate Drs Probyn and Asch's positive comment regarding the listing of author contributions. It is unclear whether strict adherence to the ICMJE guidelines will result in a decrease in the number of authors per article. Irrespective of that number, however, what seems more important is that those who list themselves as authors have actually made the contributions that entitle them to the distinction of author.
REFERENCES
This article has been cited by other articles:
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