Authorship, Impact, and Independence

This week, The Chronicle of Higher Education offered an interesting piece on authorship which outlines one scientist's account of navigating an authorship system in her field. Dr. Cecile Janssens describes finding scholarly articles where she was listed as an author or collaborator without her knowledge and then offers clarifications on what constitutes an author or collaborator, honorary author, etc.

Authorship is significant, especially in a scholarly career, yet many researchers make various assumptions about the systems and implications within authorship. This week we follow Dr. Janssens' cue and work to clarify a few key issues around authorship across disciplines.

Whose on first?
Researchers are generally clear on how multiple authors should be ordered in a publication. But, as more and more interdisciplinary research is being conducted, it's important to discuss the variety of author order rules in each collaborator's field. For instance, in many of the health sciences, the last author position is most significant, followed by the first. In many of the Sciences and Education, it is the first author who is considered the greatest contributor. The rest of the authors are ordered by their contributions, where the 2nd author has made the 2nd largest contribution, etc. In fields like Mathematics and Engineering, authors are often ordered alphabetically.

Regardless of field protocol, the publication you're submitting to will usually dictate how authors should be ordered. However, collaborating authors should be aware of any differences in case they are evaluated using a different system. If you're not sure what the norm is in your field, the accepted system is usually that of your field's style guide.

What are the career implications of authorship?
Being first (or sometimes last) author on publications is important for researchers to show their growing independence to evaluators in the tenure process as well as those reviewing their grants. However, many sponsors are recognizing that with the growing diversity and collaborative nature of research and the corresponding publications, it is difficult to assume what one researcher's role is.  As a result, sponsors are starting to allow for explication of a researcher's roles in different projects and publications in their biosketch. This is true for the tenure process as well. Bob Damrauer, Ph.D., Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Special Assistant to the Provost at CU Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus says that it's important for faculty going up for tenure to describe their role in each collaboration and project. In fact, Dr. Damrauer says that the tenure review committee will often ask the candidate for more information if they don't describe their roles in significant projects/publications.

Communicating authorship upfront and more than once
Given the close connection between promotion and funding decisions based on numbers of publications and author order, it's not surprising that contentions can arise when research collaborators wait until a project is underway or complete to figure out author order.  This is why experts in team science recommend agreeing on these sorts of things at the outset of a project. When reaching out to collaborators, it's important to have a candid discussion about what's in it for each person, and what their role will be. This helps to prevent a collaborative relationship from souring and/or a research project from ultimately failing.

In addition to this, Dr. Gerald Fischbach, a seasoned researcher at Columbia University recommends having these discussions any time there is a change in the research team or the project makes a shift and requires other types of expert who may take on a larger role that the original PI.  See Columbia's guidelines and a short video clip of Dr. Fischbach here.

Being clear on these distinctions and complexities of authorship can help you to navigate your research career effectively. Please see the resources below for even more information.


Resources:
Let's Clarify Authorship on Scientific Papers - Chronicle of Higher Education
Author Ranking System: 'Impact Factor' of the Last Author - Blog: In the Name of Science...
Responsible Authorship and Peer Review -  Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning