KEY TAKEAWAY

• Researchers propose novel methods for ascribing authorship contributions, which involve assigning authorship to each result in a manuscript.

The last few years have seen concerted efforts to bring more consistency and quantification to the way that authorship and author contributions are assigned. In addition to existing tools such as Contributory Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), various bodies have suggested new methods to facilitate transparency and ensure authorship and author contributions are easily and appropriately assigned. These include the International Society for Medical Publications Professionals (ISMPP) authorship algorithm tool and initiatives such as the quantitative authorship decision support tool and Author Contribution Index. Now, Oded Rechavi and Pavel Tomancak provide an alternative method in a recent commentary published in Nature Reviews.

Rechavi and Tomancak’s approach involves assigning credit to each result in a manuscript. They “argue that it should be known who thought of each idea, who ran each experiment, and who analysed the data.” But how exactly would this be achieved? The authors propose two ways. Rechavi suggests substituting the word “we” for the names of specific, responsible authors. For instance, “we sequenced RNA” would become “Rechavi sequenced RNA”. Alternatively, Tomancak proposes assigning a number to each author in the author list and citing these for each contribution. For example, “we sequenced RNA¹” would credit the first author in the author list.

“It should be known who thought of each idea, who ran each experiment, and who analysed the data.”

The authors list multiple advantages of ascribing authorship to each result, irrespective of how it is achieved. These include:

• vague author contribution statements become redundant
• unexpected contributions are recognised (eg, theorists performing experimental work)
• the semi-quantitative data provided could help to justify or assign author order.

Nevertheless, they acknowledge several concerns raised by their peers, including:

• extra work will be needed to recall ‘who did what’ for each sentence
• reading the names of authors throughout a manuscript may be cumbersome
• disputes may arise when discussing who contributed to a specific study.

Rechavi and Tomancak counter this by calling on researchers to experiment with this alternative method in their own papers and suggest that bioRxiv, the preprint server, is an ideal place to try it out. They end with a clear call to action: ‘bottom-up’ adoption by the scientific community is needed to implement meaningful, lasting changes to the way in which author contributions are assigned.

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Recorded 17 October 2018 at a MedComms Networking event in Oxford. Produced by NetworkPharma.tv.

Tim’s presentation (PDF format) is available here.

McNutt and team encourage journals to set standards for authorship and to adopt a statement that is largely based on the authorship criteria developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. They also recommend that journals outline the responsibilities and expectations of corresponding authors, suggesting that this could discourage ghost and guest authorship. The use of systems such as the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) and ORCiD IDs by journals is also advocated, which allow contributions to be captured in metadata while improving transparency and author accountability. The authors suggest that funders could mandate that investigators use both initiatives.

Recommendations for universities and other research institutions include developing and communicating their policies on authorship and ensuring these are regularly reviewed and updated. Finally, the authors encourage scientific societies to endorse efforts that increase transparency and to hold sessions at scientific meetings that focus on authorship integrity.

McNutt et al conclude by providing a link to the Transparency in Author Contributions in Science (TACS) website, which not only aims to measure growing transparency in authorship but also act as a resource for sharing best practices in authorship policies.

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Summary by Alice Wareham PhD from Aspire Scientific Ltd

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