Authorship Policies at U.S. Doctoral Universities: A Review and Recommendations for Future Policies
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Authorship Policies at U.S. Doctoral Universities: A Review and Recommendations for Future Policies Lisa M. Rasmussen1 · Courtney E. Williams2 · Mary M. Hausfeld3 · George C. Banks3 · Bailey C. Davis4 Received: 4 June 2020 / Accepted: 22 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Intellectual contribution in the form of authorship is a fundamental component of the academic career. While research has addressed questionable and harmful authorship practices, there has largely been no discussion of how U.S. academic institutions interpret and potentially mitigate such practices through the use of institutionlevel authorship policies. To gain a better understanding of the role of U.S. academic institutions in authorship practices, we conducted a systematic review of publicly available authorship policies for U.S. doctoral institutions (using the 266 2018 Carnegie-classified R1 and R2 Universities), focusing on components such as specification of authorship criteria, recommendations for discussing authorship, dispute resolution processes, and guidance for faculty-student collaborations. We found that only 24% of the 266 Carnegie R1 and R2 Universities had publicly available authorship policies. Within these policies, the majority (93%) specified criteria for authorship, but provided less guidance about actual processes for applying such criteria (62%), handling authorship disputes (62%), and managing faculty-student author teams (49%). Further, we found that any discussion of dispute resolution practices typically lacked specificity. Recommendations grounded in these findings are offered for institutions to leverage their ability to guide the authorship process by adopting an authorship policy that acknowledges disciplinary diversity while still offering substantive guidance. Keywords Authorship · Institutional authorship policy · Authorship dispute resolution
Courtney E. Williams, Mary M.Hausfeld denotes similar level of intellectual contribution, shared second authorship * Lisa M. Rasmussen [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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Introduction The importance of intellectual credit in the form of authorship in published research has been acknowledged for decades. Authorship is frequently called “the coin of the realm” in academia (Rennie and Flanigan 1994; Wilcox 1998; Macrina 2011), and authorship standards in various disciplines and journals multiply with each passing year (Rennie Yank and Emanuel 1997; Tscharntke et al. 2007; Silva et al. 2016a, b; Clement 2014; Tarkang et al. 2017). Despite sustained attention, ambiguity around authorship decisions, conflict, and even abuse, continues (Smith et al. 2019a; Marušić et al. 2011; Birnholtz 2006; Gómez-Ferri et al. 2019). As the front line of the publication process, journal editorial offices have recognized their role in addressing guidance on authorship by offering standards of authorship, especially via international editorial organizations that have disseminated authorship standards fo
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