Results panel survey Lorentz workshop Authorship in Transition

Leiden, February 2015

Leiden, 23 February 2015 © Qualtrics software Questionnaire: Anne Beaulieu, Sarah de Rijcke, Paul Wouters IT support: Ed Noyons

Participants

What is Authorship?

Response %

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work

21 91%

2. Acquisition of data for the work

15 65%

3. Interpretation of data for the work

21 91%

4. Drafting the work

16 70%

5. Revising the work critically for important intellectual content

14 61%

6. Final approval of the version to be published

6 26%

Which of the following activities is SUFFICIENT to have one’s name as author on a publication

Response %

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work

15 68%

2. Acquisition of data for the work

5 23%

3. Interpretation of data for the work

10 45%

4. Drafting the work

10 45%

5. Revising the work critically for important intellectual content

8 36%

6. Final approval of the version to be published

8 36%

Which of the following activities is NECESSARY to have one’s name as author on a publication

Hierarchical relation with PI or other leader of the work

What kind of contribution does not warrant authorship?

Providing the funding only, unless the providing the funding is also linked to providing the

research idea; yet even the later is not sufficient for warranting authorship, but needs to be followed up with guidance in the research

process, editing etc

Institutional authority (e.g. being head of the

department)

Financial support of the study

Refereeing it, taking notice of it

Many of the more minor contributions/inputs that

are found in acknowledgments

Proof reading, translation, some cases of data

collection (but not all), superficial re-reading.

Being project leader but not

involved in design/writing

Probably anything can warrant authorship, but some are not by default and need to be better defined (e.g., technical contributions).

Integration of previously

published works

Hierarchical relation with PI or other

leader of the work

Other:

Publication is crucial, but it doesn't have to be independent of supervisor

In some countries yes, in others not

This varies by subfield

Does not apply

In my field, independent publication is an essential criterium for a successful PhD

Other:

The two above, and collaborative publications, in which there is a clear-cut contribution that points to independent research and thought of each other

Free of political views of funder, under our own name/name of organisation

Does not apply

Last author, or responsible author being the PI

Publishing without current or former supervisors

In my field, publishing independently means:

Please estimate how many of the following outcomes you contribute to or (co-) author on a yearly basis

Which of the following products count as scholarly output in your field

Rationales for Publishing

To what extent are the following factors influencing your choice of publication channel?

Increase shared first authorships

We are moving from thick, knowledge-economy geared research reports for institutions to more useable, accessible multi-authored publications with didactic value for end-users

Decreased quality, due to smallest publishable unit practices. this is very damaging for ethnographic approaches that require more time and longer texts

More open access, bit more going for a reach out to target group in society

Increase in co-authorship. Threshold for co-option as co-author has been lowered. Greater diversity of publication genres and outlets.

Increasing pressure on open access publication and data sharing, poor responses to increasing interdisciplinary of research with introduction of draconian assessment approaches that essentially damage incentive to collaborate.

Far more co-first authors.

Have not been in the field so long

Yes, I tend to pay more attention to the effect on funding and visibility than in the past, when I really did not care so much. Yes, towards English language articles. This is specially the case for doctoral students where the writing of composite theses (consisting of a number of articles) has increased over the last few years. From my own experiences... Research staff assuming default authorship by supervisees as a show of good faith Pressure to aim towards big brand journals or list-autheticated titles. Various publisher driven changes which seem too subtle even to notice: e.g. ScholarOne and its apparatus (e.g. plagiarism detection, notifying journals if you have submitted elsewhere already) Many STS journals have large numbers of multi-author contributions. Seems the days of single author contributions are being squeezed out. From what I have observed in other fields, particularly medical - authorship is today much more about credit than responsibility. Where commerce enters universities authorship is more likely to become a bargaining chip

More focus on impact factors; narrowing of the range of desirable journals.

Some have started to use social media, but theory & history appears to be rather conservative still in its publication strategy. Historically, tasks that were not rewarded with the writing of the article would not rewarded by authorship. Nowadays, it is much less the case, as contribution to data collection and analysis can be rewarded.

Can you identify any changes in authorship practices in you field during the last ten years?

Ethics and Norms

An article I had peer-reviewed was involved in a dispute about plagiarism. as an author, i was also involved in a case where peer-reviewers recommended accepting the article and the editor overruled them. Many cases in the last 30 years, arguments about authorship in reward for simpel patient data or material with intellectual involvement at all and debates about the place in the list, mainly first or second aithorship issues, sometimes about last authorship

1. Plagiarism. 2. So called self-plagiarism. 3. Simultaneous submission of a manuscript to multiple journals. 4. Alleged libel.

I was invited to be an author on a medical publication, together with all other heads of departments in an academic hospital, although I had done nothing at all on the study. It was simply because I was director of the instittute. I refused the authorship and suggested my colleague who had done the study. This was immediately accepted, although it does raise the issue of the contribution of the other authors.

But can I add that substantial material was used and never credited on at least two occasions?

We where many authors involved in a publication and it was doubtful if all really has contributed enough to be labelled (authors).

Have you been involved as an author, editor or reviewer in a situation in which undeserved authorship or other authorship dispute (other than plagiarism) was

raised as an issue?

Limits of Authorship

As an author, I’ve been asked to fill in authorship declarations as part of the publication process

Other:

Depends on specific authorship situation; generally if there are any doubts about the contribution of any co-author they need to be followed up; but insight into all the data that is fed into the contribution is mostly impossible.

I'm not sure that is clear in all cases.

The first if I am the first or lead author. The second if I am one of a (largeish) team.

That is a pretty complex question. Typically, I would like to say that I am accountable for all aspects of the work, but in practice, it is impossible, as I did not do ALL of the tasks associated to the work.

As an author, when I accept authorship of an academic output, this implies that I am:

Learning to Author

Yes:

Only in the sense that I did my Ph.D on the topic, by comparing authorship practices in different fields.

As a student, we did get some guide lines on issues around authorship, but then (in the 70/80 s) it was less of an issue.

Course in academic writing in English (mostly focus on language but other more strategic issues arised). I have also been lecturing on a PhD-course titled "Publish or Perish" which was offered to all Phd-students at the university.

Issues and skills around authorship were part of my formal training as a student/PhD/post-doc.

Issues and skills around authorship were part of a mentoring relationship with my supervisor or more senior colleague as a student/PhD/post-doc

Supervision

Part of lab meetings

in my department, one senior colleague was editor of a leading journal and has an editorial assistant working in the dept as well. there were often lunchtime conversations about dilemas, changing policy, etc.

Authorship norms and practices are being transmitted and thaught while doing the work, learing by doing it. Many norms 'shown to you while practiced' but not always explained.

Mostly in the course of co-authoring, and to some extent in corridor talk. No formal training.

Corridor talk

Corridor talk and in the process of submitting papers.

In informal chats with professors and students it was the professed norm that PhDs and supervisors should co-author. But during my supervisor meetings I offered for the supervisors to contribute as co-authors. They said no! This is good and bad - bad they didn't want to help me, good they didn't want to take credit for work that wasn't theirs. So people seem to carry strong convictions in social science settings, but frankly these are not very reliable.

informally and in the course of collaboration; as part of doing an article based PhD and relating to the conventions of doing so.

Co-authoring

Informally

In the course of authoring, being supervised, when co-authoring.

If yes, can you name the context:

Looking back, I see situations where I would have acted differently with regards to authorship

Get more out of the mentoring relationship

I have often been too passive in claiming authorship for work where i had had major input. typical female behaviour.

authorship given to colleagues who where formally not entitled, but because of keeping collaboration and access to patient data open.

On numerous occasions I made substantial contributions to work that should have been primary author publications just to have more predatory group members with minimal contribution to the work push themselves forward as first author (too laid back supervisor). I would have handled this differently today, and do my best to prevent the same mistakes in my own group.

I would have fought my 'authorship' in some papers where I was defintely the guarantor of the quality the analysis performed. But given that I had not written the paper, I was not an author.

I would have paid more attention to fast publication. I would have been more careful with distributing research results over different articles.

Having material being appropriated by a more senior colleague who had in fact not developed it intellectually. I have (silently) refused to work with this colleague ever since. I would like to keep it at that, for confidential reasons.

If yes, can you illustrate such a case in a few sentences?

Authorship Careers

Have there been changes in your career as an author?

Starting with single author papers from my Ph.D, I turned to multiple authorship practices on a more regular basis. This is partly due to my involvement in different collaborative projects, but was also conceived as experiment sites of authorship with people from distinct fields.

Co-authorship has become more common. Authors publish more. Work is more sliced into smaller pieces. Writing quality has deteriorated. Work is often sloppily written and appears rushed.

From first to last end since 10 years rarely last author

I started writing books, biographies as a single author - now I contribute to policy reports & public events - yet this relates to a change in professional career rather than to my authorship itself changing over time

I have become more productive, because I am less trying to create perfect publications. In the beginning I tended to postpone publication until it was perfect, which means postponing forever. Now I just publish when I think it is good enough (although I still tend to set high quality criteria compared to colleagues).

I've started to co-author during the last 7 years.

Authorship (incl. academic authorship) is for me a matter of maturing and trying to learn indefinitely. I had to learn and experience co-authorship to value its riches. I had to unlearn programmatic and passionate style. I’m still trying to acquire the mystique touch of 'clarity'. From publishing as sociology academic to IT & research policy report oriented publications.

As an academic I wrote alone, as an author at a public/independent think-tank I almost always write in collaborative fashion. In my current field everything is published under a cc-by-4.0 license, which means all knowledge produced is open access and open for re-use with reference to the primary author.

From publishing as a matter of survival for me and dependents--getting my contract renewed, getting through promotion review--to being a means to contribute to science and knowledge, as a tenured and more established scholar, to a non-issue now that i am in a management position

Push towards open science and data sharing, and also changes in how quality of publications assessed. Increasing push towards a number game, with desire for more and more publications even if at the expense of quality.

More collaborative (co-authorship) during my post doc than in my PhD.

Since moving to a post doc I have worked collaboratively so now share authorship berths

If yes, can you illustrate the changes in a few sentences?

I can not identify different phases, but I experienced different configurations, from two to five authors, being from sociology, law, biology, linguistics, anthropology.

First phase: single-authored, closed publications. Second phase: multi-authored, open access. Third (current phase): producing and interpreting data in collaborative fashion with citizens and professionals (citizen science) > with raises questions about authorship!

Phases were mainly tied to the professional context.

Authorship relates to your position in the team, the lab and the deartment which changes with one's carreer phases

Widespread use of H-index and other forms of bibliometrics has been very damaging to science because it pushes for publishing as much as possible, irrespective of quality. Over the past 4-5 years there has been a gradual push towards first open access publication and now gradually also data sharing.

See above - the changes are more related to changes in fields of expertise than to time, I suppose.

PhD student was different from having the responsibility for a research group.

See above

PhD = single author, Post doc = shared author

Until 7 years ago, virtually all my publications were single author.

Hard to say.. it's more of a continuum really.

Can you identify different phases, again in a few sentences?

The first article and the first book might have been a kind of achievement in itself, but the following ones were more part of a professional practices.

Comparing phase 1 to phase 3 I feel closer to our data, I feel our data is of more use. I don't have issues with the idea that I am not the single author anymore. I feel pride of the idea that I contribute to publications that have more value for societal issues

In my current position in management, scientific writing is not part of the expected output. that means that writing is now a pure joy and privilege, a very nice extra thing i occasionally get to do--rather than a demand of my job. makes writing a lot more fun. There is increasing pressure on authors as the publication demands increase and become unreasonable. Authorship is starting to become a game one has to rig by knowing the right people to ask for as referees, being on good terms with the Editor of the relevant journal to make sure those are the referees one is asked for. Referee reports take on more and more of a personal attack tone, both for myself and my colleagues, and the quality of peer review is constantly dropping as reviewers are also overwhelmed. This creates a very unpleasant environment for authors as focus moves more and more away from the quality of the science. I am now less stressed than in the beginning. I like writing, I always did, but I thought scientific publications were almost impossible to compose.

Yes, I am know more relaxed with being a author and taking part in discussions within my field. There is now greater input from colleagues and opportunities to present at conferences. This is more reassuring - I (quite rightly) felt anxious during the PhD that writing in isolation would dramatically decrease chances of getting published. Now I still of course feel anxieties about writing, but there is a bit more confidence as it has been written with fellow professionals.

Over time i have come to like writing more and more

I guess there is more pressure now, due to increased emphasis on research evaluations.

I think I care less now about my work expounding my personal passion about a subject, but more about it being sufficient analytic to be thorough. I aim less to 'adorn' with style, but want it to work for the clarity of text—although this is still many times hard. I have no problems anymore 'killing' text.

How has the affective dimension of being an author changed?

It seems to me that it does not change at all.

My cognitive dimension changed from having to brain through data myself (lonely.. ego-driven.. ) and negotiate with academic peers, to having to collaborate with so many other actors (policy-makers, citizens, professials). My research is now more of a political knowledge-negotiation than it was ever before. I take more pleasure out of it, but I sometimes miss the rigidity of academic peers.

it becomes easier to find the focus of a publication, with experience. The process involves less pruning than earlier in my career.

Yes sure.

Rates of return to specialization has become a feature of contemporary publication. Many hands, many skills, many contributions are woven together in a single piece.

One has to think more and more about where one is likely to be able to publish rather than the quality of the work. The push towards flashy general science journals where one needs glitzy work rather than deep science is leading to more superficial research and attempts to get as many publications as possible.

I now work in a different field than I used to do - so different issues are at stake, also cognitively It is hard to assess how the field I used to work in has changed.

I have now more overview of the literature.

Yes, hopefully I am know more aware of my strenghts and weaknesses as an author and tries to use these insights when choosing topic and co-authors.

Opportunities to collaborate and gain feedback on writing with colleagues means I am becoming more familiar with professional writing - esp in formats like journals and reports.

I don't think it has.

I have become both more sincere and critical on a meta-level about my text/work, that is: I have far less problems discussing why an argument is as it is. I used to sometimes shy away/hide some argumentative pitfalls obvious to myself but not to readers/reviewers. I tend to make these known now and I make engaging them part of the process of forming the argument. I have become more critical and analytical during the years. I want to point my co-authors/commenters to point out my errors rather than I want to convince them of theirs.

How has the cognitive dimension of being an author changed?

Lorentz Workshop AUTHORSHIP IN TRANSITION Scientific organisers:

Anne Beaulieu (RuG) | Blaise Cronin (Indiana University) | Frank Miedema (UMCU / Science in Transition) | Sarah de Rijcke (Leiden University) | Paul Wouters (Leiden University)

https://authorshipintransition.wordpress.com