Responsible Conduct of Research
Guidelines: Authorship Practices
Approved by the Office of Vice President for Research
Implemented: 3/25/2010
Last Update: May, 2010
Introduction:
Authorship is an express way of assigning responsibility and contributing credit for intellectual
work. As research has become more complex and multidisciplinary, the need for many
different types of experts to perform studies has increased. It is commonplace for
investigators to collaborate on projects with colleagues from across the country and around
the world, working with senior scientists, clinicians, undergraduate and graduate students,
technicians, postdoctoral fellows, medical students and residents, statisticians, and other
professionals. Each brings different expectations and even cultural experiences to issues such
as who should be included as an author on a paper for publication. Although authorship
practices differ from one setting to another, and individual situations often require judgment,
variation in practices should be within these basic guidelines. For purposes of these
guidelines, publications include any and all articles, abstracts and/or manuscripts based on
original work conducted at USA.
Communicating Responsibilities:
The process of responsible authorship begins before the writing of a manuscript with good
scientific study design and with researchers abiding by ethical guidelines regarding conflicts of
interests and work with animals and humans.
The most important aspect of authorship should occur before the writing of the paper.
Potential authors have to know the policy/culture of their laboratory, department, and
institution with respect to what constitutes an author. Communications clarify roles, and
minimize potential authorship disputes. Issues for consideration:

When a graduate student/employee/post doc/ faculty FIRST arrive in a laboratory, or
colleagues collaborate in a multidisciplinary project, a discussion about the practice of
credit and authorship for research work should occur as soon as possible.

Each party should have an understanding of what kinds of work merits authorship,
with the knowledge that, as the research project progresses, who is an author and the
position of a name in a list may change.

Each party should also have an understanding of who among many authors will have
primary responsibility for the writing, submission, and editing work required for a
paper.

What are the responsibilities and expectations for each contributor to the study?

Are there any intellectual property or confidentiality issues involved that may affect
publication?
Community Standards:
Authorship credit should be based on:
1. Substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or
analysis and interpretation of data.
2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
3. Final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1,2,
and 3
4. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research
group, alone, does not justify authorship.
5. When a large, multi-center group has conducted the work, the group should
identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript.
6. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public
responsibility for appropriate portions for the content.
7. The order of authorship on the byline should be a joint decision of the co-authors.
Authors should be prepared to explain the order in which authors are listed.
8. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an
acknowledgements section.
The above standards are based on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
(ICMJE) guidelines. Over the years, the ICMJE has issued updated versions of what are called
the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals .
Additionally, all investigators accepting authorship should also accept the responsibility of
avoiding unnecessary duplicate journal publication of similar material. Previous publication
should be cited in any repeated use of data or theory.
Individuals are prohibited from publishing articles or editorials under their own name that have
been authored in whole by industry representatives. Payment from commercial entity
representatives to serve as an author to which they did not substantially contribute
undermines the integrity of the scientific process and is contrary to the values and principles
of academia. Additionally, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has adopted
a set of authorship principles that are viewed as the gold standard applicable for physicians
and the scientific community.
Ghostwriting:
Individuals are prohibited from publishing articles or editorials under their own name that have
been authored in whole by industry representatives. Payment from commercial entity
representatives to serve as an author to which they did not substantially contribute
undermines the integrity of the scientific process and is contrary to the values and principles
of academia. Additionally, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has adopted
a set of authorship principles that are viewed as the gold standard applicable for physicians
and the scientific community.
Individuals listed as authors on a paper must have contributed significantly to the work. All coauthors should have been directly involved in one or more of the following activities:
1.
2.
3.
Planning some component of the work which led to the paper,
Writing a draft of the article or revising it for intellectual content, and
Reviewing and approving the final manuscript version before it is submitted for
publication.
Order of Authorship:
Many different ways of determining order of authorship exist across disciplines and research
groups. Such examples of authorship policies include descending order of contribution,
placing the person who took the lead in writing the manuscript or doing the research first and
the most senior contributor last and alphabetical or random order. While the significance of a
particular order may be understood in a given setting, order of authorship has no generally
agreed upon meaning.

The authors should decide on the order of authorship together.

Authors may wish to specify in their manuscript a description of the contributions of each
author and how they have assigned the order in which they are listed so that readers can
interpret their roles correctly.

The senior author should consider preparing a written description of how order of
authorship was decided.
Material adapted from Columbia University