Warwick Evidence
Publication Strategy and
Authorship Policy
Warwick Evidence
ID number: WE PAS V1
January 2012
Division of Health Sciences
Warwick Medical School
The University of Warwick
Signed ...................................................................................Date.......................................
Signed ...................................................................................Date.......................................
Signed ...................................................................................Date.......................................
Signed ...................................................................................Date.......................................
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Warwick Evidence Publication Strategy and Authorship Policy
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Contents
1.
Publication strategy for Warwick Evidence ......................................................................................................... 3
2.
Authorship policy ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
2.1 Proposed criteria for authorship .......................................................................................................................... 4
2.2 Determining Author Order .................................................................................................................................... 4
2.3 Contributors ............................................................................................................................................................ 5
2.4 Clinical advisors and Authorship ......................................................................................................................... 5
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1. Publication strategy for Warwick Evidence
Members of Warwick Evidence are encouraged to consider all possibilities for publications as part of the
work undertaken for the NICE and the NIHR HTA programme.
The team lead should develop a publication plan at the start of the work programme. This should be
discussed with the team. The team lead should remind all members of the team and the clinical advisors
about the authorship policy (see below).
Journal publications with the highest impact should be considered in the first instance. Queries about
journal costs and open access should be sent to the senior team.
Team lead to inform NETSCC if a publication is successful. The team lead is also requested to inform the
Warwick Evidence Project Manager and the Project administrator for PET.
All staff are encouraged to keep an update CV which includes a list of their publications.
2. Authorship policy
An authorship policy for Warwick Evidence should help ensure that authorship is assigned in a fair, ethical
and transparent manner.
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME) criteria for Authorship and Contributions
are adopted by most of the leading biomedical journals. ICJME guidelines state that authorship credit
should be based on three conditions, all of which must be met:
A. Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and
interpretation of data
B. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
C. Final approval of the version to be published
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Although these criteria are more applicable to primary research studies, they can be adapted for secondary
research.
2.1 Proposed criteria for authorship
Everyone listed as an author should have contributed to at least two of the components (listed a-f below)
for a publication. Also, everyone should contribute to G.
A. Conception and design or a substantial contribution to the protocol or funding of the project
B. Input to the design of the data extraction form , or the search strategy and the filtering of the
results of the searches
C. Data extraction and processing
D. Analysis and interpretation of the data
E. Writing substantial sections of the paper
F. Critically reviewing drafts of the report/paper
G. Commenting on the final version
Everyone who is listed as an author should have made a substantial direct academic contribution i.e. clearly
show intellectual engagement with the topic and to read and comment on the final version of the
publication.
2.2 Determining Author Order
Tentative authorship should be discussed between researchers at the beginning of the project and
reviewed periodically. This should be confirmed in writing and notes kept. We need to recognise that in
some circumstances roles may change during the course of a review or certain changes in emphasis of the
review may occur, so that authorship order may need to be re-evaluated, in consultation with other team
members.
Decisions about who should be an author, the order of authors, and those included in the
acknowledgements should usually be made by the lead, in consultation with other authors. In the event of
a disagreement which cannot be resolved, advice should be sought from the lead author’s line manager,
and in the event of a continuing disagreement, the Chair of the Warwick Advisory Group.
Higher up authors on the authorship list would be based on criteria such as:
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1.
Amount of work involved and contribution to the criteria for authorship
2.
Overall responsibility for the writing of the report/paper
3.
Intellectual engagement
The lead author is the person who has made the most major contribution to the paper and /or taken the
lead in writing it. They should be listed first. Those who have made a major contribution as listed above are
entitled to follow the first author; where there is a clear difference in the size of contributions, this should
be reflected in the order of the authors.
The senior author should be the one who guarantees the work for Warwick Evidence and WMS. They will
usually be the most senior member of staff involved as an author.
2.3 Contributors
Contributors who do not merit authorship should be acknowledged separately. A contributor may be
someone who undertakes part of the work (e.g. formatting of the report only, the obtaining of articles only;
running search strategies only with no filtering of results, advice only with no direct engagement with the
publication).
2.4 Clinical advisors and Authorship
The Warwick Evidence authorship policy applies equally to clinical advisors; for example, commenting on
the protocol and answering queries during the review would result in an acknowledgment. (Whereas
commenting on the protocol, answering queries during the review, and commenting on drafts and the final
version would merit authorship).
All contributors should be made aware at the beginning of a project of the criteria for authorship.
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