Authorship: an ethical dilemma of science

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONIn parallel with scientific progress within different fields of human knowledge, there has been a substantial increase in the volume of research. This has been accompanied by an increase in the number of authors in scientific publications. [1][2][3][4][5][6] Although such increases have been justified by technological advances that require multidisciplinary and multicenter research projects, 7 it can be seen that other factors have had a stronger influence on authors' conduct. One of them may be described as the personal desire for social and professional advancement, tenure, promotion, prestige and fame. 1,2,4,6,[8][9][10][11][12][13] The other factor, closely linked with the first one and just as important, is the pressure exerted by academia, in which voluminous scientific production is demanded from researchers. 1,3,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] Regrettably, such pressure has encouraged not only increased co-authorship but also other forms of misconduct in authorship. 2In 1978, a group of editors assembled in Vancouver, Canada, to create the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (IC-MJE), with the objective of standardizing the publication of scientific articles and standardizing the criteria for writing and authorship. The document they produced set specific authorship criteria, according to which the researcher should fulfill requirements of effective participation in the work in order to be characterized as an author.18 Several other committees and organizations have been created since 1990, with the majority of them aimed at developing ethical principles for editors and authors. 19,20 Despite all the existing rules, there have been no long-lasting changes in conduct regarding the authorship of scientific publications. 3,[21][22][23] A study conducted in 2002 among medical students revealed that a great proportion of them had adopted unethical practices in their research activities, varying from minor deeds to more grievous acts like falsifying results. 24 Suggestions for an alternative form of authorship have been put forward: instead of authors, articles would have "contributors". Such contributors' participation would be explained in that issue of the publication, so as to assign credit and responsibility to them. 25 The ICMJE, in a recent update of the rules, 26 is encouraging editors to adopt this system of a list of collaborators in their journals. Nevertheless, despite all efforts, honorary authors still appear in articles. With the purpose of analyzing the evolution of the problem of scientific authorship from different angles, a review of literature has been made to search for answers to these questions. Based on these findings, proposals are made for changing the paradigms so that greater ethical commitment may be attained. METHODThe literature review was qualitative, made through bibliographic searches in the Medline (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online), Lilacs (Literatura Latino-americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde) and SciELO (Sc...

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“…The articles dealt with various issues about scientific integrity, among them the most discussed by authors were plagiarism 16,18,22,24,30 and authorship conflicts involving several collaborators 12,15,16,20 . This concern is understandable in a scientific scenario where researchers are pressured to increase their production of articles for publication, putting at risk the quality and validity of the results presented 33 .…”

“…This is attributed to the way of assessment the quality of a researcher is performed through the number of scientific articles the researcher publishes 12 . The high demand for productivity in shorter time may be harmful to the creativity and the originality of the studies published.…”

Contemporary conversations on authorship in Applied Linguistics: a literature review

“…Within this scenario, funds for research, tenure track positions, scholarships, and academic recognition are some of the factors that motivate researchers to produce and publish an increasing number of scientific publication. In the academic sphere, however, intellectual authorship seems to be a controversial point (CARNEIRO et al, 2007;HOWARD, 1995;PETROIANU, 2002), mainly regarding the setting of criteria for deciding to whom it should be attributed (CARNEIRO et al, 2007;GARCIA et al, 2010;GRIEGER, 2005;MONTEIRO et al, 2004;PETROIANU, 2002;WITTER, 2010).…”

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“…Os pesquisadores, no entanto, não estão imunes às condutas antiéticas e fraudes 4 . Incluem-se nestas vários tipos de má conduta em autoria, como a autoria "de presente", a autoria fantasma e o plágio 5 . O Wall Street Journal publicou um artigo sobre médicos-escritores que são pagos pela indústria farmacêutica para elaborar artigos científicos para publicação com o nome de pesquisadores proeminentes 6 .…”