Multiple co-first authors, co-corresponding authors and co-supervisors: a synthesis of shared authorship credit

Abstract

PurposeAuthorship is the ultimate status of intellectual recognition in academic publishing. Although fairly robust guidelines have already been in place for a considerable amount of time regarding authorship criteria and credit, such as those by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors or Contributor Roles Taxonomy, the lack of reliable verification techniques hamper their accuracy, thereby reducing the validity of authorship claims in such statements. This paper aims to focus on the authorship status and responsibilities of co-first authors and co-corresponding authors.Design/methodology/approachTo appreciate authorship responsibilities in this subset of authors, the broader academic authorship literature, as well as position statements, rules and guidelines, were consulted.FindingsAcademic publishing that relies on metrics is a global multi-billion-dollar business, so strict measures to assess and confirm authorship, which can be intellectually or financially “profitable” among academics that game such metrics, are needed. The current assessment is that there are inconsistent rules for equally credited authors such as co-first authors, co-corresponding authors and co-supervisors. In shared and collaborative authorship, there are also shared authorship-related responsibilities, but these are infrequently discussed, or tend to only be dealt with broadly.Originality/valueWithin the wider, and important, discussion about authorship, which is one of the most central issues in academic publishing, there has been a limited focus on equally credited authors such as co-first authors, co-corresponding authors and co-supervisors. This paper expands and fortifies that discussion.

A systematic scoping review of the ethics of contributor role ontologies and taxonomies

“…Although several articles explicitly note that CRediT improves current authorship standards [21, 28], some explain why this claim might not be always true. For example, it is argued that CRediT does not help distinguishing those who should be listed in the author byline from those who should be acknowledged [25], and it is “only applicable to byline authors” [18].…”

“…Two papers suggest that using CRediT reduces honorary authorships because it reduces ambiguity about contribution types [27, 28]. However, this view is challenged by Larivière and colleagues who argue that researchers could also adopt practices like ghost, guest, and gift authorship when using CROTs [29].…”

“…Two publications mention CRediT and the ICMJE criteria in the context of responsibilities [26, 28]. McLaren and Dent note that while authorship credit “carries additional layers of rights, responsibilities, and ultimate accountability for the work” and is also subject to stringent tests such as the ICMJE criteria, CRediT is only concerned with acknowledging (some of the) contributions [26].…”

“…McLaren and Dent (2021, p. 53) noted that while authorship credit “carries additional layers of rights, responsibilities, and ultimate accountability for the work” and is also subject to stringent tests such as the ICMJE criteria, CRediT is only concerned with acknowledging (some of the) contributions. Teixeira da Silva (2021, p. 1118) noted that CRediT is an improvement to the ICMJE recommendations “increasing the transparency of author contributions and stating with greater clarity the contribution of each author, potentially fortifying accountability”.…”

Handling Ethics Dumping and Neo-Colonial Research: From the Laboratory to the Academic Literature

“…Editors and publishers are in a key position to ensure that there is data verification and proper ethics approval and compliance before a paper is published (Teixeira da Silva, Bornemann-Cimenti, and Tsigaris 2021 ). Equitable authorship and recognition can only be achieved in a LIC-HIC collaboration through skill-based capacity building, so scholarly communication must reflect ethical authorship standards, avoid guest and ghost authorship, and fairly recognize co-author status (Teixeira da Silva and Dobránszki 2016 ; Teixeira da Silva 2021a ).…”