Attribution of Effort

Academic success is traditionally measured in terms of numbers of publications. As scientific research becomes increasingly collaborative, these traditional metrics may no longer be capable of capturing the full scope of effort that creates the modern scientific landscape. Collaboration requires an attention to the building of relationships between individuals and research teams, all of which takes time and effort. We advocate for new approaches that reward scientists in non-traditional ways that could include contributions to open-source community software libraries, participation in community building workshops and model intercomparison projects.

Approach to Authorship

Authorship of scientific papers remains one of the primary metrics of academic effort, and is often directly linked to an individual's career advancement. Deciding who should be included as an author and what the order of authorship should be is often the subject of intense debate. These decisions are particularly challenging because people from different disciplines, social and cultural backgrounds often have different ideas about authorship. For example, in many medical fields, being last author is a sign of prestige, whereas it means one made a minimal contribution to the effort in other fields. The importance of authorship can change over one's career. An early-career scientist may need many first-author papers to get established, while a senior researcher might be less concerned with their position in the author list.

A useful guide on how to handle authorship disputes recommends the building of a culture of ethical authorship early in the publication process. As soon as an idea matures into a potential publication, researchers should have discussions within the group to define what norms of behavior whould create a positive and ethical culture around authorship. The team should agree on structures, such as pathways of communication and setting up systems for handling disputes, that ensure the authorship process proceeds smoothly. Decisions on authorship should be made before writing begins, and the roles and responsibilities of each author should be documented and updated throughout the writing process. Other useful guides include Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication and a paper about What constitutes authorship?.

Many publications now require authors to articulate their particular role in preparing a manuscript. In light of this, it may be useful for everyone to put down in writing how they plan to contribute to a particular piece of work. We have used this authorship policy template with some success.