Funding

Disciplines:  All

Compliance Highlight:  SIUE’s Authorship Policy 1M12

This week, ORP is highlighting SIUE’s newly published Authorship Policy 1M12. The Research & Academic Misconduct Policy 1Q5 explicitly states that it “does not apply to authorship or collaboration disputes and authorship disputes do not, in and of themselves, constitute misconduct,” so SIUE found a need for a separate policy tailored toward authorship disputes.

SIUE published the new Authorship Policy on December 23, 2020 as an additional resource to ensure Research Integrity, fair and appropriate authorship attribution, and to reduce the risk of authorship disputes arising. The policy has three major parts: (1) General Guidelines, (2) Authorship Definitions, and (3) Dispute Resolution Procedures.

General Guidelines

The general guidelines provide suggestions on how to set authorship expectations and the suggestions are simple – communication and consistency. By communicating pro-actively, frequently, and openly about authorship requirements and expectations, a dispute is less likely to arise later. Further, if disciplines have a set of traditions on authorship, those traditions should be followed. Consistency in awarding authorship sets expectations at the outset of the project.

Authorship Defined

Under the policy, an author is anyone who has made meaningful and substantial intellectual contributions to a scholarly work or project.  A person qualifies as an author if they meet the following criteria:

1. provided substantial intellectual contributions to the conception or design of the scholarly work or project and
2. participated in the drafting and/or revising the work for scholarly content and
3. should have approved the final version of the work to be submitted, published, performed, or presented.

Any person who does not meet the requirements for authorship can be given an acknowledgment. The policy gives examples of contributors who may not qualify for authorship. The definition leaves room for disciplinary differences in authorship attribution customs and traditions.

Dispute Resolution Procedures

If a dispute arises, the dispute resolution procedures are split into stages. The goal is to first avoid any dispute by following the recommended steps in this policy, and then if a dispute arises, using informal resolution techniques first.

Stage 1. Dispute resolution is informal at this stage. The goal is to resolve the dispute between the authors through open and professional communication. If the conclusion of the conversation results in a change in authorship attribution, it should be documented. However, if the dispute cannot be resolved, then the dispute moves to stage 2.

Stage 2. At this stage, the dispute is referred to the Graduate School and the Associate Provost for Research (APR) will act as a mediator. If the mediation does not resolve the conflict, the dispute will be referred to the Research Integrity Inquiry Panel (RIIP).

Stage 3. At this stage, the RIIP will resolve the dispute and provide a formal recommendation to a Deciding Official (DO). The policy outlines what information the RIIP will need and what definitions it’s required to use during the process. Since different disciplines have different authorship traditions and customs, the RIIP will take into consideration the acceptable standards for the relevant discipline or field.

For more information and details on each stage of the authorship dispute resolution procedures, check out the full Authorship Policy 1M12. It is also linked to our Research Integrity page here.

Next week we will highlight the Authorship Checklist developed to help manage authorship expectations.