Special Article
Scientific misconducts and authorship conflicts:
Indian perspective
Address for correspondence:
Dr. Mohanchandra Mandal,
Department of Anaesthesiology,
North Bengal Medical College,
P.O. Sushruta Nagar,
Darjeeling ‑ 734 012,
West Bengal, India.
E‑mail: drmcmandal@gmail.com
Access this article online
Website: www.ijaweb.org
DOI: 10.4103/0019-5049.160918
Quick response code
Mohanchandra Mandal, Dipanjan Bagchi1, Sekhar Ranjan Basu
Department of Anaesthesiology, North Bengal Medical College, Darjeeling, 1Howrah District Hospital,
Howrah, West Bengal, India
ABSTRACT
This article is a narrative review about how appropriate authorship can be achieved, a brief mention
about various scientific misconducts, the reason and consequences of such misconducts and
finally, the policies to be adopted by the aspiring authors to avert these problems. The literature
search was performed in the Google and PubMed using ‘scientific misconduct’, ‘honorary/ghost
authorship’, ‘publish‑or‑perish’, ‘plagiarism’ and other related key words and phrases. More than
300 free full‑text articles published from 1990 to 2015 were retrieved and studied. Many consensus
views have been presented regarding what constitutes authorship, the authorship order and
different scientific misconducts. The conflicts about authorship issues related to publication of
dissertation, the area of the grey zone have been discussed. Suggestions from different authorities
about improving the existing inappropriate authorship issues have been included.
Key words: Authorship, biomedical research/ethics, plagiarism, scientific misconduct
INTRODUCTION
The incidence of scientific misconduct is on an
upswing.[1] Several inappropriate authorships have
been described in the literature.[2‑5] Sensational
news stories about authorship misrepresentations
have already eroded the public’s trust in medical
literature.[2,6,7] Publication in peer‑reviewed journals
is often considered a major criterion for career
enhancement. Sometimes, studies are initiated
to utilise the existing funds, or to solicit funds by
submitting the study proposal to a granting body
without real desire to conduct a thorough research.
Many researchers including those in medical field
expect their name in the author list in spite of their
non‑involvement. Some researchers are always ready
to accept the ‘gift’ of authorship for papers to which
they have contributed nothing but they still want to
claim the ‘coins of academic credit’.[8] Larger number
of publications can bring greater recognition and
better opportunities. However, academic careers can
be ruined by accusations of scientific misconduct.[9]
The central theme of authorship is authority and
not a mere ‘good’ composition.[10] The ‘author’ is the
person who creates or starts something.[11] Someone
400
who has made ‘substantive contributions’ to a study
or another intellectual work is generally considered
to be an ‘author’ owing to creativity, originality and
diligence.[12] Although every author bears public or
legal responsibility for its content, some authors often
shrug off their responsibilities when there is any
problem with a publication.[2]
The present article is a narrative review on
authorship criteria, scientific misconduct (causes and
consequences), conflicts of position in authors’ by‑line
and policies to be adopted by the new authors to
minimise the problems. The article presents mostly a
consensus view regarding ethics and responsibility of
an author and thereby intends to raise the awareness
of the issue. The order of authorship, especially in case
of publication of thesis or dissertation matter remains
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How to cite this article: Mandal M, Bagchi D, Basu SR. Scientific
misconducts and authorship conflicts: Indian perspective. Indian J
Anaesth 2015;59:400-5.
© 2015 Indian Journal of Anaesthesia | Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow
Mandal, et al.: Authorship conflicts
an area of grey zone. Literature search was performed
with Google and PubMed using ‘scientific misconduct’
‘authorship misconduct’, ‘honorary/ghost authorship’,
‘authorship order’, ‘publish‑or‑perish’, ‘plagiarism’
and other related key words and phrases. More than
300 free full‑text articles (review, original, editorial
comments) published from 1990 to 2015 have been
reviewed.
Kressel and Dixon[15] mentioned an interesting ‘rule
of 5’, by which a person claiming authorship, should
be able to talk knowledgeably without any preparation
about the aims and findings of their published work
for at least 5 min, about 5 years after the article’s
publication!
WHAT IS NEW IN THE RECENT AUTHORSHIP
CRITERIA?
The doctrine of the day is ‘publish‑or‑perish’.
Undoubtedly, undue importance is being given to a
published paper by assessors in most of the countries
including India. This pressurises faculty members to
publish as many papers as possible for their career
enhancement.[7] However, the character, morals
and mindset are the prime factors for the scientific
misconduct. If papers are written solely for this
purpose and the study is not designed to explore the
lacunae in the existing knowledge, it will result in
low‑quality publication.[16] Another aspect, the higher
number of publications from some of the reputed
faculty member (with nothing new, but technically
rich in composition) might pose challenges to the
‘beginner’ authors to get their real work get published.
New authors may need encouragement in the form
of timely publication. Doubts about the genuineness
of the research may arise if an author submits and
succeeds in publishing articles too frequently.
The International Committee of Medical Journal
Editors (ICMJE) in its publication ‘Recommendations
for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication
of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (ICMJE
Recommendations)’[13] replaces the word ‘requirement’
with ‘recommendation’ probably to imply more
stringency in the criteria. Moreover, there is addition
of a fourth criterion regarding ‘accountability’ for work
‘related to accuracy or integrity’. Authorship credit
should be based on following criteria:
•
Substantial
contributions
to
conception
and design of the study, acquisition and
interpretation of data
•
Drafting the article or revising it critically for
intellectual content
•
Final approval of the version to be published
•
Be accountable for all aspects of the work;
questions related to accuracy or integrity are to
be properly resolved.
Additionally, corresponding author should identify
which co‑authors are responsible for specific portions
of work. All those designated as authors should meet
all four criteria; those not meeting all four criteria
should be acknowledged.[13]
Authors and contributors
Defining ‘contributorship’ and what constitutes
‘substantial contribution’ to a scientific paper
to achieve authorship is a grey zone. Generally
contributors should include all those who have added
successfully to the work such as, somebody who
suggested the idea and design for the study but did
nothing further. Areas/roles that do not constitute
authorship are provision of space or funding, general
supervision of the research group, data collection and
participation that do not meet all the four requirements
of authorship. All such contributors may be listed in
the acknowledgments section after obtaining written
permission.[14]
Indian Journal of Anaesthesia | Vol. 59 | Issue 7 | Jul 2015
BEWARE OF AUTHOR INFLATION!
In recent years, a hike in duplicate or redundant
publications has been noted as also an increase in
the overall number of authors per publications ‑ The
‘author inflation’.[2,17] This author inflation occurs
owing to duplicate publication or ‘salami slicing’
and inclusion of non‑contributing persons as
authors (honorary authorship) in the ‘author by‑line’.
Real authors certainly suffer a drop value by inclusion
of undeserved authors.[2] Addition of new knowledge
to the existing information is essential for an original
paper. But generation of new knowledge cannot be
expected as everyday affair.[18,19] Nowadays, there is an
explosion in the number of journals owing to creation
of many internet‑based journals, specialised journals
and the open‑access system. Shorter length papers
are getting processed quickly. There is an increasing
tendency among some authors to slice their single
research work into many pieces to fit the journal length
and sending those as different papers to different
journals. As many journals exist in the market, these
get published easily. Millions of scientific papers are
getting published every year. To reduce the reporting
of incremental advances and to reduce the number of
401
Mandal, et al.: Authorship conflicts
publications that a library has to pay for, one model,
the so‑called ‘20‑paper rule’ has been proposed
through an editorial of Nature Medicine. It says ‘what
would you do if you could publish only 20 papers
throughout your career’. To elaborate that ‘20‑paper
rule’, a person will receive 20 tickets at the start of his
academic job. Every time, he publishes a paper, one
ticket is dispensed off. Once the researcher is run out
of tickets, the researcher’s publishing days are over.
Although this has not been accepted and implemented
anywhere in the world, this proposal at least became
successful to reveal the concern of the journal editors
about these problems![20] However, this policy, if it ever
gets implemented, can affect many able researchers
who will not be able to publish their important work
that can change the medical practice.
Scientific misconducts ‑ The tip of the iceberg
A recent survey shows the rate of perceived honorary
authorship to be 26.0%.[21] In another study, the
prevalence of perceived and ICJME‑defined honorary
authorship in physical medicine and rehabilitation
research articles were found to be 18.0% (44/244)
and 55.2% (137/248), respectively.[22] A recent study
from Iran reports that more than 89% of published
biomedical articles have at least one honorary author,
and about 55% of authors listed in an article do not
meet the authorship criteria.[23] Violation of ethical
standard, undeclared conflicts of interest, ghost
authorship (deleting the real contributing author),
plagiarism, duplicate publication, salami publication,
fabricating data to get papers published in renowned
journals‑all constitute fraud. Some of the researchers
have been identified as fraudsters. A heavy focus
upon them can divert our attention from the fraudster
among us all. Many go undetected and transgress the
scientific information and are under detected.[18,24]
Authorship
misconduct
can
have
serious
consequences, including retraction of papers,
suspension of authors and other legal actions.[17] In the
recent years, a 10‑fold increase in retractions of articles
for scientific fraud has been estimated.[25] Up to 29% of
all retracted papers were allegedly due to some form
of plagiarism. Authors in India have been responsible
for about 6% of retractions worldwide.[26] In the
recent years (2009‑2012), 360 articles from 7 authors
in journals published abroad, and 5 articles from
3 authors in Indian scenario were implicated, with
reports of plagiarism, falsification and fabrication of
data and lack of Institutional Review Board approval.
This resulted in rejection and retraction of articles,
402
ban from publications, stripping of the author of his
title and even dismissal from university. However, this
list is not exhaustive.[14,15,27,28]
The modern‑day journals use software tools to detect
plagiarism and duplicate publications.[4,24] However,
there are loop holes and lacunae in the present
peer‑review system. It is a hard job for the editors
and reviewers to verify the veracity of the manuscript
under review. Often, some of the reviewers are not
equipped with similar software and the facility to
access full‑text articles of all journals.[19,24] Moreover,
some of the editors and reviewers are not adequately
conversant with the biostatistics. This limits the
checking of the veracity of data and results.[29]
THE AUTHORSHIP ORDER AND WHO WILL BE THE
FIRST AUTHOR?
A common belief persists that it is useless to have
one’s name after position six in the ‘author by‑line’
and less important when one finds his name after
position two. Undoubtedly, the first author holds a
special importance. The running title of every paper
bears the name of the first author only, and the first
author’s name is often cited in the discussion part of a
paper. It is a common practice of assessors to consider
the articles up to a position of two during academic
data verification for promotional or other interviews.
The practice of explicitly giving authors ‘equal credit’,
especially the first two, for published original research
article has increased in the past decade.[30] The person
who has conducted most of the work described in
the paper, written the first draft, critically revised
the manuscript thereafter and thus has made the
greatest contribution, will be the first author. Middle
authors (those not listed in the first, second or last)
are the least likely to contribute to the intellectual
work of the study. An implied assumption continues
that the contributions of all authors, other than the
first, second and last, are minimal.[3] The last position
is usually reserved for the person who directed or
guided the said research. Generally, this person
accepts the overall responsibility for all aspects of the
reported findings, inclusion of appropriate co‑authors
and the authorship order. Usually, he/she acts as the
‘guarantor’ who ensures the integrity of the study.[4,5]
The names of other contributing authors appear after
the primary author; senior authors’ names are entered
last. The authorship order should reflect their relative
contribution to the work.[2]
Indian Journal of Anaesthesia | Vol. 59 | Issue 7 | Jul 2015
Mandal, et al.: Authorship conflicts
Inappropriate authorship‑the Indian context
In the recent past, some problematic situations have
been mentioned in the Indian perspective where a
deserving resident does not get due credit in spite of
his labour in the project or conversely, the resident uses
the unit data without others knowledge and publishes
it. It has also happened that a senior professor who
has done a huge amount of work retires and is then
denied access to unit data or omitted from authorship
by his/her successor when the unit subsequently
publishes the work.[31]
The question arises who should be the first author
when the work, conceived and supervised by the
guide for his resident, is sent for publication.[32] The
issue may gain a newer dimension when any guide
is in need of extra weight for the career enhancement
or for assessment by national regulatory bodies. Often
sufficient credit is not offered to the faculty member
owing to the fact of not being the first author. This
may invite discrepancy in attitude among some of the
faculty members to give ordinary research ideas to the
residents while keeping the better ones for themselves,
where he/she will appear as first author. Although it
may depict selfishness and non‑professionalism on the
part of the faculty member, and the scenario cannot be
generalised, it is happening.
Sometimes, the issue of publication of dissertation or
thesis work as a paper arises, although this may need
prior permission from the concerned university and
involve an interval of 3–5 years. Some universities
specify that the thesis must be completed, accepted and
after appearing for the final examination, the material
can be drawn for publication from the thesis. Also,
controversy occasionally exists regarding utilisation
of content as it is or under a different title. However,
when such publications do occur, usually the resident
becomes the first author owing to the most overall
contribution to the manuscript regardless of his/her
capability. Simply, it is decided on the absolute amount
of time and effort spent on the project. However, if
the resident does not show any inclination, a policy
can be adopted by allowing the resident a stipulated
period to write the draft and in case of failure, the
supervisor then can write the paper and put himself
first.[5,33] The sequence of contributing authors should
be determined by the overall contributions to the
manuscript as usual.[33]
The problem gains a newer dimension when another
faculty member, not officially endorsed guide,
Indian Journal of Anaesthesia | Vol. 59 | Issue 7 | Jul 2015
comes forward to assist the student with substantial
contribution in case of inactiveness of the formal or
official guide. During submission for publication,
the student and the official guide should be honest
enough to include this contributing faculty member in
the authorship list. To satisfy the authorship criteria of
ICJME’s recommendations,[13] the official guide should
refrain from receiving authorship in case of total
inactivity or should occupy the intermediate (third to
fifth) position if there is partial involvement; needless
to elaborate that the official guide must satisfy all four
criteria of achieving authorship. Unfortunately, at
present, there exists no surveillance from the authority
on the guide’s performance. Hence, it is difficult to
exclude the name of the guide from the authorship list
simply because of the non‑contribution.
How is ‘significant contribution’ defined in each
context? ‘Work’ could mean both the research project
and the resultant publication. Although both are
inter‑related to a variable extent in view of data and
draft, either of the phases has to be considered as a
separate job owing to the fact that a fresh bulk of time
and devotion is needed for the publication process.
There are instances where authors have been omitted
at the time of publication despite having contributed
as co‑investigators.[8]
Policies to minimise authorship conflicts
Researchers should remain clear and honest from the
very beginning with issues relating to publication and
authorship. This should address the issues regarding
the roles of all contributors. Before initiating any
research work, participants should agree on and
document its scope, authorship and acknowledgments,
order of authorship and each author’s responsibility in
the project and in preparing the final manuscript. This
agreement should be sufficiently flexible to align with
target journals and to match with the changed attitude
and role of any team member with the progress of
the work. Subsequent changes in authorship or
responsibilities should be reviewed and approved by
the entire group. Prospective authors should maintain
a record of their contributions to the research work,
to document authorship. With a new research
project, obtaining permission of the Institutional
Ethical Committee, registration with the concerned
university, or registration with the Clinical Trial
Registry‑India (www.ctri.nic.in) may partly resolve
the authorship conflicts. The chief coordinator of the
study should remind others time to time regarding
their responsibilities. Before the primary manuscript
403
Mandal, et al.: Authorship conflicts
or any revision is submitted, each author must read it,
approve and agree to take public or legal responsibility
for its content. Authors must clarify authorship
expectations when they ask their colleagues to review
a working manuscript to avoid the initiation of any
dispute. Each author must disclose any significant
financial interests and/or other real or potential
conflicts of interest. Exhaustive information regarding
the responsibilities of authors and other contributors
and necessary declaration of conflict of interests
should be consulted, understood and satisfied.[34] Any
individual who believes that he should have been
included as an author but was excluded should report
this exclusion to the chief coordinator who should try
to resolve any such conflict at the incipient stage.
Many of us have witnessed these unpleasant issues.
It is unfortunate that the number of publications, and
not their quality, remains one important parameter for
assessing the credibility of medical faculty members.
The evaluation system should be based not on
quantitative assessment of publications alone. Rather it
should consider other points such as ethics and quality
of publications, teaching quality and experience,
community service, expertise and excellence in clinical
work and their impact on patient service. Anonymous
feedback from the students regarding faculty members’
teaching and clinical activities in confidential manner
might be another useful assessment tool. The university
should put the performance of faculty member acting
as guide under close surveillance. Being evaluated
solely by ‘publication value’ may result in reorienting
the priorities away from teaching and clinical works
toward mere paper publication. In such case, the
research activities might not be designed as a desire to
know the truth and/or to find out new knowledge.[19,35]
Sometimes, dilemma exists in deciding on author's
authenticity and authority of the Editor to uphold
the publication values. Students and many faculty
members in medical colleges of India have poor
perception about issues of scientific misconducts.
Lack of good role model among the faculty members
probably also contributes to this problem. Educating
the students and faculty members regarding healthy
conduct of research and training about subsequent
drafting, will help to change their attitude toward
plagiarism.[36] Strategies should be developed to
achieve and monitor these goals. Authorship should
not be bestowed upon. Being a matter of pride, the
authorship has to be deserved and earned.
404
SUMMARY
Every aspiring author must understand and adhere to
the ICMJE criteria for authorship. Honesty in performing
scientific investigation, maintenance of the integrity of
both mind and work, proper documentation of every
author’s contribution, registration of the trial with
regulatory bodies‑all will help in reducing the conflicts
of authorship in a summative manner. Plagiarism should
be checked using necessary tools and be prevented with
the best efforts from the authors during the preparation
of first draft of the manuscript. The number of
publications and the order of appearance in the author’s
by‑line should not be given much importance.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Dr. Sabyasachi Das,
Professor, Department of Anaesthesiology, North Bengal
Medical College, for his valuable advice during final
revision before first submission of this manuscript. The
authors also wish to thank anonymous reviewers for their
constructive criticism, helpful comments and advices that
lead to betterment of the manuscript.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
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