FLICKR, VIDALIA_11Despite more than a century of academic research and scientific publication, authorship policies and guidelines have only been codified in the last three decades. While this may have been a recent arrival to research standards, authorship guidelines are increasingly being adopted by scientists, funding bodies, and publishers alike. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have established authorship guidelines as part of their mandates for the responsible conduct of research. Academic institutions, too, have either already adopted or are in the process of establishing authorship guidelines and policies in accordance with requirements of federal and other funding agencies.
Most of these and other published authorship guidelines appear to be based on those disseminated in 1985 by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The ICMJE established three criteria for authorship in biomedical research. “Authors” must take part in all of the following: significant contribution to all aspects of the study design, or data acquisition, analysis, and interpretation; initial draft preparation and/or critical editing and review of the manuscript; and approval of the final version before publication. The ICMJE guidelines also addressed the issue of acknowledging contributions that do not rise to the level of authorship.
Consistent with emerging efforts to prevent authorship conflicts and establish responsibility during scientific publication, many journals have been adding the new requirement of detailing each author’s contribution ...
