When Should Authorship Forms Be Submitted?

Because our publisher's copyright form allows one author to sign and legally transfer copyright, we feel it is necessary to obtain assurance of each author's contributions and ensure that each author approves and takes responsibility for the submission. Thus, we have created an "Authorship Agreement" form that we will be requiring all authors to sign before acceptance of a paper. The text of it reads:

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AUTHORSHIP AGREEMENT
Must be signed by ALL authors

In accordance with the Authorship and Contributorship policy available at www.icmje.org, the undersigned certify that each has participated in the conception and design of this work, the analysis of data (when applicable), the writing of the manuscript, the approval of the submission of this version of the manuscript, and that each takes public responsibility for it.

Manuscript # ___________
Title:

[signature lines]

Note: this is not a transfer of copyright. The publisher will provide a copyright form.

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Although ideally we would like to have this form signed upon submission and upon every subsequent revision, we feel that this would onerous to authors and delay processing submissions (of which 80% will be rejected). However, we would welcome your thoughts about when in the process this type of form should be required.

Alice Landwehr
Managing Editor, The Journal of Pediatrics

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Alice et al: We have co-authors sign our coauthor form at the time the manuscript is being edited for publication (generally the same time the copyright form is being handled).

To ensure that all authors qualify for submission from the get-go, you might make such a statement a requirement for cover letters (Perhaps not worded quite as complexly as your authorship form, but something like it.) But we don't see it as a huge issue until publication time, when all the cards must really be on the table.

Lisa Dittrich
Managing Editor, Academic Medicine

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During the editing process we send copies of the correspondence with the lead author to all the co-authors. Once an article is finalized we require all the authors to sign individual declarations about their contributions and their agreement to publication. We only produce the page proofs once we have collected all the signatures.

John S Dowden
Editor, Australian Prescriber

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Getting all authors to sign an authorship agreement sounds an excellent idea to me. I have just 2 comments/queries:

(1) Do you (or any other journals) ask the corresponding author or guarantor to state that all individuals who qualify as authors have been listed? (I have recently come across a case of disputed authorship where this might have been helpful—and such a statement MIGHT flush out a few "ghosts".)

(2) The most recent revision of the ICMJE authorship criteria mentions data collection as well as data analysis-I therefore wondered why you didn't use this wording?

Liz Wager
Freelance Publications Consultant

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John, this is a good idea and avoids the problem we once had. Our publisher sent the proofs to the wrong author by mistake, ie, not the corresponding author. The author replied that he did not agree with the content of the manuscript (the manuscript was actually received via a pharma company).

Elise Langdon-Neuner

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We at Indian Pediatrics encourage all authors to sign on a comprehensive Authorship Criteria and Responsibility, Financial Disclosure, Acknowledgment, and Copyright Transfer Form in the same order as in authorship credits. This is to be submitted preferably at the time of submitting the manuscript; but is mandatory before we issue the final acceptance letter. The text follows:

INDIAN PEDIATRICS

Authorship Criteria and Responsibility, Financial Disclosure, Acknowledgment, and Copyright Transfer Form

Manuscript Title

I/We certify that the manuscript represents valid work and that neither this manuscript nor one with substantially similar content under my/our authorship has been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere. For papers with more than 1 author, We agree to allow the corresponding author to serve as the primary correspondent with the editorial office, to review the edited typescript and proof.

I/We have seen and approved the submitted manuscript. All of us have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the contents. All the authors have made substantial contributions to the intellectual content of the paper and fulfil at least 1 condition for each of the 3 categories of contributions: i.e., Category 1 (conception and design, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data), Category 2 (drafting of the manuscript, critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content) and Category 3 (final approval of the version to be published).

I/We also certify that all my/our affiliations with or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript are completely disclosed on the title page of the manuscript. My/our right to examine, analyze, and publish the data is not infringed upon by any contractual agreement.

I/We certify that all persons who have made substantial contributions to the work reported in this manuscript (e.g., data collection, writing or editing assistance) but who do not fulfill the authorship criteria are named along with their specific contributions in an acknowledgment section in the manuscript. If an acknowledgment section is not included, no other persons have made substantial contributions to this manuscript. I/We also certify that all persons named in the acknowledgment section have provided written permission to be named.

The author(s) undersigned hereby transfer(s), assign(s), or otherwise convey(s) all copyright ownership, including any and all rights incidental thereto, exclusively to the Indian Pediatrics, in the event that such work is published in Indian Pediatrics.

Authors' name(s) in order of appearance in the manuscript       Signatures (date)
1.
2.

Piyush Gupta
Associate Editor, Indian Pediatrics
New Delhi, India

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We ask all authors to sign both a copyright form and an "identifying document" at the point of submission to confirm that they qualify for authorship. The identifying document reproduces the Vancouver Guidelines extract and asks specifically for a statement of what each author contributed along with the other usual ethical statements. You can see both forms in "Instructions and Forms" on our website mc.manuscriptcentral.com/medicaleducation.

We started to ask for this some years ago because we had begun to witness a certain amount of "shuffling" of authorship claims as some papers drew close to acceptance, even to the point of additional authors suddenly appearing from nowhere. We thought that if we asked for the information up-front then the position would be clear from the outset both to our editors and to all co-authors.

We don't find that it causes delay in manuscript processing; our electronic system prompts authors to get the forms ready as part of the submission process. Time is saved later because we already have the forms in hand at the point of acceptance. We have no evidence that authors find it any more onerous than the rest of the submission process, and we have 100% complianc—though I'd be the first to accept that this, in itself, is no guarantee that they don't mind having to do it.

Julie Brice
Managing Editor, Medical Education

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I think Julie's method is fairly widely adopted. The problem with it is that there is no way of knowing that the authors' signatures are genuine or that they saw the final version before publication. The advantage of the system used by John Dowden's journal is that the journal communicates direct with all the authors after acceptance of the final version and avoids the possibility of the corresponding author circumventing the other authors.

Elise Langdon-Neuner

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This is an important issue and a timely one, so I'm glad to see the lively discussion, particularly in light of the recent Sudbo controversy.

The Journal of Clinical Oncology requires detailed contribution and disclosure information from its contributors. See our submission requirements here: http://tinyurl.com/8mzn8

Kristen King
Copy Editor, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Journal of Oncology Practice

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At some point, though, there is only so much you can do to "police" authors. Let's face it—people, particularly junior people, could still be left off the authorship list, form or no form, and feel unable to say anything, particularly if the first author is a powerful figure. And most journals have limited staff and limited time to track down all the facts. We also used to ask anyone acknowledged by an author to sign a form (because once an "acknowledgee" objected to being even associated with a paper)—but we finally gave that up because it was just too onerous for authors to track these people down (and we haven't had any problems since).

Lisa Dittrich
Managing Editor, Academic Medicine

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I think having the lead author vouch for authorship on authorship agreement forms is an excellent idea, but I have a couple of questions about this authorship agreement in particular that maybe someone can clarify for me ...

I am currently working on a project with co-authors in Chile, the Phillipines, 2 locations in the United States, and Italy. When I am asked to have signatures from all these co-authors, it is often very difficult to do in a timely fashion (it always seems to be in a rush-to-publication flurry) because of difficulties with faxes and differences in the academic calendars. It's hard enough to write the papers together, it is the SIGNATURES that are difficult. Thus there are many occasions where either e-mail confirmation or assurances from the lead author would certainly be less burdensome.

Second, unless I am reading it wrong, this authorship agreement says that each author has been involved in ALL of these phases of writing a paper. I work on large, survey-based projects where 2 or 3 people might conceptualize a major survey and design the study, other people come on later and develop several papers from the data, you bring in a statistician who works only on later phases of the work, and perhaps 45 or 50 students might be involved at one phase or another of data collection. Authorship is determined by who has made substantive intellectual contributions to the particular manuscript at hand. Often that will include the person who designed the original study but sometimes the primary intellectual mover the paper will be someone who was not involved with the project until it was well underway. It strikes me that OR is the operative word—authors must have been involved in some phase of the work but not necessarily in all phases of the work.

Authorship solely for data collection, with no other intellectual contribution also becomes tricky. I am currently doing an observational study that involves coding hundreds of videotapes. Probably 30 undergraduates have been involved at various phases of the data collection and probably another 10 will be involved in coding. Some of those students have made important contributions to the work—either in labor or intellectually. These students are given authorship credit usually in part of the project most closely tied to their interests.

But does every single student need to be acknowledged as an author for every single one of the probably 20+ papers that will come out of this study? I would not think so.

The American Psychological Association manual sates that "Authorship is reserved for people who make a primary contribution to and hold primary responsibility for the data, concepts, and interpretation of results for a published work (Huth, 1987). Authorship encompasses not only those who do the actual writing but also those who have made substantial scientific contributions to a study." It goes on to point to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.

Thus, I see a problem at 2 ends of this agreement. On the one hand, you want to make sure people who do make substantial scientific contributions get authorship. On the other, you don't want people who just got the grant or held the position of authority or who were just passing out and collecting a survey or doing data entry but made no intellectual contribution to be authors.

Nancy Darling

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Nancy,
You raise some good points.
As to the "and" vs "or" question, the ICMJE criteria are quite clear:

Authorship credit should be based on

1. substantial contributions to conception and design, OR acquisition of data, OR analysis and interpretation of data;
2. drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. final approval of the version to be published.

Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3.

So, it is 1, 2, AND 3, but within the first criterion, authors only have to fulfill ONE of the functions.

They also go on to say:

• Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship.
• All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.
• Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

I find that last statement about taking public responsibility a very useful rule of thumb-if somebody could stand up in public and talk (and answer questions) about the study, or at least some aspect of it, they probably qualify for authorship.

I hope this helps.

Liz Wager

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Thanks to all who provided their thoughts about this; they are much appreciated. We will be discussing them and decide what course will be the best for us.

Thanks again!

Alice M. Landwehr
Managing Editor, The Journal of Pediatrics

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