Publishing: Credit Where Credit Is Due. Allen, L., Scott, J., Brand, A., Hlava, M., & Altman, M. Nature, 508(7496):312–313, April, 2014.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
[Excerpt] Research today is rarely a one-person job. Original research papers with a single author are – particularly in the life sciences – a vanishing breed. Partly, the inflation of author numbers on papers has been driven by national research-assessment exercises. Partly, it is the emergence of big and collaborative science, assisted by technology, that is changing the research landscape. [\n] What we cannot tell easily by reading a paper is who did what. That is difficult to decipher by consulting the author lists, acknowledgements or contributions sections of most journals; and the unstructured information is difficult to text-mine. [\n] Developments in digital technology present opportunities to do something about this. With the right 'taxonomy', manuscript-submission software could enable researchers to assign contributor roles relatively easily in structured formats during the process of developing and publishing a paper. An analogy is the FundRef initiative developed by funders, publishers and manuscript-submission vendors to build direct links between published research and associated funding sources during manuscript submission. [\n] For researchers, the ability to better describe what they contributed would be a more useful currency than being 'author number 8 on a 15-author paper'. Scientists could draw attention to their specific contributions to published work to distinguish their skills from those of collaborators or competitors, for example during a grant-application process or when seeking an academic appointment. This could benefit junior researchers in particular, for whom the opportunities to be a 'key' author on a paper can prove somewhat elusive. Methodological innovators would also stand to benefit from clarified roles – their contributions are not reliably apparent in a conventional author list. It could also facilitate collaboration and data sharing by allowing others to seek out the person who provided, for example, a particular piece of data or statistical analysis. [\n] Through the endorsement of individuals' contributions, researchers can start to move beyond 'authorship' as the dominant measure of esteem. For funding agencies, better information about the contributions of grant applicants would aid the decision-making process. Greater precision could also enable automated analysis of the role and potential outputs of those being funded, especially if those contributions were linked to an open and persistent researcher profile or identifier. It would also help those looking for the most apt peer reviewers. For institutions, understanding a researcher's contribution is fundamental to the academic appointment and promotion process. [\n] Such a system could benefit publishers too. Many journals do issue strict guidelines for what constitutes authorship, although there have been calls to overhaul these to reflect the reality of today's research. Greater transparency should help to reduce the number of authorship disputes being managed by journal editors, and should cut the time that editors spend chasing listed authors for confirmation of their roles. [...] [Taxonomy category] Description of role [::Study conception]Ideas; formulation of research question; statement of hypothesis. [::Methodology] Development or design of methodology; creation of models. [::Computation] Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms. [::Formal analysis] Application of statistical, mathematical or other formal techniques to analyse study data. [::Investigation: performed the experiments] Conducting the research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments. [::Investigation: data/evidence collection] Conducting the research and investigation process, specifically data/evidence collection. [::Resources] Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation or other analysis tools. [::Data curation] Management activities to annotate (produce metadata) and maintain research data for initial use and later re-use. [::Writing/manuscript preparation: writing the initial draft] Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft. [::Writing/manuscript preparation: critical review commentary or revision] Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically critical review, commentary or revision. [::Writing/manuscript preparation: visualization/data presentation] Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation. [::Supervision] Responsibility for supervising research; project orchestration; principal investigator or other lead stakeholder. [::Project administration] Coordination or management of research activities leading to this publication. [::Funding acquisition] Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
@article{allenPublishingCreditWhere2014,
  title = {Publishing: Credit Where Credit Is Due},
  author = {Allen, Liz and Scott, Jo and Brand, Amy and Hlava, Marjorie and Altman, Micah},
  year = {2014},
  month = apr,
  volume = {508},
  pages = {312--313},
  issn = {0028-0836},
  doi = {10.1038/508312a},
  abstract = {[Excerpt] Research today is rarely a one-person job. Original research papers with a single author are -- particularly in the life sciences -- a vanishing breed. Partly, the inflation of author numbers on papers has been driven by national research-assessment exercises. Partly, it is the emergence of big and collaborative science, assisted by technology, that is changing the research landscape.

[\textbackslash n] What we cannot tell easily by reading a paper is who did what. That is difficult to decipher by consulting the author lists, acknowledgements or contributions sections of most journals; and the unstructured information is difficult to text-mine.

[\textbackslash n] Developments in digital technology present opportunities to do something about this. With the right 'taxonomy', manuscript-submission software could enable researchers to assign contributor roles relatively easily in structured formats during the process of developing and publishing a paper. An analogy is the FundRef initiative developed by funders, publishers and manuscript-submission vendors to build direct links between published research and associated funding sources during manuscript submission.

[\textbackslash n] For researchers, the ability to better describe what they contributed would be a more useful currency than being 'author number 8 on a 15-author paper'. Scientists could draw attention to their specific contributions to published work to distinguish their skills from those of collaborators or competitors, for example during a grant-application process or when seeking an academic appointment. This could benefit junior researchers in particular, for whom the opportunities to be a 'key' author on a paper can prove somewhat elusive. Methodological innovators would also stand to benefit from clarified roles -- their contributions are not reliably apparent in a conventional author list. It could also facilitate collaboration and data sharing by allowing others to seek out the person who provided, for example, a particular piece of data or statistical analysis.

[\textbackslash n] Through the endorsement of individuals' contributions, researchers can start to move beyond 'authorship' as the dominant measure of esteem. For funding agencies, better information about the contributions of grant applicants would aid the decision-making process. Greater precision could also enable automated analysis of the role and potential outputs of those being funded, especially if those contributions were linked to an open and persistent researcher profile or identifier. It would also help those looking for the most apt peer reviewers. For institutions, understanding a researcher's contribution is fundamental to the academic appointment and promotion process.

[\textbackslash n] Such a system could benefit publishers too. Many journals do issue strict guidelines for what constitutes authorship, although there have been calls to overhaul these to reflect the reality of today's research. Greater transparency should help to reduce the number of authorship disputes being managed by journal editors, and should cut the time that editors spend chasing listed authors for confirmation of their roles. [...]

[Taxonomy category] Description of role

[::Study conception]Ideas; formulation of research question; statement of hypothesis.

[::Methodology] Development or design of methodology; creation of models.

[::Computation] Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms.

[::Formal analysis] Application of statistical, mathematical or other formal techniques to analyse study data.

[::Investigation: performed the experiments] Conducting the research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments.

[::Investigation: data/evidence collection] Conducting the research and investigation process, specifically data/evidence collection.

[::Resources] Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation or other analysis tools.

[::Data curation] Management activities to annotate (produce metadata) and maintain research data for initial use and later re-use.

[::Writing/manuscript preparation: writing the initial draft] Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft.

[::Writing/manuscript preparation: critical review commentary or revision] Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically critical review, commentary or revision.

[::Writing/manuscript preparation: visualization/data presentation] Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.

[::Supervision] Responsibility for supervising research; project orchestration; principal investigator or other lead stakeholder.

[::Project administration] Coordination or management of research activities leading to this publication.

[::Funding acquisition] Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.},
  journal = {Nature},
  keywords = {*imported-from-citeulike-INRMM,~INRMM-MiD:c-13140126,~to-add-doi-URL,authorship,check-list,research-metrics,research-team-size,science-ethics,standard,taxonomy},
  lccn = {INRMM-MiD:c-13140126},
  number = {7496}
}

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