Transcript Publishing Research Responsibly

Responsible Authorship
Terry Peters
http://imaging.robarts.ca
Acknowledgements:
Colorado State University;
JR Wilson, Science and Engineering
Ethics (2002) 8, 155-174
Importance of Publishing
 Researchers have a responsibility to
publish
 Scientific literature
• not a description of all one’s research activities;
• just those activities that tell a publishable story
 Publications
• the currency for academic success
 Rules of authorship not black and white
 Students must learn the rules for any
given lab/setting!
What venues are available for publication?
 Research journals
• Research papers
• Technical notes
 Teaching journals
• Teaching methodologies and outcomes
• Teaching material
 Graduate student (and undergraduate!) journals
 Conference Proceedings
 Lay press (local papers, journals, freelance
opps)
 Online journals, websites and blogs
Publication Considerations
 A natural part of your research project.
 Can it be a thesis chapter?
 If not, do you have the time to work on
something other than your primary research
project?
• A good paper takes time!
 Can your long term goals benefit from your
efforts to publish other than primary research
papers?
 Do you have someone to provide oversight or
mentoring of these activities?
Choosing a Journal
 Peer-reviewed journals considered to be higher
quality than conference proceedings
 PR journals usually have higher impact factor that
conf proceedings.
 Often conf proceedings are not considered in rating
quality of scientist for promotion
 However there are exceptions
• MICCAI
• SigGraph
Impact Factor (IF)
 “A measure reflecting the average number of citations to
articles published in science and social science journals”
(Wikipedia)
 Frequently used as proxy for the relative importance of a
journal within its field
 Journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more
important than those with lower ones.
 Impact factors calculated yearly for those journals that are
indexed in Thomson Reuter's Journal Citation Reports.
 Go to Western Libraries/Web to learn more
 E-Resources
 Web of Science
• Journal Citation Reports
• Cited Reference Search
Impact Factor
Impact Factor is Not Everything
 Many objections to the system
• Journals that publish letters and opinions that are very
controversial get high readership
• “Review” articles may be highly cited but are very different than
primary research articles
• Journals may publish only in “hot new areas” instead of all
disciplines if they are chasing impact factor
 Biological sciences tend to have much higher IFs than
engineering
 There are other systems to rank journal impact
• PageRank (the algorithm Google uses to rank websites)
 Bottom Line: No matter how you rank the journal, the
ultimate decider for many career advancement steps will
be the number of articles you publish and how they are
cited.
Journal
 Nature
 Science
 Cell






Annual Rev Biomed Eng
Radiology
IEEE TMI
Medical Image Analysis
Medical Physics
Physics Med Biol
IF
34
30
31
11.2
6.5
3.5
3.0
2.7
2.7
H Index
 A number N such that an author with H-index of N
has N papers with at least N citations.
 A popular measure of impact of author
 Does not take outliers into account
• Author with only 3 groundbreaking papers with 5000
citations each still only has H-index of 3!
Cited Reference Search – “Partin, KM”
Web of Science
When is authorship determined?
 Responsible authorship begins before
writing a manuscript
 It includes a sound hypothesis, good
scientific study design, and prior approval
by IRB if applicable
 It requires an understanding, in advance,
of what authorship expectations exist in
that laboratory
 Authorship practices must jive with
editorial rules
Information for Authors
Authorship Rules
Are there uniform standards for authorship?
ICMJE Guidelines*:
Authorship credit should be based on:
1) substantial contributions to the
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.
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
ICMJE Guidelines (cont.):
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or supervision of
the research group, alone, does not justify authorship.
Each author should have participated sufficiently in the
work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions
of the content.
The order of authorship on the byline should be a joint
decision of the co-authors. Authors should be prepared
to explain the order in which authors are listed.
Some labs/communities have adopted a particular style
Here (Robarts Imaging/BME/MBP) usually:
Student doing the work, xxx,xxx,xxx, Supervisor
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship
should be listed in an acknowledgments section.
Issues with ICMJE Standards
 Many scientists do not know about these
standards, although >500 medical journals
subscribe to them.
 Some scientists do not agree with the
standards.
 Some disciplines (e.g. High Energy Physics)
• Tens (even >100) authors
 For trainees, these standards are a good
starting place for authorship discussions with
their mentors.
 The advisor (faculty member) makes the final
determination.
Other Authorship Responsibilities
• Writing with clear, concise language
• Using only accurate methods and results
• Placing work in context & accurate
citations
• Publishing negative results
• Managing Conflicts of Interest (financial &
professional)
• Acknowledging sponsorship
• Preventing duplicative publication (selfplagiarism)
• Preventing fragmentary publication
• Protecting intellectual property rights
Authorship Disputes
 Authorship order
 Missing authors
 Extra authors
 Authorship disputes are not
considered “research misconduct”
 Allegations of plagiarism or
misappropriation of data/information
do constitute “research misconduct”
Research Misconduct
Examples:
1. fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing,
conducting, or reporting research; that
2. has been committed intentionally, knowingly, or
recklessly; & that
3. has been proven by a preponderance of the
evidence
• Significant departure from accepted ethical
practices of the relevant research community
will be treated as violations of the Academic
Faculty and Administrative Professional
Manual and may be pursued under applicable
disciplinary process.
Research Misconduct
 Examples of research misconduct could include
• fabrication of the findings of an extensive qualitative
survey of the media’s impact on children,
• withholding of the risks of a drug to participants of a
medical trial,
• data within the conclusions of an engineer’s report on
the safety of a highway overpass.
 These illustrations of research misconduct
underline the need to have well-defined research
integrity guidelines.
 Standard definition of research integrity does not
exist in Canada.
Other Authorship Issues
Misconduct does not include honest error or honest
differences in interpretations or judgments of data.
Errata section of Journals offers opportunity to
“undo” errors.
Honest Errors
Unintentional, minor errors are sent in to the journal as
“Errata” by the corresponding editor
If the errors compromise part of the conclusions, the
authors should issue a “Correction”
Inadvertent errors that invalidate the study should
be sent in as a “retraction”
Intentional falsification, fabrication or plagiarism
should be investigated as research misconduct
Solutions to authorship disputes
 Upfront discussions about expectations
 Authorship contracts or agreements (prenups)
 Mediation or negotiation: first, within the
research group, then external to the group
(especially student advisory committees!)
 Department heads and faculty deans may
ultimately become involved
 Discussion should be focused on credit &
responsibility: who is willing to defend the data
if there ever were allegations of misconduct?
Self-plagiarism
 “Self-plagiarism”
• The practice of re-publishing content in different venues
 Not so B&W; many of us give talks on the “same”
content; many of our “Materials and Methods” are
(unavoidably) almost verbatim in different articles.
 Reviewer community is quite small – duplication
easily identified
 Future search committees may do an analysis of
listed publications looking for self-plagiarism.
 Publication of identical sequence of words in more
than one venue can lead to allegations of copyright
infringement.
Copyright and Ownership Issues
 Copyright is a form of protection provided by the
laws of US/Canada to authors of original works
of authorship
 Protections are assigned the moment work is
fixed in tangible medium, without notice
 Copyright term is “Life of author + 70 years”
 Rights include: to reproduce, distribute, or
display the work
 Activity in Library and Classroom may have
slightly different rules
(used with permission from Linda Schutjer, Office of General Counsel, CSU)
Copyright and Data Ownership Summary
 A student’s academic class work belongs to the student
 Copyrighted works that support a patent (lab notebooks)
are retained by University but students can make copies.
 Ownership can be varied by contract including sponsored
arrangements. If you work on a grant/contract to
create a deliverable, your copyright interests may be
assigned to or shared with the funding entity.
 If you work together with others, you may end up being
joint authors if that was the intent from the
beginning. In that case you each share the whole work.
 If you create something with substantial use of
University resources –– the University may end up being
the owner.
Peer Review
 Based upon the idea that, because of
specialization, peers with similar expertise are
often the best judges of the quality of work,
 Peers
• can assess originality, methodology and
context.
• can spot inconsistencies and often improve
data presentation and interpretation.
• are the most likely to plagiarize.
Peer Review Process
 A submitted manuscript is seen by a senior
editor and assigned to a managing editor.
 The managing editor assigns 2-3 external peer
reviewers, who are anonymous to the author
 The reviewers submit a written document that
addresses originality, research design,
interpretation, and writing style, with a
recommendation to accept as is, accept with
revisions or reject.
Peer-Reviewer Responsibilities







Respond within the allocated timeframe
Be competent
Be impartial
Keep all information confidential
Provide constructive criticism
Be honest
Write reviews as though your identity
might be revealed
Potential Problems with Peer Review
 Bias (discipline, training, gender)
 Dogma (new conclusions are risky)
 COI (financial and profession)
 Lack of expertise
 Mistakes can still happen
 Authors can always find another
journal….
Summary
 You need to publish
 Publish wisely and in good journals
 If you like to write, there are many
possibilities
 If you are going to publish with others,
get authorship straight before writing the
first draft
 Understand the rules of the game
 Get help sooner rather than later