Authorship Issues and Conflict in the U.S. Academic Chemical Community

Figures & data

Table 1: Data describing the extent to which the 600 respondents reported that they did not receive adequate credit for their contributions to a research project^a,b

	Yes
	n (%)
Did you ever feel that you ought to have been either a co-author of a paper or acknowledged in a paper and were not given that recognition? (Q1)	300 (50%)
Who was it that failed to adequately acknowledge one of your suggestions that was essential for the successful completion of his/her project?
Your professor or another teacher (Q2)	105 (35%)
A colleague in your own institution (Q9)	122 (41%)
A colleague in another institution (Q16)	125 (42%)

^aThe numbers in the column add up to more than 300 (or 100% of those respondents who said that they had failed to receive appropriate credit) because some individuals reported that several categories of individuals failed to provide them with appropriate credit for their contributions. ^bReported previously in Seeman and House (Seeman and House, 2010a).

Table 2: For those individuals who reported not receiving adequate credit for their contributions to a research project (see Table 1), this table summarizes whether or not they discussed the matter with the perceived offending individual^a

The last time this event occurred [not receiving adequate credit for a suggestion made, see Table 1], did you discuss this matter with the offending individual?
	Action, or inaction, by respondent
	Yes		No
Offending individual	Number^a	Percent	Number	Percent
Your professor or teacher (Q4)	32^x,y	31%	73	69%
Your colleague from your department (Q11)	35^x,z	29%	87	71%
A colleague from another institution (Q18)	23^y,z	18%	102	82%

^aFor correlations between the pair of responses Q4 and Q11, Q4 and Q18, and Q11 and Q18, the Pearson Correlation values (significance, 2-tailed; n) are as follows: ^x.441 (.002, n = 48); ^y.321 (.049, n = 38); ^z.417 (.003, n = 50).

Table 3: Relationship between discussing, or not discussing, the perception of lack of receipt of appropriate credit by one’s professor (Q4) with (A) the individual’s sense of public responsibility for what he/she publishes and with (B) the individual’s assessment of their interest in performing peer reviews^a

A
	Q4: “Thinking about the last time that this event occurred—did you discuss this matter with your professor?”
“How important do you consider each type of contribution for a person to be a co-author of a publication: ‘Took public responsibility for portions of the content’?” (Q37l)	No	Yes
Low importance – 1	3	4
2	8	3
3	7	6
4	19	10
High Importance – 5	36*	9*
B
	Q4: “Thinking about the last time that this event occurred—did you discuss this matter with your professor?”
“How do you rate yourself as a peer reviewer? This is a task that I try to complete as quickly as possible.” (Q46c)	No	Yes
False	63*	22*
True	10*	10*

^aA z-test was used on the proportions instead of a t-test because we are dealing with frequencies of categorical data. This approach points to which categories are different within the question.

*Statistically significant.

Table 4: For those individuals who discussed their perception of not getting sufficient credit on a paper with their professor or colleague, the results of those discussions are tabulated below

When an individual failed to adequately acknowledge one of your suggestions, which was essential for the successful completion of his/her project, and you spoke with this person, the results of this meeting were the following ones:
Results	Outcome
Individual who failed to give you credit	You were placed as a co-author on the paper	You were given an acknowledgement in the paper or in some other fashion	There was no change	Other^a
Your professor or another teacher	0%	19%	62%	19%
(n = 32) (Q5, Q6)
A colleague in your own institution	17%	14%	55%	14%
(n = 35) (Q12, Q13)
A colleague in another institution	13%	9%	56%	22%
(n = 23) (Q19, Q20)

^aSee Table 5 for detailed textual responses.

Table 5: For those individuals who challenged their professor or colleague about their perception of not getting sufficient credit on a paper, the results of that discussion are tabulated below

When your professor or another teacher failed to adequately acknowledge one of your suggestions, which was essential for the successful completion of his/her project, and you spoke with this person, the results of this meeting were as follows (Q5, Q12, Q19):
Individual who failed to give you credit	Responses to “Other” (Q6, Q13, Q20)
Your professor or another teacher	“An excuse was made that some time elapsed and in editing my name was omitted.” “They apologized.” “The professor did not put me on the paper and later recognized his error. He then put me on a paper that I had little (but some) input on that I would have been happy with being left off as a co-author. This was seen as an “evening out” by him. However, I did not discover that I had been added to this paper until a year or more after it had been published.” “I was a graduate student at the time and it was acknowledged that my contributions both intellectual and experimental were central to the project and the paper but that since the other graduate student co-author of the paper had few papers and I had many, that I would be acknowledged rather than made a coauthor. I agreed at the time because it would not have been in my interests to push the P.O.” “No responses to email or phone calls.” “I discovered the paper in Scifinder.”
A colleague in your own institution	“They apologized.” “An apology was offered and accepted, but the paper was not changed.” “Co-authorship in subsequent papers.” “The colleague offered to put my name on another paper on which I had contributed nothing. I declined.” “I only knew about the paper’s contents after it was published. We spoke frankly face to face and gave each other frank opinion and decided on a course of action for the future.”
A colleague in another institution	“It was discussed after the fact. The individual is a close friend with whom I had many conversations and who had made a simple oversight in not acknowledging me. It was minor.” “A proper credit was given in an oral presentation at a later date.” “An apology/correction was published in a later issue of the journal.” “I was made a co-inventor on a patent.”

Table 6: For those individuals who did not challenge their professor or colleague about their perception of not getting sufficient credit on a paper, their reasons for not challenging that individual

You have said, “YES,” an individual failed to adequately acknowledge one of your suggestions that was essential for the successful completion of his/her project (Q2, Q9, Q16). Furthermore, you did not discuss this matter with that individual (Q4, Q11, Q18). Thinking about the last time that this event occurred, “Why did you not approach the listed individual with a complaint that you were not sufficiently publicly credited for a suggestion essential for the completion of the project (Q[i] is one of Q7, Q16, Q23)?” Percentages relative to the number of responses. The entries with an “x” or a “y” in the column refer to those pairs which are statistically significantly correlated with each other
		That individual was: (number of respondents)
		Your professor or another teacher (Q7)		Colleague in your department (Q14)		Your colleague in another department (Q21)
		Q4NO = 73		Q11NO = 87		Q18NO = 102
Reported motivation		True	Difference	True		True
Q[i]g	I could not imagine any good coming from such a conversation	78%		77%		78%
Q[i]a	I was afraid of being in a compromised situation	47%		30%	x	24%	x
Q[i]b	It just did not matter much to me	45%	x	54%	x	63%	y
					y
Q[i]e	I did not think I’d be heard	32%		28%		21%
Q[i]f	At the time, I did not understand my rights to be treated fairly	21%		10%		12%
Q[i]c	I tried a little but he/she did not listen	21%		9%		7%
Q[i]d	My colleagues or friends said I ought not to do so	11%		6%		7%

Table 7: For those individuals who did not challenge their professor or colleague about their perception of not getting sufficient credit on a paper, the results of that discussion are tabulated in Table 6. The respondents were also given the opportunity to respond to this questions (Q7, Q16, Q23) with an open-ended text response “Are there any other reasons that you did not approach this [individual]?” (Q8, Q15, Q22)

Individual who failed to give you credit	Responses to “Other” (Q8, Q15, Q22)
Your professor or another teacher (Q8)	“Science is about cooperation and sharing of ideas—expecting written acknowledgement for each idea is ridiculous—such behavior encourages people not to share ideas which goes against scientific principles (do we acknowledge the anonymous listener who asked a question at a seminar or the suggestion from an anonymous reviewer ? You may think it was originally your idea when in reality it was not.” “I should have known to nail down the credit for the idea before broaching it to someone else.” “I also have been struggling with the question as to when freely dispensed advice weighs enough to warrant authorship.” “The postdoc mentor was a general jerk who only cared about himself!” “I was working with Prof. XXX of YYY. I found that she was falsifying data to an enormous extent however she made it clear to me that if I exposed her, she would accuse me of sexual harassment.” “Didn’t know what my ‘rights’ were.” “Other conflicts were more important.” “He was substantially junior to me not particularly generous and I consider it a somewhat marginal case. Not worth worrying about. I was being generous to his student who came to me for help. Many times I would not want to be co-author; I have turned down offers. This case was slightly the other way.” “I had many papers—although I would have done it differently, it seemed fair enough in the give and take of these things.” “I had moved on. Also I was happy to have been on papers in which I thought my contribution was minor so I reasoned that on balance I should forget about it.” “I had gone to a different field.” “It was a joint student project with a professor in a different department. I provided the chemistry she provided the anthropology. I had tenure she did not. She thought it would be better for her promotion file to be the sole professor on the paper.” “The paper was published already when I found out and I was embarking on my own academic career in the same field so I didn’t think there was much up-side in complaining.”
	“Lab politics.” “Fear. You don’t want to alienate the person that holds the key to your success in the field.” “I was concerned it would make my work environment even more intolerable; the interactions with the parties involved were already pretty strained and I was convinced going to this professor about it would make it worse.” “Recommendation letter for future position.” “Relations between this person and the other members of the faculty are not conducive to honest discussions.” “The work was already published without my knowledge and thus the situation wasn’t likely to change.” “The paper was already published before I knew about it (I had left the lab).” “The paper was already published when I saw the omission.”
A colleague in your own institution (Q15)	“Was not sure about ‘culture’ of the organization.” “I discussed this previously.” “This was on a collaborative grant. One collaborator took an idea I had (I am an experimentalist) and published a theoretical paper on the idea. This in spite of the discussions the PIs had when we got the grant about authorship on publications. The other PIs lived up to the agreement this collaborator did not.” “Did not make any sense.” “It is humiliating to ask to be on paper even if the contribution was significant.” “Such a conversation may do more harm than good.” “He was an old ‘friend’ who I had good reason to believe was jealous of the success of our research program and did not wish to give us credit.” “I thought it was not worth the bother of making an issue of it.” “I was offended and this damaged a friendship–I did not want to damage it further.” “Generating waves between an otherwise healthy friendship.” “I did not want to compromise our friendship as we also interact socially. I was actually very disappointed and surprised that the P.I. of my lab and I were not acknowledged in the published article as a lot of our time and resources from our lab were fundamental for the collection of the data.”
	“I did not want to damage my relationship with the individuals nor get a reputation as someone who thought every idea was his or hers.” “The colleague is very self-centered.” “It was a junior colleague hunting for tenure.” “He had funding problems and needed a lead publication to ‘get back on his feet.’” “He was leaving the University without tenure and I didn’t think it would be a good time to discuss the issue.” “It was a senior colleague and I don’t have tenure.” “He was much senior to me and fighting city hall does not do you any good.” “Dependent situation; awaiting promotion.” “The colleague had a reputation for similar actions with other nontenured individuals.” “The person was in a position of power relative to me. I was afraid that if I complained I would not get good references from this person.” “The publication was not that substantive.” “They defined authorship very narrowly.” “Younger student while I was a postdoc.” “I didn’t help him again.” “I did not find out until after the paper was published and I did not think that anything could be done to change the situation.”
	“I just learned about this in a paper that was recently published. There’s nothing to be done at this point and it’s a minor issue about providing material but someone else was acknowledged for a similar contribution and I feel that it would be most fair to include us if this other person is also being given authorship. I will soon speak (again) with our collaborator about acknowledging our role.” “It was not that important and I found out by seeing the article in print.” “He has done the same thing to others.” “I decided to get revenge by other means.”
A colleague in another institution (Q22)	“I was a grad student. Only years later did I put two and two together and realize that a very famous individual almost certainly reviewed my paper, did a 1-day observation, sent that to another journal for publication, sat on my paper for several weeks, and then accepted mine without change. His version much less detailed appeared a week before mine. When this dawned on me thirty or more years later …”
	“I was treated as a paid consultant.” “This is a more or less accidental consequence of being open. I believe that we all benefit by more collaboration and less secrecy in our research. The few times I have been ‘scooped’ because of this are vastly outweighed by the overall benefit of openness. I have plenty of publications and plenty of recognition.” “People who have a lot of ideas and are open about them are sitting ducks for this sort of thing.” “I approached an editor who took care of it when I submitted an independent manuscript.” “Did not make any sense when people do this (using your ideas) they know very well what they are doing.” “He is a good friend who has done a lot for me. I did not want to damage the relationship which is worth more to me than the pubs.” “I felt I should have shut up and done the experiment myself rather than suggest it in a casual conversation with him. Serves me right.” “He went overseas, to a remote location.” “I did not think it was worth the effort.” “I felt it had the potential to undermine our working relationship on other matters.” “I just did not have the time.” “Modesty” “My bosses contacted the person.” “There were cultural and disciplinary differences that I believe were at the root of the matter.” “Too late and not that important. Not considered deliberate snubbing, but just lack of attention.” “The paper had already been published so it was too late.” “It was too late for any good to come of a conversation—I found out when I read the paper which was already published.” “Just move on and close all ties with collaborations.”

Table 8: Comparison of consequences of “whistleblowing” with “questioning credit issues”

	Reporting possible research misconduct	Reporting authorship claims
Situation	Consequences to the Whistleblower (Malek, 2010)	Consequences to the Student
Effects on one’s current situation	Yes, e.g., blacklisting	Yes, e.g., poor collegial interactions, blacklisting
Effects one one’s future career	Yes, e.g., blacklisting	Yes, e.g., poor reference, blacklisting
Presence of regulations or institutional protections	Typically, yes	No
Protections for the whistleblower (stated policies and institutional practices)	Typically, yes	No
Psychological consequences	Typically, yes	Typically, yes

Seeman, J. I., and M. C. House. 2010a. Influences on authorship issues. An evaluation of giving credit. Accountability in Research. 17: 146–169.

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Malek, J. 2010. To Tell or Not to Tell? The Ethical Dilemma of the Would-Be Whistleblower. Accountability in Research. 17: 115–129.

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