Influences on Authorship Issues: An Evaluation of Giving Credit

Figures & data

Table 1: Data describing the respondents' policies regarding giving credit to others

Q23. A Suggestion was made by Person A that permitted the successful completion of your research project which otherwise would not have been achieved. Person A did not work on the project beyond that suggestion. What credit would you give to that person in your publication?
	Scenario		Number of responses ^a (%)
Person A	Setting	Question number	Do nothing	Provide an acknowledgment	Provide co-authorship
Your graduate student or postdoctoral student who was not working on the project	At your research group meeting	Q23a	48 (8.5%)	393 (69%)	126 (22%)
A student in your department	At a department seminar	Q23b	101 (18%)	410 (72%)	56 (10%)
A colleague in your department	In an informal discussion (e.g., the hall or an office)	Q23c	46 (8.1%)	446 (79%)	75 (13%)
	At a department seminar	Q23d	86 (15%)	422 (74%)	59 (10%)
A colleague from outside your department	In his/her office or your office	Q23e	36 (6.3%)	460 (81%)	71 (13%)
	At a seminar	Q23f	89 (16%)	423 (75%)	55 (10%)
	Letter or e-mail sent to you	Q23g	15 (2.6%)	462 (81%)	90 (16%)
^aThirty-three respondents provided “yes” responses to two or three alternatives in at least one row. The numbers and percentages in this table reflect only the 567 respondents who provided a single response in each row. See text for more details.

Table 2: ^{a, b} Survey responses to Q23: A suggestion was made by Person A that permitted the successful completion of your research project which otherwise would not have been achieved. Person A did not work on the project beyond that suggestion. What credit would you give to that person in your publication? Two scenarios were presented in the sequence shown

First (or control) scenario		Second scenario
If Person A were your own student at your research group meeting, you would grant		If Person A were a student in your department at a department seminar, you would grant
		Response [Within each row, n (%)]
Response	Respondents (n)	Co-authorship	Acknowledgment	Nothing
Co-authorship	126	55 (44%)	64 (51%)	7 (5.6%)
Acknowledgment	393	1 (.3%)	335 (85%)	57 (15%)
Nothing	48	0 (0%)	11 (23%)	37 (77%)
Total	567	56	410	101
^aOf the 600 survey respondents, 567 selected only one answer (co-authorship, acknowledgment, or nothing for each scenario. See text for additional discussion.
^bThis table is read in the following fashion: Consider the first row of this table only. Of the 600 respondents to the survey, 126 said they would, under the first stipulated situation, grant their own graduate student co-authorship. Those 126 respondents were then asked what they would do under a second scenario, when Person A was a student in their department other than their own graduate student. Of those 126 respondents, 55 would grant someone else's student co-authorship, 64 would grant someone else's student an acknowledgment, and seven would provide no recognition to someone else's student.

Table 3: ^{a, b} Survey responses to the following two scenarios: A suggestion was made by Person A that permitted the successful completion of your research project which otherwise would not have been achieved. Person A did not work on the project beyond that suggestion. What credit would you give to that person in your publication?

First (or control) scenario		Second scenario
If Person A were a colleague in your department at a departmental seminar, you would grant		If Person A were a colleague from outside your department at a seminar, you would grant
		Response [Within each row, n (%)]
Response	Respondents(n)	Co-authorship	Acknowledgment	Nothing
Co-authorship	59	52 (88%)	6 (10%)	1 (1.7 %)
Acknowledgment	422	3 (.7%)	407 (96%)	12 (2.8%)
Nothing	86	0 (0%)	10 (12%)	76 (88%)
Total	567	55	423	89
^aSee footnotes a and b in Table 2.
^bThis table is read in the following fashion: Consider the first row of this table only. Of the 600 respondents to the survey, 59 said they would, under the first stipulated situation, grant co-authorship to a colleague in their own department. Those 59 respondents were then asked what they would do under a second scenario, when Person A was a colleague in another department. Of those 59 respondents, 52 would grant the other faculty member co-authorship, six would grant an acknowledgment, and one would provide no recognition.

Table 4: Unique responses to Q23a–Q23g, where the lower case letter “a” refers to the first scenario in Table 1, “b” is the second scenario, etc. The letter “N” refers to “Do Nothing”, “Ack” refers to “Acknowledgment,” and “Co-A” refers to “Provide Co-authorship.” An entry of “0” is a “no” response, and an entry of “1” is a “yes” response

	Responses to the seven scenarios (A–G) in Q23																					Total respondents
	Q23a Your student			Q23b Another's student			Q23c Your colleague, informal discussion			Q23d Your colleague, seminar			Q23e Outside colleague, informal discussion			Q23f Outside colleague, seminar			Q23g Outside colleague, letter or e-mail			For each unique response	Cumulative	Cumulative total (%)
Rows	N	Ack	Co-A	N	Ack	Co-A	N	Ack	Co-A	N	Ack	Co-A	N	Ack	Co-A	N	Ack	Co-A	N	Ack	Co-A
1	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	307	307	51%
2	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	47	354	59%
3	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	36	390	65%
4	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	23	413	69%
5	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	1	0	10	423	71%
6	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	9	432	72%
7	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	9	441	74%
8	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	8	449	75%
9	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	7	456	76%
10	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	7	463	77%
11	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	6	469	78%
12	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	6	475	79%
13	Three unique distributions were reported by five respondents each.																					5	490	82%
14	Two unique distributions were reported by four respondents each.																					4	498	83%
15	Six unique distributions were reported by three respondents each.																					3	516	86%
16	Nine unique distributions were reported by two respondents each.																					2	534	89%
17	Sixty six unique distributions were reported by one respondent each.																					1	600	100%

Table 5: Frequency of respondents who provide the exact same response for seven (all) or six or five of the seven scenarios in Q23

	All seven scenarios	Six of the seven	Five of the seven
No credit	9	12	11
Acknowledgment	307	67	31
Co-authorship	47	4	5
Totals	353	83	47
Cumulative totals	353	436	483
All counts are only of those participants who did not have any multiple answers in any of the Q23 questions.

Table 6: Grouping of respondents to their responses to the seven Q23 scenarios, namely Q23a–Q23g (see Table 1)

Group	Response characteristics	Sum of responses for each category			Responses
		No credit	Acknowledment	Co-authorship	Frequency	Percent
1	Co-authorship primarily	0	0, 1, or 2	7, 6, or 5, respectively	57	9.5%
2	Co-authorship and acknowledgement split	0	3 or 4	4 or 3, respectively	19	3.2%
3	Co-authorship but biased to acknowledgement	0	5 or 6	2 or 1, respectively	56	9.3%
4	Always acknowledgement	0	7	0	307	51.2%
5	Nothing but biased to acknowledgement	1 or 2	6 or 5,respectively	0	40	6.7%
6	Nothing and acknowledgement split	3 or 4	4 or 3, respectively	0	44	7.3%
7	Nothing primarily	5, 6, or 7	2, 1, or 0, respectively	0	32	5.3%
8	Situational–had at least one choice in all columns	≥ 1	≥ 1	≥ 1	12	2.0%
9	Multiple responses for one or more scenarios	The sum of responses ≥ 8			33	5.5%

Table 7: Number of respondents in groups 1–9 (see Table 6) as a function of decade of receipt of their Ph.D. degree (Q48)

Decade receiving Ph.D.	Group 1	Group2	Group3	Group4	Group5	Group6	Group7	Group8	Group9	Total
	Number of faculty respondents (n)
1940s	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
1950s	13	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	13
1960s	20	17	37	0	0	0	0	0	2	76
1970s	0	0	3	102	0	0	0	0	1	106
1980s	0	0	0	109	0	0	0	0	0	109
1990s	0	0	0	94	39	0	0	8	14	155
2000s	0	0	0	0	1	44	32	4	16	97
Total	34	17	40	305	40	44	32	12	33	557
Number of emeritus faculty respondents (n)
1940s	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3
1950s	17	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	17
1960s	3	2	16	0	0	0	0	0	0	21
1970s	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	2
Total	23	2	16	2	0	0	0	0	0	43

Table 8: Number of career publications as a function of Q23 groups (see Table 6)

	Q23 Groups									Total
Total number of publications ^a	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
0 to 10	0	0	1	2	3	6	8	2	6	28
11 to 20	0	0	1	21	3	19	11	2	6	63
21 to 30	0	1	2	22	7	7	8	1	4	52
31 to 40	1	0	1	26	5	7	2	4	7	53
41 to 50	3	0	4	50	13	2	0	1	3	76
61 to 80	3	0	3	48	5	3	2	1	2	67
81 to 100	3	1	8	23	3	0	0	0	0	38
101 to 150	10	7	11	45	0	0	0	1	1	75
151 to 200	5	3	7	38	0	0	0	0	0	53
200 plus	31	7	18	30	0	0	0	0	3	89
Total	56	19	56	305	39	44	31	12	32	594
^aSix of the 600 respondents did not provide an answer the ‘total number of publications’ question.