Credit and Authorship Practices: Educational and Environmental Influences

Abstract

A survey on credit issues of academic chemists in U.S. Ph.D.-granting institutions was conducted. The respondents rated 15 criteria for authorship of scientific publications; core intellectual contributions received the highest ratings although making a single suggestion that was essential to the successful completion of the project was rated very low. Acquisition of data was also rated highly. The respondents rated eight potential influences on their own “policy” toward giving credit; doing what “seems to be the right thing” was the highest rated influence followed by graduate educational experiences; professional society or other responsible conduct of research (RCR) institutional policies were rated, by far, the lowest.

Keywords:

• authorship
• education
• mentoring
• responsible conduct of research (RCR)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Dr. R. Kirk Jonas, Chair of the University of Richmond Institutional Review Board, for his continuing prompt and thorough assistance, Professor Frank L. Macrina for helpful discussions, and Ms. Betty Tobias (University of Richmond) for technical information support. We thank Professors Lisa Gentile, John Gupton, Gary H. Posner, and Albert Padwa for their continuing encouragement. We especially acknowledge and thank the participants in our survey.