Research Guidelines for Authorship

Faculty should be free to publish the results of their research and scholarly work.   The Medical College of Georgia suggests faculty, staff and students adhere to the following guidelines when determining authorship to scholarly activities (i.e., manuscripts grants, presentations, electronic communication, etc.).

1. The issue of authorship should be discussed early in the collaborative relationship and should be reviewed periodically to take into account new developments.
2. Standards for authorship vary between disciplines and between journals.  Faculty are expected to conform to the policies stated in each journal's instructions to authors.   In the absence of more specific standards, faculty should follow the "Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals," established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.  An excerpt from these guidelines, updated May 2000, reads as follows:
   
   "All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.  Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.  One or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article.
   
   Authorship credit should be based only on 1) substantial contributions to 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.  Conditions 1, 2, and 3 must all be met.   Acquisition of funding, the collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not justify authorship.
   
   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."
   
3. Each author should be given the opportunity to see the creative work in an essentially completed form and should give consent to co-authorship.
4. Graduate students, fellows, and other trainees should be co-authors on scholarly publications resulting from their work, providing they meet the criteria listed above.
5. In the case of grant applications with multiple individuals, authors should have the right to review the final proposal and should receive a copy of the final proposal.   Consultants should also be given the opportunity to review their responsibilities in the applications.

For details, see ARSA Policy 9.02