have you ever been a ghost or guest author?

[hmmm]

After reading www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/08/24/research-reveals-significant-share-scholarly-papers-have-guest-or-ghost-authors
and seeing the CVs of some graduate students on the market, I thought I'd ask people here:

Have you ever been a ghost (i.e., worked on it and got no credit) or guest (i.e., did not do enough but still got credit) author?

I had never thought of it this way until I read that, but I certainly have been a ghost and have added guests to my publications. Mostly from the time I was a postdoc, where I did work on a number of publications but got no credit because it was "my job" as the post doc to run all sorts of analysis for others. Similarly, it was expected that PIs would get on the author list for my papers even if they did nothing. It has been a source of great frustration for me, as I was not on the author list for a major, ultra visible publication while lacking any solo authored papers from my postdoc period.

[no, but]

I feel for you; that's really unfair. I do know that a colleague who got the PhD in Australia published it with a contact from the advisor and the advisor asked to be a coauthor, even though he really wasn't one. Someone also asked me and other colleagues to be guest authors for each other, but I didn't want to do that.

[BTW]

By that way, I guess authorship may be unclear sometimes. What are your thoughts on including an RA as a coauthor for an ethnographic project? What would be the minimum requirements for coauthorship? Conducting a portion of the fieldwork (less than mine) is probably not. Coding is not if its structured, but what if its opne, more inductive coding? Only if the RA suggests some findings important findings? I feel like contributing to the analysis with interesting ideas, even though s/he may not write a line of the paper could be. Any thoughts?

[ASA Position]

Oct 16, 2015 21:23:47 GMT -5 BTW said:

By that way, I guess authorship may be unclear sometimes. What are your thoughts on including an RA as a coauthor for an ethnographic project? What would be the minimum requirements for coauthorship? Conducting a portion of the fieldwork (less than mine) is probably not. Coding is not if its structured, but what if its opne, more inductive coding? Only if the RA suggests some findings important findings? I feel like contributing to the analysis with interesting ideas, even though s/he may not write a line of the paper could be. Any thoughts?

For what it's worth, from the ASA Code of Ethics:

"15. Authorship Credit
(a) Sociologists take responsibility and credit, including authorship credit, only for work they have actually performed or to which they have contributed.
(b) Sociologists ensure that principal authorship and other publication credits are based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. In claiming or determining the ordering of authorship, sociologists seek to reflect accurately the contributions of main participants in the research and writing process.
(c) A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis."


In comparison, The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) says:

“The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:
• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.”

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.