Determining Authorship of Research Publications

Researchers have a responsibility to accurately assign credit for contributions to a research publications

What should be used to determine authorship?

Speigal and Keith-Speigal (1970) surveyed 700 professionals and reported four (4) criteria:

  1. Generation of hypotheses and design
  2. Establishing the procedure and collecting the data
  3. Analysing the data
  4. Writing the Manuscript

Winston (1985) suggested a weighted points system:

ITEM POINTS %
1. Conceptualising and refining research ideas 50 18%
2. Literature search 20 7%
3. Creating research design 30 11%
4. Instrument selection 10 4%
5. Instrument construction/design 40 15%
6. Selection of data analysis mechanisms 10 4%
7. Performing data analysis 10 4%
8. Interpretation of data analysis procedures 10 4%
9. First draft of manuscript 50 18%
10. Second draft of manuscript 30 11%
11. Redraft of a page (on later drafts) 2 1%
12. Editing manuscript 10 4%

The order of authorship should reflect the differential amounts of scholarly contribution. The person who made the greatest scholarly contribution should be the principle author or first author, with other persons listed in order of relative contributions.

CSU - Outside Professional Activities Policy

  1. A mutual consensus decision making process is most desirable. The potential for authors to feel slighted or cheated is greater when one person autocratically decides author order.
  2. Only second authorship is acceptable for thesis supervisors according to the American Psychologist Association Ethics Committee.
  3. Second authorship is obligatory if the supervisor designates the primary variables or makes interpretative contributions or provides the database, is a courtesy if the supervisor designates the general area or substantially contributes to design and is not acceptable if the supervisor provides only encouragement, physical resources, financial support, critiques or editorial contributions.
  4. Agreements should be formulated before writing for publication.

For more detail please click here.

For further information, please contact:

Professor Paul Burnett - Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)