Authorship

and
The
criteria
Dr. Aman Ullah
B.Sc. MLT
Ph.D. Microbiology
 Vancouver criteria

 Criteria setby “International Committee of

Medical Journal Editors”
 http://www.icmje.org/

 Developed in 1980s

 Updated intermittently
 ICMJE recommendations
 An author should meet all four of the following criteria:
1. “Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or
the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important
intellectual
content;
3. Final approval of the version to be published;
4. 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.”

 All these conditions must all be met.

 Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or collection of data
doesn’t justify authorship
 Council of Science Editors

 Authors are individuals identified by the research group to

have made substantial contributions to the reported work and
agree to be accountable for these contributions.

 In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or

she has done, an author should be able to identify which of
their co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the
work.

 In addition, an author should have confidence in the integrity

of the contributions of their co-authors. All authors should
review and approve the final manuscript.
Committee On Publication Ethics

 Most common concern

 87 separate cases listed under the headings of “Authorship”,

“Changes in authorship”, or “Disputed authorship”

 6 flowcharts devoted to various types of authorship problems

 Problems commonly stem from

 (i) individuals who claim that they deserve to be authors but have been omitted;
 (ii) individuals who have been included as authors but without their consent;
 (iii) individuals who agree to be authors but who back away from responsibility
if something goes wrong
Large Multi-Center Group (Multiple Authorship)

 The group must identify individuals who accept direct

responsibility for the manuscript and who
qualify as authors.

 Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or

general supervision of the research group
alone does not constitute authorship.

 All other contributors are mentioned in the

Acknowledgments portion.
 Who is to be in the acknowledgment

 All contributors who do not meet the criteria for

authorship should be listed in an acknowledgments
section

 Non Author Contributors

How to write an acknowledgement

 This study was supported by a grant from vice

chancellor of research of the university of medical
sciences

 We wish to thank X for his/her contribution as ….

 Why does authorship matter?
 Authorship is about credit and responsibility

 Academic life revolves around publication -

credit comes from publishing, which implies being an
author

 May need publications to get a job/ promotion

 You may have a disease named after you - for example,

Crohn’s disease

 Authorship means you are accountable

 Questions/Suggestions
khurramthalwi@hotmail.com