In the academic world, a researcher's number of publications can carry huge professional and financial rewards. This truth has led to many unethical authorship assignments throughout the world of publishing, including within faculty-student collaborations. Although the American Psychological Association passed a revised code of ethics in 1992 with special rules pertaining to such collaborative efforts, it is widely acknowledged that unethical assignments of authorship credit continue to occur regularly. This study found that of the 604 APA-member respondents, 165 felt they (...) had been involved in an unethical or unfair authorship assignment. Furthermore, nontenured faculty members and women were statistically more likely to be involved in an unethical or unfair assignment of authorship credit than tenured faculty members or men. (shrink)

On the 20th anniversary of its publication, this classic manifesto is updated with an important new preface by the author. Freire reflects on the impact his book has had, and on many of the issues it raises for readers in the 1990s. These include the fundamental question of liberation and inclusive language as it relates to Freire's own insights and approaches.

Determining appropriate authorship recognition in student-faculty collaborative research is a complex task. In this quantitative study, responses from 1346 students and faculty in education and some social science disciplines at 36 research-intensive institutions in the United States were analyzed to provide a description of current and recommended practices for authorship in student-faculty collaborative research. The responses revealed practices and perceptions that are not aligned with ethical guidelines and a lack of consensus among respondents about appropriate practice. Faculty and student respondents (...) agreed that students deserve more authorship recognition than they get in common practice but they did not agree on the appropriate authorship arrangement for several of the collaborative scenarios described in the study or on the relative value of various contributions to research projects. The misalignment with ethical codes and lack of consensus among the respondents is problematic because student-faculty collaborative research is common and authored publications are powerful indicators of research competency. With these detailed results, students and faculty can better anticipate areas where their perspectives are likely to differ and faculty can work to clarify ambiguous expectations. (shrink)

This empirical study concerns the authorship credit decision-making processes and outcomes that occur among coauthors in cases of multiauthored publications. The 2002 American Psychological Association (APA) Ethics Code offers standards for determining authorship order; however, little is known about how these decisions are made in actual practice. Results from a survey of 109 randomly selected authors indicated that most authors were satisfied with the decision-making process and outcome with few disagreements. Participants reported cases of both undeserved authorship being given and (...) omission of deserving contributors' names as coauthors. Some factors associated with authorship decisions included "sense of loyalty or obligation," "publish or perish pressures," and "power differentials." Authors who used APA standards were significantly more satisfied with both the process and outcome of authorship credit decisions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Publications are primarily a means of communicating scientific information to colleagues, but they are much more than that. Publications in peer reviewed journals are proof of academic competence, are used as a crucial component in evaluation criteria for academic promotion and fundraising and increase the prestige of research centres and universities. The urgent need for publications has also led to abuses in authorship. In the past the single‐author article was the rule, but over the past decades, the average number (...) of authors on scientific manuscripts has drastically increased. In the field of bioethics, however, no research has been undertaken to study whether the percentage of single‐author articles is decreasing, the proportion of multi‐author articles is increasing or the average number of authors per article is increasing. The objective of this research is to analyze these trends in authorship for the period 1990–2003 in peer reviewed journals in the field of bioethics. In the nine peer reviewed journals from the field of bioethics we studied, we observed a significant increase of the multi‐author article and of the average number of authors. This is mainly due to the increase in the number of publications with an empirical design. This growing trend is a challenge for the editors of journals in the field of bioethics to enhance awareness about the value and definition of authorship. (shrink)

The process of advisement in the research of a doctoral dissertation is prolonged and harbors a variety of ethical aspects and issues. In some cases it gives rise to dissatisfaction on the part of both advisor and student regarding the process itself and/or the publication of the dissertation. To ameliorate these problems, the Dissertation Committee of the School of Social Work at the University of Haifa recently set out guidelines for both advisor and doctoral student, in accordance with which both (...) parties will draw up an agreement in advance to suit the student’s research. The present article discusses the components of the advisement process and presents recommendations for an advisor-doctoral student agreement. Although no evaluation was undertaken by the authors to assess the impact of the guidelines agreement, our brief experience with these guidelines reinforces the importance of such an agreement, which can help assure mutual satisfaction on the part of both the advisor and the student. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 10, Page 32-33, October 2011.