Authorship & contributorship

Authorship

We editors of Tishreen University journal worry that we sometimes publish studies where the declared authors have not participated in the design of the study, had no access to the raw data, and had little to do with the interpretation of the data. Instead the sponsors of the study—often pharmaceutical companies—have designed the study and analysed and interpreted the data. Readers and editors are thus being deceived. Editors are also concerned that the declared authors might not have ultimate control over whether their studies are published. That decision may rest with the funders of the research—perhaps a government department or a pharmaceutical company—which could mean that results unfavourable to the funders are suppressed. This distorts the scientific record and again deceives readers, allowing them to read only favourable results. Editors have taken steps to counter the problem by revising the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to Tishreen University journal

Tiushreen University Journal Editors Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Tishreen University journal recommend that authorship be based on the following four criteria:

v  Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;

v   Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;

v   Final approval of the version to be published;

v   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.

Tiushreen University Journal include only one corresponding author per article. Any further contribution details (eg, equal contribution) must be included in the contributors or acknowledgement sections at the end of the article.

The Tishreen University Journal

requires that all those designated as authors should meet all four ICMJE(http://www.icmje.org/urm_main.html) criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. We recognise only natural persons over 18 years of age as authors. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criterion #s 2 or 3. Therefore, all individuals who meet the first criterion should have the opportunity to participate in the review, drafting, and final approval of the manuscript.

The individuals who conduct the work are responsible for identifying who meets these criteria and ideally should do so when planning the work, making modifications as appropriate as the work progresses. The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest forms and statements, are properly completed, although these duties may be delegated to one or more coauthors.

When a large multi-author group has conducted the work, the group ideally should decide who will be an author before the work is started and confirm who is an author before submitting the manuscript for publication. All members of the group named as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, including approval of the final manuscript, and they should be able to take public responsibility for the work and should have full confidence in the accuracy and integrity of the work of other group authors. They will also be expected as individuals to complete conflict-of-interest disclosure forms.

The byline (a byline is a short phrase that indicates the name of the author of an article in a publication )of the article identifies who is directly responsible for the manuscript, and Medline lists as authors whichever names appear on the byline. If the byline includes a group name, Medline will list the names of individual group members who are authors or who are collaborators, sometimes called non-author contributors, if there is a note associated with the byline clearly stating that the individual names are elsewhere in the paper and whether those names are authors or collaborators.

At Tishreen University Journal we want authors to assure us that all authors included on a paper fulfil the criteria of authorship. In addition we want assurance that there is no one else who fulfils the criteria but has not been included as an author.

When we encounter disagreements among authors we follow guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)—see http://publicationethics.org/files/u2/2003pdf12.pdf and http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts

Contributorship

The Tishreen University Journal lists contributors in two ways. Firstly, we publish a list of authors' names at the beginning of the paper and, secondly, we list contributors (some of whom may not be included as authors) at the end of the paper, giving details of who did what in planning, conducting, and reporting the work.

We encourage authors to fully acknowledge the contribution of the public to their research where appropriate.

One or more of these contributors are listed as guarantors of the paper. The guarantor accepts full responsibility for the work and/or the conduct of the study, had access to the data, and controlled the decision to publish.

Contributorship and guarantorship are concepts that were applied first to original research papers, and are sometimes hard to define for other articles. Each contributorship statement should make clear who has contributed what to the planning, conduct, and reporting of the work described in the article, and should identify one, or occasionally more, contributor(s) as being responsible for the overall content as guarantor(s). All articles in The Tishreen University Journal also that do not report original research - such as editorials, clinical reviews, and education and debate - please state who had the idea for the article, who performed the literature search, who wrote the article, and who is the guarantor (the contributor who accepts full responsibility for the finished article, had access to any data, and controlled the decision to publish). Also For non-research articles please state contributorship.

Researchers must determine among themselves the precise nature of each person's contribution, and we encourage open discussion among all participants..

Alteration to authorship or contributorship

Any change in authors and/or contributors after initial submission must be approved by all authors. This applies to additions, deletions, change of order to the authors, or contributions being attributed differently. Any alterations must be explained to the editor. The editor may contact any of the authors and/or contributors to ascertain whether they have agreed to any alteration.

Group authorship

If there is a very large number of authors we may ask for confirmation that everyone listed met thecriteria for authorship. We may also require that the authors form a group whose name will appear in the article byline.

We appreciate that authors may be concerned that their work will not be properly recognised if they form a group, but this is unfounded. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/authorship.html guidance can handle group authorship and still give each individual due credit:

"When a group name for a specific consortium, committee, study group, or the like appears in an article byline, the personal names of the members of that group may be published in the article text. Such names are entered as collaborator names as for the MEDLINE®/PubMed® Journal Article Citation Format, Export article metadata in PubMed XML format for indexing in MEDLINE.

What this means for Tishreen University Journal authors

a) if authors form a group for the article's main byline they will also be listed individually:

• As collaborators in the article's Medline/PubMed record;

• As authors in a group authorship statement at the end of the article on (http://journal.tishreen.edu.sy) ; and

• As contributors in the contributorship statement at the end of the article on (http://journal.tishreen.edu.sy) .

b) however, for Tishreen University Journal's research articles with many authors, where those authors do not opt to form a group, we will not be able to publish a Tishreen University Journal pico in the print issue of The Tishreen University Journal. Such research articles will be for online only (http://journal.tishreen.edu.sy) publication only.