Ethics of Authorship

Ethics of Authorship

Introduction

This assignment studies the ethical issues of authorship with respect to a case where the professor Ben insists her student Alyssa to make him the co-author of the paper in order to present the paper at a conference. In the next section, the ethical obligations of researchers are discussed along with the actions of both persons.

The author is defined at the one who is the originator of the work. Authorship in social sciences includes the claim that information is original and of scientific value. It also includes the responsibility for the veracity and reliability of the report (Osborne & Holland, 2009). The ownership of data is treated as an intellectual property.

Discussion

Defining authorship can become a major problem in certain cases when the ethical issues arise. Deliberate authorship abuse occurs when the head or supervisor claims for first authorship or when a free rider name is to be included in publication. Thus a fair program that addresses ethical obligations is required (Kass, 2001).

Violation of Ethics

Many ethical principles are violated in this case. These are discussed below with explanation.

Credibility of Work

Authorship's major ethical principle is the give the credit to right person. Alyss is the only person who should get credit of the work. It is the ethical practice to credit the person for what they know (American Public Health Association, 2002)

Statement of Communication & Contribution

The decision to make Ben a co-author will violate the principle of contributors' agreement. Under this principle, statement of communication between authors is provided. It also includes the statement that authors are in agreement of the order of authorship and of inclusion of other authors. As in the case, Ben is becoming a co-author forcefully, it will violate the obligation.

Role of Co- Author to Review & Approve

Another key violation will be the statement that suggests that co-author is responsible for reviewing and approving at least a portion of work. As Ben has not reviewed or approved the manuscript, the statement will be unethical proposition. According to APHA, collecting information and providing it to other is duty of evaluators (American Public Health Association, 2002).

Actions of Ben

With discussion to the case, the actions of Ben are inappropriate as he claims to become a coauthor without any efforts for the paper. This can be supported by the authorship criteria given by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (Sandler & Russell, 2005). The criterion suggests that ...