Less Work, Less Respect: Authors' Perceived Importance of Research Contributions and Their Declared Contributions to Research Articles

BACKGROUND: Attitudes towards authorship are connected with authors' research experience and with knowledge of authorship criteria of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The objective of this study was to assess association between authors' perceived importance of contributions for authorship qualification and their participation in manuscripts submitted to a journal. METHODS: Authors (n = 1181) of 265 manuscripts submitted to the Croatian Medical Journal were asked to identify and rate their contribution in the preparation of the submitted manuscript (0-none to 4-full for 11 listed contributions) and the importance of these contributions as authorship qualifications (0-none to 4-full). They were randomly allocated into 3 groups: the first (n = 90 manuscripts, n = 404 authors) first received the contribution disclosure form and then contribution importance-rating questionnaire; the second (n = 88 manuscripts, n = 382 authors) first received the rating questionnaire and then the contribution disclosure form, and the third group (n = 87 manuscripts, n = 395 authors) received both questionnaires at the same time. We compared authors' perception of importance of contribution categories. RESULTS: 1014 (85.9%) authors of 235 manuscripts responded. Authors who declared contribution to a specific category rated it as more important for authorship than those authors who did not contribute to the same category (P>0.005 for all contribution categories, Mann-Withney test). Authors qualifying for ICMJE authorship rated all contribution categories higher than non-qualifying authors. For all contributions, associations between perceived importance of contribution and actual author's contribution were statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Authorship seems to be not a normative issue subjective to categorization into criteria, but also a very personal view of the importance and value of one's contributions

Completeness and Changes in Registered Data and Reporting Bias of Randomized Controlled Trials in ICMJE Journals after Trial Registration Policy

We assessed the adequacy of randomized controlled trial (RCT) registration, changes to registration data and reporting completeness for articles in ICMJE journals during 2.5 years after registration requirement policy.For a set of 149 reports of 152 RCTs with ClinicalTrials.gov registration number, published from September 2005 to April 2008, we evaluated the completeness of 9 items from WHO 20-item Minimum Data Set relevant for assessing trial quality. We also assessed changes to the registration elements at the Archive site of ClinicalTrials.gov and compared published and registry data.RCTs were mostly registered before 13 September 2005 deadline (n = 101, 66.4%); 118 (77.6%) started recruitment before and 31 (20.4%) after registration. At the time of registration, 152 RCTs had a total of 224 missing registry fields, most commonly 'Key secondary outcomes' (44.1% RCTs) and 'Primary outcome' (38.8%). More RCTs with post-registration recruitment had missing Minimum Data Set items than RCTs with pre-registration recruitment: 57/118 (48.3%) vs. 24/31 (77.4%) (χ(2) (1) = 7.255, P = 0.007). Major changes in the data entries were found for 31 (25.2%) RCTs. The number of RCTs with differences between registered and published data ranged from 21 (13.8%) for Study type to 118 (77.6%) for Target sample size.ICMJE journals published RCTs with proper registration but the registration data were often not adequate, underwent substantial changes in the registry over time and differed in registered and published data. Editors need to establish quality control procedures in the journals so that they continue to contribute to the increased transparency of clinical trials

Academic advancement of authors receiving tutoring from a medical journal

BACKGROUND: Although publishing in scientific journals has an educational component, the educational role of journals in medicine has not been evaluated. - - - - - PURPOSE: To assess whether tutoring authors in a medical scientific journal could be related to their long-term scientific publications and academic advancement. - - - - - METHODS: The study included 47 journal authors who were individually tutored in scientific writing and data presentation by the editors of the Croatian Medical Journal during the 1991-1995 war years and 47 colleagues the authors identified as their academic peers at the time of tutoring. We assessed their published articles in scientific journals, citations to these articles, and academic advancement, defined as the level of postgraduate education and advancement in the academic rank. - - - - - RESULTS: By 2003, tutored authors published more articles in MEDLINE-indexed journals than their academic peers (median = 4, interquartile range = 1-9 vs. 1 [0-5], respectively; p = .0265), and received more citations to these articles (4 [0-16] vs. 1 [0-6], p = .0275). They also made a significantly greater academic advancement, assessed as a score of their academic rank and research degree (2 [0-4] vs. 1 [0-2], p = .0369). - - - - - CONCLUSIONS: Editorial tutoring of journal authors can positively influence their long-term academic advancement. Journals may have an important teaching role in local academic communities

How editors can help authors write better papers: Beyond journals and articles

We present the experience of journal editors in improving the quality of published papers. As the editors of the Croatian Medical Journal, a journal from the so-called scientific periphery, we realized, very early after the start of the journal in 1991, that our authors needed significant assistance with their articles. We worked individually with journal authors and then moved this activity to the next stage – intensive workshops for authors. The work with the journals enabled us to extend these activities to graduate and postgraduate students – future authors

Reliability of disclosure forms of authors' contributions

BACKGROUND: The contribution disclosure forms used by medical journals to assess and confirm authorship are surveys of self-reported behaviour that follow the cognitive rules of psychometric instruments. We sought to analyze how autobiographical memory, defined as memory for events and issues related to oneself, affected the reliability of contribution forms for the judging of authorship of research articles. METHODS: We conducted a prospective study, which ultimately included 919 authors of 201 articles submitted to a general medical journal from July 2001 through December 2002. A authorship disclosure form with a checklist of 11 possible contribution choices for all authors was sent first to each article's corresponding author, who was asked to fill it out for all authors. A blank form was then sent to each author individually to disclose his or her own contribution to that article. The main outcome measure was test– retest differences between the corresponding authors' self-declarations, expressed in percent as the gross difference rate (GDR) for each article. RESULTS: More than two-thirds of the corresponding authors (69.7%) differed in at least 1 contribution choice between the 2 disclosure statements made about their own contributions. The reliability of their answers was low to moderate (GDRs > 10%), especially for contributions on the provision of study materials or patients or final approval of the article (GDR 22.9%), guarantor of the study (GDR 20.9%) and drafting of the manuscript (GDR 20.4%). As a proxy for their coauthors' contributions, corresponding authors also differed from them in the perception of noncorresponding authors' contributions, disagreeing in 69.4% of cases. Of the 718 noncorresponding authors, 204 (28.4%) met all the criteria for authorship set out by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors according to the statement given by the corresponding author. When they described their own contributions, this prevalence increased to 40.5%. INTERPRETATION: Psychological factors such as autobiographical memory may confound contribution disclosures as an evaluation tool for authorship on scientific articles and affect responsible authorship and publication practices

Analysing overlay journals: The state-of-the-art in 2021 and possible perspectives

The rising importance of preprints and the growing number of journals accepting them necessitates the (re)definition of an overlay journal and its place in today’s publishing context. Using a snowball search strategy, we searched Web of Science and Scopus databases for articles on overlay journals. We identified 28 overlay journals that fit the traditional overlay journal definition (they did not host articles but provided links to final versions on repositories or they searched repositories for viable preprints to publish) or that defined themselves as overlay journals. Most journals were not indexed in bibliographic databases, and crucial information such as journal ownership was not publicly available. Likewise, most journals both self-hosted articles and provided links to final versions on repositories, which might mean repositories are more valuable in their “open-access” functionality than in the capacity for hosting articles. Editorial policies and practices of these overlay journals were often undeveloped or non-existent. It seems overlay journals remain a niche publishing model in 2021, especially due to the increased number of journals accepting preprints and using preprint servers in their core functionality. However, overlay journals can take an “active” approach in finding, reviewing, and publishing preprints, replacing other inefficient publishing models