Publication ethics question

[futureapppsy2]

Hi all,

Sort of an odd situation here:
-Manuscript was submitted to a journal and rejected despite positive reviews due to perceived goodness of fit.

-One co-author recently accepted a government position that keeps them from being an author on manuscripts submitted after they accepted the position, meaning that we have to take them off the resubmission.

-I have strong professional ethical feelings about being on a manuscript with uncredited co-authors, even with their permission. Like, I just can’t do it and sleep at night. It is one of few hard lines I have.

-I still want to the manuscript to be published for a number of reasons—it’s a from a small grant funded study, it’s important data to the participants, and there’s a lovely grad student co-author on it.

-I would like to mentor the grad student on the resubmission, making her solo author.

Thoughts?

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[AbnormalPsych]

-One co-author recently accepted a government position that keeps them from being an author on manuscripts submitted after they accepted the position, meaning that we have to take them off the resubmission.

Keep them off entirely or keep any non-name information off like institution, etc... I've never heard of the former

 

[WisNeuro]

I'm curious as to what government positions do not let you have authorship on manuscripts. Never heard of that in the VA, and some of my DoD colleagues are some of the most prolific authors that I know.

 

[str63]

Could you elaborate why you would want the grad student to be solo author? I assume that maybe it was just the three of you to start (you, grad student, and person with new position), but honestly, that seems a bit odd to me. Why would you take yourself off? And if I was reviewing a CV of a student who had a solo authored pub, I would wonder why they didn't have mentorship on it (at least it would look like they didn't). I know you said you would support the student, but then you should also be co-author given your work on it. I've never heard of a position where someone could no longer author any papers, but if that is the case, and this person accepted that position knowing that, I think it is completely fine to move forward without that co-author listed. I understand your uneasiness about this, but it seems to be pretty straightforward to me. Are you able to list this person in an acknowledgments section?

 

[PsyDr]

Can they have their name on one of those "special thanks to ...." ? That would partially show their contribution.

I've seen that done in medical journals. I can't recall about psychology journals.

 

[futureapppsy2]

I'm curious as to what government positions do not let you have authorship on manuscripts. Never heard of that in the VA, and some of my DoD colleagues are some of the most prolific authors that I know.

(also @str63)

Without revealing too much, it’s a presidential appointment, and authorship on anything that was not initially submitted before their appointment and under their old university affiliation is seen as a breach of ethics.

If they were able to be acknowledged in the acknowledgments, I’d be fine with that, but I don’t think that is allowed either. Basically, on a personal/professional level, I’m just not okay being an author on something where I know someone else wrote significant parts of it and was credited originally but no longer is. If they, say, qualified as an author based on helping with analyses, but declined authorship for whatever reason before it was submitted, no problem with that. I just feel super skeevy not having someone as an author or even acknowledged if they did author-level work and were listed as such on the initial submission. Even if I stay in academia, I don't really "need" this pub (I have 99; h-index of 30, etc), and I'd rather not do something that feels morally icky every time I look at my CV, especially if the findings can still get out there with the grad student (who is excellent) as sole author. I know most people don't feel this way, but I just have really strong feelings about authors being credited.

 

[Ollie123]

Are we certain this wouldn't fall into "initially submitted before their appointment and under their old university affiliation"? Unless this is a gigantic, complete rewrite of the paper (doesn't sound like it) I wouldn't necessarily consider resubmission - even to a different journal - to violate that rule. A lot of papers would likely be caught in a weird place from this otherwise. People who get presidential appointments are usually....prolific. Might be worth clarifying if you have not.

It seems weird to make the student solo author for a number of reasons. At least in the short run, it could actually create a situation where they then have to explain this on interviews depending on exactly what it was and how much it stands out. Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to do put my name on it if you have the person's permission and the weird conflation of circumstances necessitates them being taken off. Especially if you do end up being able to list them in acknowledgements (also worth clarifying to be 100% certain). To each their own though.

 

[beantownpsych]

Solo authored student publications = odd, and sometimes viewed as a red flag.

 

[Psychai]

From an ethical perspective wouldn't it be more skeevy and inaccurate for the student to then be an author on a paper with two uncredited authors? I can appreciate that everyone has different personal and professional boundaries, but it seems like a potentially confusing message to send as a mentor that this isn't something you think is ethical to do, but they should do it twofold.

 

[futureapppsy2]

So, update, if you’re curious: We we’re able to get government permission to list the former third author in the acknowledgments (which took literal weeks to get approved, and literal weeks to get a minor change to the acknowledgment text approved, sigh), the grad student and I submitted it (to a really good journal), and it was accepted. I’m glad I stuck to my guns about having the third author in the acknowledgments at minimum, just because I wouldn’t have felt comfortable otherwise.