Authorship and Peer Review
Key Concepts:
- What is "scientific communication"? What forms does it
take? Why is it important?
- Have students generate a list of mechanisms for scientific
communication (e.g., journal articles, books, news paper
essays, grant applications, peer reviews, conferences,
meetings, blogs, etc.)
Discuss the following questions:
Why does one want to publish?
Under what circumstances would one NOT want to publish?
Where to publish? How do you decide on a journal? Ask
students what makes a quality journal? How do we measure
quality? Is "impact factor" useful?
What is copyright? Discuss with students the economics of
publishing (subscription vs open access, for profit vs
non-profit publishers, etc.).
- Authorship: who gets credit?
- Questions to discuss with students:
Who should be an author of a paper? (And who should NOT be an author?)
What is the significance of author order?
What are the roles of corresponding, senior, and first authors?
What are the responsibilities of authorship?
Key points to convey: Authorship rules may vary from field
to field. Students should discuss how authorship is handled
in their field (policy statements from discipline-specific
societies and/or journals may be helpful here), and how
authorships disputes should be addressed. Students should
also appreciate that authorship comes with responsibility.
- What is peer review?
- Have students list the purposes of peer review and answer
the following questions:
What kinds of things are reviewed?
Is peer review different for journal articles vs grant reviews?
Who should do the reviewing?
What constitutes conflict of interest in peer review?
Discussion questions may include:
Can an individual morally opposed to the use of fetal tissue
in research objectively review a paper on embryonic stem
cell differentiation?
Should peer-review be anonymous?
If a research paper is flagged for misconduct
(falsification, fabrication, and/or plagiarism), should all
coauthors share equally in the blame and punishment?
What kinds of consequences are appropriate for research misconduct?
Delivery:
- Emphasize that the course is about, and for, them.
They are embarking on a dynamic research career, and many of them
are intrinsically interested in learning about the course topics
(professionalism, mentoring, authorship/peer-review, and data
management).
- Tailor the course for your students. Professional expectations
regarding data collection, authorship, and collaborations differ
from field to field. Your students will be most interested in
their own research discipline. For instance, when discussing
standards of conduct, share with students guidelines published by
professional societies that they are members of, or from journals
that they are likely to publish in.
- Let your students take over. As facilitators, we want
to accomplish two things: we want to start an appropriate
conversation of the relevant material. Second, we want to guide
the discussion so that it touches on all of the relevant concepts
and points of view. These goals can be accomplished by emphasizing
to students that the course is not about "right" vs "wrong", and
that all points of view will be respectfully discussed. As
facilitator, a key resource you have is silence... your students
will carry on the conversation. Your role is to keep that
conversation on track and on time (i.e., covering the relevant
topics in the allotted amount of time).
- Be creative with discussion points and case studies.
While you are free to use any of the prepared cases from the text
books, or from Ethics
CORE, you can also develop your own discussions around
relevant current events applicable to the course content. For
example, Science magazine had
an article
in March about the NIH’s new focus on unprofessional conduct
during peer review of grants. These types of topical articles can
be effective launching points for relevant discussions of the
course material.
Case studies useful for this topic: