Clock hours and tally pay to fix authorship disputes, says paper

Academics could resolve authorship dilemmas when publishing scholarly works by taking a quantitative approach to crediting contributions, a paper published in Studies in Higher Education proposes.

Rahul Aggarwal, a civil engineer and PhD candidate at Chalmers University of Technology, told Times Higher Education: “It’s a very complicated issue in academia, to define who should be an author and how the authors should be ordered. Everyone wants to be an author.”

In his paper, he writes: “The main aim of the proposed quantification approach is to support the qualitative discussions among potential authors regarding authorship, helping them reach a consensus on authorship and authorship order. This helps prevent injustices and ensures that all contributors have a voice, regardless of their power and influence.”

Mr Aggarwal’s approach first requires all potential authors to be listed. To be considered as an author, rather than the subject of an acknowledgement, contributors must demonstrate “a broader understanding and the ability to explain and justify the work as a whole”; where authors have expertise in “limited aspects of the study rather than all aspects”, they should also “clearly define their individual contributions and be accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the sections within their area of expertise”.

Each potential author should determine how much time they invested in the publication; then, based on their typical financial compensation for their work, the authors should calculate the value of their contribution. Adjustments should be made to account for pay disparities, writes Mr Aggarwal, explaining that the “purchasing power parity” metric could be employed to standardise salary differences across locations, while pay disparities “due to discrimination in promotion or other factors based on gender and ethnicity” could be addressed by “assigning the same salary to authors who are considered to be at the same level”.

Even with the proposed adjustments, he acknowledges, a dependence on pay could be problematic. Because salaries may be unjustly influenced by factors including race, ethnicity, gender and age, “using hourly rates to calculate authorship may reinforce existing disparities”, he writes. Moreover, the approach “cannot completely eliminate inappropriate or unethical behaviour among some authors, nor can it entirely prevent conflicts or research misconduct”.

Speaking to THE, Mr Aggarwal said the main purpose of his method was to “provide a basis for discussion”. His approach could enable contributors in junior positions to more easily advocate for recognition, he explained. “If I am a bachelor’s student or a doctoral student, I’m too dependent on my supervisor,” he said. “It’s very hard to raise your voice.”

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com