Scholarly integrity and the responsible conduct and reporting of research are essential for maintaining public trust in the research enterprise and for community benefit from research discovery. This policy sets forth principles of authorship to provide clear guidelines related to authorship of scholarly publications.
Scholarly publications include (and are not limited to) books, articles, abstracts, presentations at professional meetings, and grant applications. This includes other dissemination of written findings, thoughts and analyses.
All Northern Illinois University (NIU) employees and faculty members, and students, who are/were employed by or acted as an agent of or affiliated (by agreement) with the research.
NIU adopts the ethical principles embodied in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts, composed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, as revised in 2004 (Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors).
There are occasions when multiple, equal contributions lead to more than one co-contributing lead authors. In cases where there are co-contributing lead authors, all assume the lead author responsibilities.
All co-authors of a publication are responsible for:
Approval: By providing consent to authorship to the lead author, co-authors are acknowledging that they have reviewed and approved the manuscript.
An individual retains the right to refuse co-authorship of a manuscript if he or she does not satisfy the criteria for authorship. It is recommended that individuals who do not satisfy the criteria for authorship should, in fact, refuse co-authorship of such manuscripts to avoid honorary or guest authorship.
Individuals who may have made some contribution to a publication, but who do not meet the definition of author, such as staff, editorial assistants, case writers, those providing technical assistance or other individuals can provide a valuable contribution to the writing and editing of publications. Since those contributions do not meet the criteria for authorship under this Policy, it is recommended that those individuals be listed in an acknowledgment and/or contributorship section of the work.
Acknowledgments may also be acceptable and appropriate for administrative relationships, acquisition of funding, collection of data or general supervision of a research group when these alone do not constitute authorship.
NIU encourages proper forms of authorship to serve as ideal role models for its students, post-doctoral fellows, trainees, staff and faculty. Accordingly, guest, gift and ghost authorship are inconsistent with the definition of authorship and unacceptable under this Policy.
The order of authors is a collective decision of the authors or study group. This Policy does not address questions or disputes regarding the order of authorship on publications. While it is not possible for NIU to define the order of authorship in every situation, this Policy advises that co-authors in conjunction with the lead author discuss authorship order at the onset of the project and revise their decision as needed. All authors must work together to make these informed judgments.
Should authors fail to resolve disputes about the order of authors, this Policy suggests that the affected individual seek counsel from his or her section or division director, department chair, dean, graduate school or the Office for Research Compliance, Integrity, and Safety (ORCIS). The appropriate division, department and/or section leadership should mediate in an effort to resolve the dispute. If not successful, such mediation should be addressed by the school’s dean. For additional guidance, see Guidelines for Avoiding and Resolving Authorship Disputes.
Authors shall fully disclose, in all manuscripts to journals, grant applications and at professional meetings all relevant financial interests that could be viewed as a potential conflict of interest or as required by NIU and/or journal. All such financial interests must also be reported internally.
Knowing, intentional, or reckless violations of this policy may be considered plagiarism and fall under NIU’s research misconduct policy and, as such, will be referred to the Research Integrity Officer.
Violations of the policy that do not rise to the level of research misconduct may subject the individual to corrective action or other sanctions as deemed appropriate by the Vice President for Research. Disagreements regarding the order of authorship do not, in and of themselves, constitute a violation of this policy or research misconduct.
Shannon Stoker
Director and Research Integrity Officer
815-753-2882
sstoker@niu.edu
Lowden Hall, room 103