Integrity at stake: confronting "publish or perish" in the developing world and emerging economies.

The scientific community faces significant ethical challenges due to the "publish or perish" culture, particularly in developing and emerging economies. This paper explores the widespread unethical practices in scientific publishing, including the sale of authorships, the proliferation of "paper mills," and the misuse of artificial intelligence to produce fraudulent research. These practices undermine the integrity of scientific research, skew publication metrics, and distort academic rankings. This study examines various instances of academic fraud, emphasizing the impact on low-income countries, with specific cases from Latin America. Recommendations include stricter verification of authorship, disciplinary measures for scientific fraud, and policies promoting transparency and accountability in research. Addressing these challenges is crucial for maintaining the integrity and credibility of scientific endeavors globally.

Exploring the Landscape of Social Epidemiological Research: A Scoping Review of AJE Publications.

As social epidemiology is a growing interdisciplinary field with a broad scope, this scoping review investigated its current landscape based on articles published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. Among 1,194 extracted records between 2013 and 2022 submitted under the "social" category, we identified 178 accepted articles that had a social factor as a primary exposure. We categorized social exposures into nine major domains, and health outcomes into eight domains. Study design, population, and authorship were also analyzed. Our findings indicate that social epi studies reflect a range of social exposures, including socioeconomic position (37%), neighborhood and built environment (20%), race, racism, and discrimination (16%), and policy and social welfare (12%). The most frequently studied health outcomes were non-communicable diseases and chronic conditions (42%), mental health (14%), and maternal and child health outcomes (11%). Most studies had quantitative observational designs and focused on high-income countries, particularly the U.S. contexts. Most authors appeared only once, suggesting a range of voices as contributors. Findings suggest that, to enhance knowledge, social epi could benefit from a greater representation of social factors beyond tangible resources, a broader range of health outcomes, study designs and populations, and low- and middle-income countries.

Twenty-Five Years of Progress-Lessons Learned From JMIR Publications to Address Gender Parity in Digital Health Authorships: Bibliometric Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Digital health research plays a vital role in advancing equitable health care. The diversity of research teams is thereby instrumental in capturing societal challenges, increasing productivity, and reducing bias in algorithms. Despite its importance, the gender distribution within digital health authorship remains largely unexplored. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the gender distribution among first and last authors in digital health research, thereby identifying predicting factors of female authorship. METHODS: This bibliometric analysis examined the gender distribution across 59,980 publications from 1999 to 2023, spanning 42 digital health journals indexed in the Web of Science. To identify strategies ensuring equality in research, a detailed comparison of gender representation in JMIR journals was conducted within the field, as well as against a matched sample. Two-tailed Welch 2-sample t tests, Wilcoxon rank sum tests, and chi-square tests were used to assess differences. In addition, odds ratios were calculated to identify predictors of female authorship. RESULTS: The analysis revealed that 37% of first authors and 30% of last authors in digital health were female. JMIR journals demonstrated a higher representation, with 49% of first authors and 38% of last authors being female, yielding odds ratios of 1.96 (95% CI 1.90-2.03; P<.001) and 1.78 (95% CI 1.71-1.84; P<.001), respectively. Since 2008, JMIR journals have consistently featured a greater proportion of female first authors than male counterparts. Other factors that predicted female authorship included having female authors in other relevant positions and gender discordance, given the higher rate of male last authors in the field. CONCLUSIONS: There was an evident shift toward gender parity across publications in digital health, particularly from the publisher JMIR Publications. The specialized focus of its sister journals, equitable editorial policies, and transparency in the review process might contribute to these achievements. Further research is imperative to establish causality, enabling the replication of these successful strategies across other scientific fields to bridge the gender gap in digital health effectively.

Coercion Authorship: Ubiquitous and Preventable.

Coercion authorship (CA), typically enforced by principal investigators, has detrimental effects on graduate students, young researchers, and the entire scientific endeavor. Although CA is ubiquitous, its occurrence and major determinants have been mainly explored among graduate students and junior scientists in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark where the ratio of CA ranged from 13 to 40%. In addition to lacking comparable figures, developing countries usually lack institutional plans for promoting integrity and effective deterrents against CA and other malpractices. Hence, universities and research centers therein must publish their authorship policies and implement specific strategies to instruct graduate students, junior scientists, and experienced researchers on integrity, publishing ethics, and responsible authorship. Finally, I remark that the primary responsibility of principal researchers to promote fair authorship practices and discourage unfair ones is even greater when it comes to CA due to the asymmetrical power relationship between senior authors and novice scientists.

Gender Gap in Cardiothoracic Surgery Randomized Controlled Trial and posthoc analysis of Randomized Controlled Trial Authorship from 2014 to 2020.

OBJECTIVES: To estimate gender disparities among first and last authorships in cardiothoracic randomized controlled trials(RCTs) and association of gender with publications in high impact journals. METHODS: PubMed/MEDLINE database was searched from January 1st , 2014-December 31st , 2020 using R statistical software via "easyPubMed" package to retrieve pertinent data. The "gender" package was utilized to determine gender using the United States Social Security Administration Baby Name Data. The percentage of women first and last authors were computed along with determining the uniqueness of the names. The association of gender and publication in high impact peer-reviewed journals was delineated. Jonckheere'e trend was computed. RESULTS: The database search retrieved total of 4820 RCTs. Of which, gender was encoded for first author of 3247 [67%] RCTs, among which 911[28%] studies had women as first authors with a similar trend across seven years [P value 0.23]. Gender was encoded for last author of 3204 [66%] RCTs, of which 622 [19%] studies had women as last authors with a similar trend across seven years [P value 0.45]. A total of 627 studies were published in high impact factor journals, among which 79[16%] studies had women first authors and 67[13%] studies had women last authors. CONCLUSIONS: There is an obvious gender disparity of first and last authors in cardiothoracic surgery related RCTs with a similar trend across seven years. However, the post-hoc analysis did demonstrate a positive trend with increase in the number of female first authors demonstrating progress.

Mind the gap: Gender disparities in authorship in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences.

INTRODUCTION: Research studies tracking gender and academic publication productivity in healthcare find gender disparities in research activity, publication, and authorship. Article authorship is one of the important metrics to track when seeking to understand gender inequality in academic career advancement. Research on gender disparities in publication productivity in the field of Medical Radiation Science (MRS) is very limited thus this study analyses and explains potential gender differences in article authorship and acceptance for publication in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences (JMIRS) for a 5-year period (2017-2021). METHODS: Gender was inferred based on the author's first name or title (e.g., Mr, Mrs or Ms). For those who left the title blank or reported as 'Dr' or 'Prof,' a series of steps were taken to identify their gender. Where gender was impossible to ascribe, these authors were excluded. Descriptive and inferential statistics are reported for the study population. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used. Percentages of females are reported, and males constitute the other portion. Chi-square, slope analysis and z-tests were used to test hypotheses. RESULTS: Results show that female authorship overall and in all categories of authorship placement (i.e., first, last and corresponding) increased over the timeframe reviewed. The percentage gain in the increase was higher than that for male authorship. However, male authorship started from a higher baseline in 2017 and has also increased year on year and overall, as well as in each placement category examined. More female authors were in the MRS sub-specialism Radiation Therapy (RT) than in the other MRS sub-specialisms. Analysis of the acceptance rate of articles with female authors shows a weak downward trend, and this may be related to higher submission and acceptance rates of articles by male authors during the same period. CONCLUSION: Male authors are overrepresented in all categories, which raises questions about the persistence of gender disparities in JMIRS authorship and article acceptance. Positive trends in female authorship indicate progress, yet there is the persistence of the significant under-representation of women in the Medical Radiation Sciences workforce in academic publishing. Recruiting more males to address the gender imbalance in the profession should not be at the expense of females' career progression.

Is AI my co-author? The ethics of using artificial intelligence in scientific publishing.

The recent emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) and other forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has led people to wonder whether they could act as an author on a scientific paper. This paper argues that AI systems should not be included on the author by-line. We agree with current commentators that LLMs are incapable of taking responsibility for their work and thus do not meet current authorship guidelines. We identify other problems with responsibility and authorship. In addition, the problems go deeper as AI tools also do not write in a meaningful sense nor do they have persistent identities. From a broader publication ethics perspective, adopting AI authorship would have detrimental effects on an already overly competitive and stressed publishing ecosystem. Deterrence is possible as backward-looking tools will likely be able to identify past AI usage. Finally, we question the value of using AI to produce more research simply for publication's sake.

Study on the Analysis of Gender Trends Among the First Authors of Publications on Budd-Chiari Syndrome.

INTRODUCTION: Budd-Chiari syndrome (BCS) is primarily a disease of hepatic vein blockage, which involves a backflow of blood to the liver. Although there have been many causes linked to this disease, most commonly, it occurs due to hypercoagulable states and blood disorders. In recent times, there has been a fast spread of knowledge regarding early diagnosis and various treatment modalities, which has enabled the prevention of mortality in most cases. This has primarily spread through research articles published in various journals. Thus, the article aims to compare the gender trend ratios to identify the associated discrepancies in terms of male and female author contributions who have been the primary authors for articles pertaining to this disease.  Methodology: A PubMed database between the years 2013 and 2022 was used for the bibliometric analysis. The gender of the primary author was analyzed by NamSor, an application programming interface (API). The statistical analysis was conducted using R software, the ARIMA model, and graphs were prepared using Datawrapper. RESULTS: Out of 667 articles extracted, the analysis showed that there were 455 (68.2%) first male authors and 212 (31.8%) first female authors. We also formulated various other results, which depicted a higher female-to-male author ratio including various journals and different countries. Although there has been an increasing trend of male authors as compared to female authors, this study found that male authorship for research on this disease is still higher. CONCLUSIONS: This study depicts that there is a necessity to draw attention to the inequitable systems favoring men over women for publications. The predictive analysis conducted also helps to foresee the trend in the next few years and explains the necessity of addressing the disparities among both genders in healthcare systems.

Activity for CUREs to increase student understanding and application of responsible authorship and publication practices.

Professional development of scientists is enhanced by training students in responsible conduct of research earlier in their careers. One aspect of responsible conduct of research is authorship ethics, which concerns granting of credit to those who make intellectual contributions to the research. The activity discussed in this article emphasizes how authorship ethics can be integrated with Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) and includes an adaption that could also be used for independent research students. The activity allows students to reflect upon inequalities and problems seen in scientific authorship, including gender bias, failure to credit effort (ghostwriters), and inclusion of authors that did not meaningfully contribute to the work (honorary/gift authorship). Themes seen in student reflections on how they could demonstrate ethics in authorship included: determining authorship by contribution, appropriate attributions on curriculum vitas (CV) and posters, different credit levels, understanding authorship criteria, and tracking contributions. Themes seen in student reflections on the importance of authorship were proper authorship credit distribution, authorship impacting career opportunities, and accountability in research. In the activity, students also created attributions for a poster to be presented from their research. We found that most students were able to create attributions that were correctly formatted, included the same authors, and positioned authors in the same order as other group members, matching what was presented on the finalized poster. We found that students' reflection on authorship and this professionalization of their activities in their CURE led to modest increases in their view of themselves as scientists.

Unraveling retraction dynamics in COVID-19 research: Patterns, reasons, and implications.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, while the world sought solutions, few scholars exploited the situation for personal gains through deceptive studies and manipulated data. This paper presents the extent of 400 retracted COVID-19 papers listed by the RetractionWatch database until the month of February 2024. The primary purpose of the research was to analyze journal quality and retractions trends. Evaluating the journal's quality is vital for stakeholders, as it enables them to effectively address and prevent such incidents and their future repercussions. The present study found that one-fourth of publications were retracted within the first month of their publication, followed by an additional 6% within six months of publication. One third of the retractions originated from Q1 journals, with another significant portion coming from Q2 (29.8%). An analysis of the reasons for retractions indicates that a quarter of retractions were attributed to multiple causes, predominantly associated with publications in Q2 journals, while another quarter were linked to data issues, primarily observed in Q1 publications. Elsevier retracted 31% of papers, with the majority published as Q1, followed by Springer (11.5%), predominantly as Q2. The study also examined author contributions, revealing that 69.3% were male, with females (30.7%) mainly holding middle author positions.

Lack of women physician representation in the Japanese Society of Hospital General Medicine.

Background: The increasing number of women physicians is in contrast to their underrepresentation in academic positions and professional associations. This study aimed to evaluate the status of women physicians in the Japanese Society of Hospital General Medicine (JHGM) based on society membership, board membership, and annual meeting authorship. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis was conducted. Information on women physicians, society and board membership, and annual meeting authorship was collected. Data from the Japanese Primary Care Association (JPCA) served as the control. The gender of authors with accepted abstracts in the JHGM and JPCA annual meetings was determined by name or Internet search. Results: In the JHGM, 14.2% of members were women physicians, compared to 19.1% in the JPCA (p < 0.001). None of the 21 JHGM board members were women, compared to 20.5% in the JPCA (p < 0.001). The average number of years of experience was significantly higher for the JHGM board members than for the JPCA board members (37.0 vs. 28.1 years, p < 0.001). Women first authors in the 2022-2023 JHGM meeting comprised 17.9%, significantly lower than the 28.4% in the 2023 JPCA meeting (p = 0.002). Similar patterns were seen for women last authors (6.0% in the JHGM vs. 18.8% in the JPCA, p < 0.001) and women chairpersons (17.9% in the JHGM vs. 40.3% in the JPCA, p = 0.036). Conclusions: The JHGM has low women representation in society and board membership, and annual meeting authorship. Strategies are needed to enhance diversity and inclusion by increasing women's participation and leadership in the JHGM.

Path of excellence: A co-authorship network analysis of European Research Council grant winners in social sciences.

The international scientific community puts an ever-growing emphasis on research excellence and performance evaluation. So does the European Union with its flagship research excellence grant scheme organised by the European Research Council. This paper aims to provide an in-depth analysis of one of the ERC's thematic panels within the social sciences, namely the SH2 "Political Science" panel. The analysis is based on empirical, statistical methods, and network analysis tools to gain insights about the grant winners' publication patterns and their coauthor networks. The results draw up an academic career track of the grantees based on quantitative publication patterns and performance. Besides, a change in authorship can be observed, which is proven by the formation of new groups and intensifying intra-group collaboration patterns in the case of all three grant types. However, the ERC grant serves different functions for the winners of three different categories: for the Starting Grant winners, it offers the possibility to kick off and establish their research group, for the Consolidator Grant winners, it opens up new opportunities to extend their co-authorship network, and for the Advanced Grant winners, it offers the chance to start a new collaboration.

Scientific misconduct in infectious diseases-European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases survey.

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to evaluate the prevalence and perception of scientific misconduct in infectious diseases (ID) and clinical microbiology (CM), as reported by the ID/CM community. METHODS: An anonymous online European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases survey circulated among society members from October 2023 to June 2024; the questionnaire included data on participants' views on their own and their colleagues' scientific misconduct in the last 5 years. RESULTS: The survey received 220 responses. Responders were 73% ID physicians, 52% men, 56% aged 35-54 years, and represented 48 countries, mainly European (126 participants). The vast majority of participants (78%) reported that they did not personally commit scientific misconduct, whereas 54% reported witnessing misconduct by colleagues in their field. The most commonly committed misconduct by both responders and their colleagues was misconduct of authorship rules, 14% and 41%, respectively. Overall, 18% reported witnessing misleading reporting and 14% reported witnessing nonaccurate reporting of conflict of interest. Nevertheless, the majority (>60%) of responders reported high confidence in the integrity of published work in the field of ID/CM. Approximately one-third of responders were not aware of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases ethics advisory committee as an authority to which members can report misconduct. DISCUSSION: Scientific misconduct, mostly related to violation of authorship rules, seems to be common in ID/CM. Efforts to improve scientific integrity should be made to keep trust in the scientific process.

Developing Confidence in Engaging in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Social Determinants of Health Topics Through Self-Authorship.

OBJECTIVE: This study used a self-authorship framework to explore if diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and social determinants of health (SDoH)-focused laboratories and learning activities increase student confidence in understanding aspects of implicit bias and SDoH, and how these activities impact student comfort in discussing and confidence in initiating conversations on DEI/SDoH topics with colleagues, faculty, supervisors, and patients. METHODS: First-year PharmD students engaged in 3 learning activities across 2 courses. Students were challenged to evaluate their biases and incorporate DEI/SDoH into their professional identity formation. This study used a mixed-methods, embedded approach to analyze assessment data collected via a questionnaire and assignments administered at 3 points during the fall semester. Quantitative analysis used a quasi-experimental, between-participants, pretest-posttest design. The qualitative component used open-ended questions to gain additional insight into participant experiences, gathered detail on perceptions, and provided context. RESULTS: A 1-way analysis of variance showed statistically significant increases between assessment points for all items related to confidence in understanding implicit bias and SDoH. Comfort in discussing DEI/SDoH topics with supervisors/faculty and patients increased over time. Comfort in discussing DEI/SDoH topics with colleagues did not increase. Three salient themes emerged from qualitative analyses: bias and privilege awareness, education, and professionalism. CONCLUSION: This study found that students started evaluating their own knowledge, beliefs, and claims in social and professional settings as defined by the self-authorship framework. Student comfort and confidence in discussing DEI/SDoH topics increased over time. Findings support that engaging students in multimodal programming may support incorporation of DEI/SDoH into professional identity formation.

Towards equal representation - A bibliometric analysis of authorships in Laboratory Medicine and Clinical Chemistry from the United States, Canada, and Europe (2005-2022).

Objectives: Although diversity has been demonstrated to benefit research groups, women remain underrepresented in most scientific disciplines, including Laboratory Medicine and Clinical Chemistry. In order to promote diversity and equality in scientific communities, understanding the gender distribution of authorship is crucial. Methods: This study included a total of 30,268 Web of Science-listed Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine publications from the United States of America, Canada, and the member countries of the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine from 2005 to 2022. In addition to the publication productivity of female and male authors over time, gender-specific publication characteristics and country-specific gender distributions of authorships were examined. Results: Overall, publications with female first authors increased by 49 % between 2005 and 2022, averaging 42 % female first authors. Eastern Europe (60 %) and Southern Europe (51 %) had particularly high proportions of female first authors. While female last authorship was the most predictive of female first authorship, with an odds ratio of 2.01 (95 % CI: 1.91-2.12, p < 0.001), only 27 % of last authors were female. Moreover, citation rate was not predictive of female first or last authorship. Conclusion: Authorship in Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine is moving towards gender parity. This trend is more pronounced for first authors than for last authors. Further research into the citations of female authors in this discipline could be a starting point for increasing the visibility of women researchers in science. Moreover, geographical differences may provide opportunities for future research on gender parity across disciplines.

Fostering student authorship skills in synthetic biology.

Women and racial minorities are underrepresented in the synthetic biology community. Developing a scholarly identity by engaging in a scientific community through writing and communication is an important component for STEM retention, particularly for underrepresented individuals. Several excellent pedagogical tools have been developed to teach scientific literacy and to measure competency in reading and interpreting scientific literature. However, fewer tools exist to measure learning gains with respect to writing, or that teach the more abstract processes of peer review and scientific publishing, which are essential for developing scholarly identity and publication currency. Here we describe our approach to teaching scientific writing and publishing to undergraduate students within a synthetic biology course. Using gold standard practices in project-based learning, we created a writing project in which students became experts in a specific application area of synthetic biology with relevance to an important global problem or challenge. To measure learning gains associated with our learning outcomes, we adapted and expanded the Student Attitudes, Abilities, and Beliefs (SAAB) concept inventory to include additional questions about the process of scientific writing, authorship, and peer review. Our results suggest the project-based approach was effective in achieving the learning objectives with respect to writing and peer reviewed publication, and resulted in high student satisfaction and student self-reported learning gains. We propose that these educational practices could contribute directly to the development of scientific identity of undergraduate students as synthetic biologists, and will be useful in creating a more diverse synthetic biology research enterprise.

The increasing authorship trend in neuroscience: A scientometric analysis across 11 countries.

Previous studies have demonstrated an increasing trend of the number of authors across various fields over the years. This trend has been attributed to the necessity for larger collaborations and, at times, to ethical issues regarding authorship attribution. Our study focuses on the evolution of authorship trends in the field of Neuroscience. We conducted our analysis based on a dataset containing 580,782 neuroscience publications produced from 2000 to 2022, focusing on the publications within the Group of ten (G10) countries. Using a matrix-based methodology, we extracted and analyzed the average number of authors per country. Our findings reveal a consistent rise in authorship across all G10 countries over the past two decades. Italy emerged with the highest average number of authors, while France stood out for experiencing the most significant increase, particularly in the last decade. The countries with the lowest number of authors per publication were the USA, UK and Canada. Differences between countries could result from variations in the size of collaboration between researchers in different countries. Additionally, these differences may depend on utilitarian considerations aimed at receiving higher scores in the individual evaluation of their own work. We propose that a normalization procedure for the number of authors should be implemented to ensure a fair evaluation of researchers.