Ethics Guideline

Authorship Guidelines

Authorship is an explicit way of assigning responsibility and giving credit for intellectual work. The two are linked. Authorship practices should be judged by how honestly they reflect actual contributions to the final product. Authorship is important to the reputation, academic promotion, and grand support of the individuals involved as well as to the strength and reputation of their institution.
Everyone who is listed as an author should have made a substantial, direct, intellectual contribution to the work. For example (in the case of a research report) they should have contributed to the conception, design, analysis and/or interpretation of data. Honorary or guest authorship is not acceptable. Acquisition of funding and provision of technical services, patients, or materials, while they may be essential to the work, are not in themselves sufficient contribution to justify authorship.
Everyone who has made substantial intellectual contributions to the work should be an author. Every who has made other substantial contributions should be acknowledged.
When research is done by teams whose members are highly specialized, individual’s contributions and responsibility may be limited to specific aspects of the work. All authors should participate in writing the manuscript by reviewing drafts and approving the final version. One author should take primary responsibility for the work as a whole even if he or she does not have an in-depth understanding of every part of the work. This primary author should assure that all authors meet basic standards for authorship and should prepare a concise, written description of their contributions to the work, which has been approved by all authors.