Cited by 39Academic integrity and plagiarismPublishing and Scholarly Communicationscientometrics and bibliometrics research

A review of the literature on ethical issues related to scientific authorship

Open access
Hosseini, Mohammad, Gordijn, Bert·2020·Accountability in Research

Abstract

The article at hand presents the results of a literature review on the ethical issues related to scientific authorship. These issues are understood as questions and/or concerns about obligations, values or virtues in relation to reporting, authorship and publication of research results. For this purpose, the Web of Science core collection was searched for English resources published between 1945 and 2018, and a total of 324 items were analyzed. Based on the review of the documents, ten ethical themes have been identified, some of which entail several ethical issues. Ranked on the basis of their frequency of occurrence these themes are: 1) attribution, 2) violations of the norms of authorship, 3) bias, 4) responsibility and accountability, 5) authorship order, 6) citations and referencing, 7) definition of authorship, 8) publication strategy, 9) originality, and 10) sanctions. In mapping these themes, the current article explores major ethical issue and provides a critical discussion about the application of codes of conduct, various understandings of culture, and contributing factors to unethical behavior.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/08989621.2020.1750957

Cites

244 of 244 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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  • Bias mostly occurs unintentionally; for example, when a scientist underpowers a study or is not aware of sexist assumptions that underpin their interpretive framework.

    “Bias mostly occurs unintentionally (i.e., subconsciously); for example, when a scientist underpowers a study or is not aware of sexist assumptions that underpin their interpretive framework [48–52].”

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Authors
Hosseini, M., & Gordijn, B.
Affiliations
Dublin City University (IE)
Corresponding author
Hosseini, Mohammad
Venue
Accountability in Research
Published
2020-04-16
Volume
27
Issue
5
Pages
284-324
ISSN
  • 0898-9621 (ISSN-L)
  • 1545-5815
OpenAlex
W3014226787
Cited by
38
References
246
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 4
FWCI
0.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by-nc-sa
Locations
  • Accountability in Research (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Dublin City University Open Access Institutional Repository (Dublin City University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • Arrow@dit (Dublin Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • European Commission (741782)
  • University of Hong Kong
  • Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (741782)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Academic integrity and plagiarism
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Publishing and Scholarly Communication
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
Keywords
scientific authorship, research ethics, authorship norms, attribution, authorship order, publication ethics, citation practices, originality, codes of conduct, research bias
MeSH terms
Authorship, Humans, Periodicals as Topic, Punishment, Plagiarism, Scientific Misconduct, Guidelines as Topic, Ethics, Research

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