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field--short"> <div class="field-label">Case number:</div> <div class="field-item">24-25</div> </div> </div> <div class="node-case__body"> <div class="sidebar sidebar--offset"> <div class="sidebar__body"> <div class="node-case__fields"> <div class="field field-name-field-anonymised-text-of-the-ca field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Case text (Anonymised): </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Our journal is considering how to handle authorship of articles where medical data are subsequently utilised by a different research team as secondary data sets to explore the same or new research questions. These are cases where members of the original team (including the principal investigator) are involved as advisors and participants to assist in formulating the research questions and interpreting the results.聽</p> <p>Our plan is to consider the entirety of the new team (comprising individuals selected from the previous project and those newly added to fit the statistical model) as authors in all publications, ensuring that the institute's affiliation (as the data owner) is included among the authors' affiliations (typically the PI's affiliation).</p> <p><em>Question for the Forum</em><br /> 1. Do these considerations suffice? Should we include ALL members of the previous project as co-authors of the new statistical modelling project, even if they have not contributed to the development of new research questions, result interpretation, data analysis, or paper writing?<br /> 聽</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-advice field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Advice: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><em>This case was presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance.</em></p> <p>Authors will generally refer to a journal鈥檚 authorship policy to understand who should be listed as an author. Some policies state that anyone who helped with the data collection should be named as an author, for example, while others follow <a href="https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html">ICMJE</a> or similar guidelines and require authors to have played a substantial role in conception, analysis, and writing. Schemes like ICMJE鈥檚 also require all authors to agree to be accountable for the work, which might be difficult for the original team in this case since they have not been involved in the secondary work. It is also possible that some of the original authors have left academia, moved field, or passed away, making it unlikely they contributed to the secondary work in a way that merits authorship under most definitions.</p> <p>The editors should also ask whether the author teams have made any prior agreements on the usage of the data set and authorship considerations.聽</p> <p>If the journal is considering developing a new authorship policy, this should outline requirements for authors vs contributors.聽</p> <h4> Further resources</h4> <ul> <li>COPE <a href="https://publicationethics.org/case/use-secondary-data-without-proper-attribution#:~:text=Authors%20of%20secondary%20analyses%20must,those%20who%20collected%20the%20data">Forum Case, Secondary data without proper attribution聽</a></li> <li>ICMJE <a href="https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html#two%C2%A0">Recommendations on Publishing and editorial issues: Clinical Trials聽</a></li> </ul> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-resolution field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Resolution: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">On-going</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-9 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Year: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4478">2024</a></div></div></div><div class="field field--classifications field--short"><div class="field-label">Core practices:</div><div class="item-list"><ul><li class="first last"><a href="/authorship" title="View all "Authorship and contributorship" content">Authorship and contributorship</a></li> </ul></div></div><div id="comments" class="comment-wrapper"> <h2 class="title">Comments</h2> <a id="comment-19327"></a> <section class="comment clearfix"> <ul class="attribution">  <li>Posted by <span class="username">Claire Austin, PhD</span>, 27/9/2024 7.21pm</li> </ul> <div class="comment-text"> <div class="comment-arrow"></div> <div class="content"> <div class="field field-name-comment-body field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>The authors of the original work would have been responsible for the collection and validation of the original data to ensure that the data were "fit for purpose" (i.e. fit for the purpose of the original project) and that the data are 'reusable' (i.e.聽made available to others with an appropriate license, and accompanied by sufficient information,聽metadata, description of methods, etc.聽such that an independent 3rd party can determine if the data are fit for the purpose of some new project). The new team should cite the source of the data and provide a link to the original data to ensure traceability, but the authors of the original work should not be listed as authors of or contributors聽to the new work simply by virtue of the fact that they were involved in collection and validation of the original data. All authors of the new work must make new original contributions to the new work that rise to the level of authorship (i.e. conception, analysis, writing, accountability, etc.). If the authors of the original work wish to receive additional credit and recognition for the original dataset they should consider publishing a peer-reviewed 'data article'.</p> </div></div></div> </div>  <ul class="links inline"><li class="comment_forbidden first last"><span><a href="/user/login?destination=node/56797%23comment-form">Login to your account</a> or <a href="/user/register?destination=node/56797%23comment-form">register</a><br>to post comments</span></li> </ul> </div>  </section> </div> </div> <aside class="sidebar__aside"> <div class="sidebar__aside__col"> <div class="sidebar__aside__inner"> <div class="contextual-links-region"><h3>COPE Forum</h3><div class="entity entity-bean bean-editable"> <div > <div class="field field-name-field-block-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>COPE Members:<br /> do you have a publication ethics case and need help with next steps?<br /> <a href="https://publicationethics.org/copeforum">Submit your case</a></p> <p>Registration is now open for the 9 December Forum where new cases are discussed. 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