Views on Authorship: Survey Among Academic Staffs of the Korean Radiologists

Hwang, Seong Su

Abstract

PURPOSE
The purpose of my survey is to assess the knowledge and views of the academic staff on authorship criteria.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
363 academic staff were invited to fill out the survey via e-mail and the responses were collected for two weeks. A one-page questionnaire was prepared and it included 19 questions with three major groups. The first group of questions was demographic information including the responder's age, sex and academic position. The second group of questions was focused on the individual perception and personal experience for authorship on their publications. The last group of questions included awareness and views of authorship criteria established by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The responders were grouped according to age, sex and grade. To examine the difference of responses among each group, a Chi square test for categorical variables was performed.
RESULTS
The overall response rate to the survey was 39.2% (113/288) and 20.7% (75/363) of e-mail address were undeliverable. The grade of respondents is relatively evenly distributed from fellowship (20%) to professor (22%). Most of the respondents (90.6%) had experienced difficulties with authorship. Although 72.2% of respondents had no awareness of ICMJE's criteria, they agreed with criteria fully (56.1%) and partially (42.4%). 42% of respondents expected that more than 50% of the authors per paper didn't fulfill the authorship criteria. Less than 5 authors per paper were adequate (96%). Most of respondents thought that the introduction of a contribution listing to the Journal of the Korean radiological society is necessary (93.5%) but it is not urgently needed (59.0%).
CONCLUSION
I can see that there are authorship problems among the academic members of Korean radiological society. It is necessary to educate the members and to have them justify the validity of their authorship claims.