In September 2021, Force11 Research Data Publishing Ethics Working Group, in collaboration with the Coalition on Publishing Ethics (COPE), issued recommendations for how publishers should handle data authorship and contribution conflicts. Research data is an output distinct from other elements (methodology, software, visualization, analysis, etc.) of a study. It may be published in repositories with no consistent standards of attribution and have authors different from those who produce or write about other elements. Data contributors should be cited separately from the authors of the study. The same data may be used as the basis for different studies. Disagreements may arise after data is published about author order or inclusion, or an original data author may become unavailable (death, incarceration) or change their name. Concerns may arise from authors, collaborators, readers or institutions.
Repositories could smooth or avoid issues if they were to take these steps at a system level:
- include declarations of competing interests in submission forms;
- offer authorship taxonomies;
- capture changes to author metadata; and
- employ features to easily add authors for dynamic datasets.
The recommendations for pre- and post publication issues are useful in outlining potential sources of conflict and ethical approaches to addressing them. Resolution of disputes should begin with direct and private engagement with the party raising the concern and the corresponding author(s). The data publisher would then consider who else should be notified or involved, e.g. journal publisher or author’s institution, about a concern if it cannot be directly resolved.
Puebla, Iratxe, Lowenberg, Daniella, & FORCE11 Research Data Publishing Ethics WG. (2021). Joint FORCE11 & COPE Research Data Publishing Ethics Working Group Recommendations. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5391293
