This session explores the ethical and professional significance of authorship in scholarly research. Participants will learn about common authorship practices and disputes, apply established authorship criteria to determine who qualifies for authorship, and identify unethical practices such as guest, gift, and ghost authorship. The session also introduces emerging approaches to contributorship, including the CRediT taxonomy, and considers how changing patterns of collaboration are reshaping the attribution of scholarly work. Through discussion, participants will reflect on making fair authorship decisions, preventing conflicts, and resolving disputes in collaborative research environments.

Pre-Class Activity: Use this Padlet to reflect on authorship practices: 

• Ask one of your supervisors or mentors about their views on authorship, specifically if they have had bad experiences with authorship, how those situations arose and how they were resolved?
• What criteria or authorship norms they currently endorse?
• Write three things that matter to you in discussions/decisions about authorship.
• Write three strategies about when/how to say no to unethical authorship requests.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

• Explain the concept and importance of authorship. Identify unethical authorship practices, practices, and apply established criteria to determine who qualifies for authorship and appropriate author order.
• Describe current trends in authorship and contributorship, including the use of contributor role frameworks (e.g., CRediT).
• Apply ethical principles to authorship decisions in collaborative research, particularly in supervisor-supervisee relationships, and develop strategies to prevent and resolve authorship disputes.