Borry Pascal, Schotsmans Paul, Dierickx Kris
Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law, Kapucijnenvoer 35/3, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Bioethics. 2006 Aug;20(4):213-20. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2006.00496.x.
Publications are primarily a means of communicating scientific information to colleagues, but they are much more than that. Publications in peer reviewed journals are proof of academic competence, are used as a crucial component in evaluation criteria for academic promotion and fundraising and increase the prestige of research centres and universities. The urgent need for publications has also led to abuses in authorship. In the past the single-author article was the rule, but over the past decades, the average number of authors on scientific manuscripts has drastically increased. In the field of bioethics, however, no research has been undertaken to study whether the percentage of single-author articles is decreasing, the proportion of multi-author articles is increasing or the average number of authors per article is increasing. The objective of this research is to analyze these trends in authorship for the period 1990-2003 in peer reviewed journals in the field of bioethics. In the nine peer reviewed journals from the field of bioethics we studied, we observed a significant increase of the multi-author article and of the average number of authors. This is mainly due to the increase in the number of publications with an empirical design. This growing trend is a challenge for the editors of journals in the field of bioethics to enhance awareness about the value and definition of authorship.
发表文章主要是向同行交流科学信息的一种方式，但远不止于此。发表在同行评审期刊上的文章是学术能力的证明，被用作学术晋升和筹资评估标准的关键组成部分，还能提升研究中心和大学的声誉。对发表文章的迫切需求也导致了署名方面的滥用。过去，单作者文章是常态，但在过去几十年里，科学手稿的平均作者数量急剧增加。然而，在生物伦理学领域，尚未开展研究来探讨单作者文章的比例是否在下降、多作者文章的比例是否在上升或每篇文章的平均作者数量是否在增加。本研究的目的是分析1990 - 2003年期间生物伦理学领域同行评审期刊上署名的这些趋势。在我们研究的九种生物伦理学领域的同行评审期刊中，我们观察到多作者文章和平均作者数量显著增加。这主要是由于实证设计的出版物数量增加。这种不断增长的趋势对生物伦理学领域期刊的编辑来说是一个挑战，需要提高对署名价值和定义的认识。
