Editor, The report by Kalichman et al. is interesting. Kalichman et al. mentioned an “awareness of the diversity of those standards.” Standards should be applicable and usable in all settings. If there are different standards, there might be a problem in the implementation of standards. The case of “double standards” can lead to several practical problems. The conduct of research in an institute might be different from another institute. In addition, within an institute, the use of alternative standards might be (...) selectively applied for some specific persons. The senior or administrative persons might be excluded from standards. A double-standard is a common problem in many developing countries and is an indicator for the low quality of scientific and academic societies in those countries. For sure, this is considered a double-standard. If those situations occur repeatedly, it will result in “no standards”. (shrink)

This grounded study investigated the negotiation of authorship by faculty members, graduate student mentors, and their undergraduate protégés in undergraduate research experiences at a private research university in the northeastern United States. Semi-structured interviews using complementary scripts were conducted separately with 42 participants over a 3 year period to probe their knowledge and understanding of responsible authorship and publication practices and learn how faculty and students entered into authorship decision-making intended to lead to the publication of peer-reviewed technical papers. Herein (...) the theoretical model for the negotiation of authorship developed through the analysis of these interviews is reported. The model identifies critical causal and intervening conditions responsible for the coping strategies faculty and students employ, which, in our study, appear to often produce unfortunate consequences for all involved. The undergraduate student researchers and their graduate student mentors interviewed in this study exhibited a limited understanding of authorship and the requirements for authorship in their research groups. The power differential between faculty and students, the students’ limited epistemic development, the busy-ness of the faculty, and the faculty’s failure to prioritize authorship have been identified as key factors inhibiting both undergraduate and graduate students from developing a deeper understanding of responsible authorship and publication practices. Implications for graduate education and undergraduate research are discussed, and strategies for helping all students to develop a deeper understanding of authorship are identified. (shrink)