Publication

The guidelines stated here iare partly OUS specific and partly applicable in general, i.e. platforms for research communications and clinical studies.

The publication of scientific articles originating from OUS must follow recognized scientific norms. A guideline for scientific publication has been established at the hospital. This policy is based on principles incorporated in:

Harmonized guidelines for addressing and crediting scientific articles have been established through the Collaborative Body for the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority and the University of Oslo. These are also available on the university's website (Norwegian only).

For more information on registration and approval of scientific articles, see OUS ' web pages (Norwegian). Here you will also find contact information to super users for the CRISTIN system and a guideline for the registration of scientific articles.

If you have questions about co-authorship and publication regulations, Regional Research Support can assist. Inquiries can be addressed to godkjenning@ous-hf.no. See also our own webpage on research integrity issues.

Requirements for Authorship of a Publication

OUS assumes that all employees comply with the criteria of the Vancouver Convention on co-authorship for scientific publications.

According to the current version of the convention, the right to co-authorship shall be based on:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved

ALL conditions (1 to 4) must be fulfilled for a researcher to be awarded authorship.

The Vancouver Convention recommends that each author gives a written account of their contribution. This should be managed by the authors, based on documentation requirements from the individual journals.

The researcher's responsibility under the Research Ethics Act presupposes that if he or she has reasonable grounds to suspect violations of recognized scientific norms, the employee is obliged, on his/her own initiative, to have this clarified before he or she submits a statement on co-authorship.

The Vancouver Convention.

Use of Acknowledgements

When a contributor to a scientific publication does not meet the co-authorship requirements under the Vancouver Convention, the convention recommends that the contribution be mentioned under “Acknowledgments” or similar. Examples of activities that do not qualify a contributor for authorship are technical assistance, writing assistance or general support in the form of financing and infrastructure. In such cases, the contributor must give his acceptance to be mentioned in the Acknowledgments. Management of acceptance is handled by the authors, based on documentation requirements from the individual journal if applicable.

Editor and Employee Responsibility

Publication is a matter of trust and ethics, which is explicitly advocated by the Vancouver Convention. Scientific journals base their evaluations on confidence that the authors' manuscripts are founded on ethically sound research, in accordance with recognized scientific principles and relevant regulatory requirements.

Researchers must safeguard the same confidence when publishing, and are jointly responsible for including "negative" and "inconclusive" research results from their own work in the manuscript (Article 36 of the Helsinki Declaration). Any conflicts of interest should be made known to the journal before publication. In case of suspicion of fraud, the employee (co-author) is obliged to contribute to the resolution of the case. This applies both to the journals’ own investigations and to any internal review at the hospital.

For dealing with questions of fraud, see Research Integrity Issues.

Oslo University Hospital assumes that all employees follow the routines that apply to publication in the journal in question (see, for example, Nature Editorial Policies, and the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association’s Authoring Guide (in Norwegian).

Predatory Journals

Researchers at OUS should verify that the journal they wish to publish in is a reputable, approved publication channel to avoid so-called predatory journals. These are unscrupulous journals that exploit Open Access (OA) publishing to defraud researchers by charging article fees. Be aware of the use of supplements with a large number of articles with fast peer-review that may violate scientific standards and therefore a risk of not conferring scientific merit.

The University of Oslo (UiO) has compiled a list of characteristics of predatory journals, along with suggestions on how to avoid being deceived: Predatory Journals.

Another way to avoid predatory journals is to check whether and how the journal you wish to publish in is registered in the Channel Register. If you cannot find a specific publication channel, you can propose adding it to the same register; see the menu on the left of the page. New channels that are proposed should be registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

It is important to be aware that publications in channels not approved by the channel register do not confer scientific merit or publication points for the institution, and will not be included in official publication lists. PhD candidates at UiO will typically not have articles published in unapproved channels recognised for their doctoral degree.

This page was translated from Norwegian using Chat GPT and edited by Ellen Johnsen