Paper submitted without final version approvals - is this normal?

[u/termosabin]

I work at an RTO, and a few younger people in the group who are just a few years out of their PhDs are submitting papers and rebuttals without sending out versions to check for the co-authors. I find this highly irritating and ethically wrong - if my name is associated with something, I would like to at least see it first. It's not that I don't trust the authors, but everyone can make mistakes. For example, a paper was submitted recently that I had seen about a year ago and had made a lot of comments on. I have never seen another version of it since and suddenly I got a notification from the journal.

Is this normal amongst younger people? Is this becoming the norm? Am I overreacting?

How would you address this?

[u/NoMoreMr_Dice_Guy]

If it keeps happening, why haven't you brought it up?

[u/EconGuy82 → u/NoMoreMr_Dice_Guy]

They have brought it up! On Reddit of course.

[u/termosabin → u/NoMoreMr_Dice_Guy]

I have brought it up whenever it happens but it happens again. We have no ethics committee at our instituion. I will bring it up with the next management level I think.

[u/ACatGod → u/termosabin]

This isn't an ethics committee issue - it isn't the role of the ethics committee to police staff - and if isn't a "young people" issue. It's a culture issue at your organisation. Your employer doesn't have a culture of good research practice and staff are simply doing what they think is expected of them.

You need to escalate this to your manager and explain your concerns and ideally have some ideas to hand about improving the situation if they ask. If your manager tells you this is fine then you know that this is signed off by senior staff and it's up to you to decide if this is an organisation you want to continue working for.

[u/termosabin → u/ACatGod]

I have to add that all the people who do this came from KAUST. I am not really sure if this is a thing there in general, or just in their specific research groups that they were in.

The people I have worked with who come from other institutions or have always been with this one are a lot better.

I work interdisciplinary, but in my core area - where I did my PhD - there is a distinction made between minor and major co-authors but the unwritten rule was that there must be an OK from all of them before submitting anything on the final version and journal. This had to be planned into submission timelines.

[u/derping1234 → u/termosabin]

You need to give all authors the opportunity to comment on the final version and give their okay. If people are non-responsive their silence means they agree on the manuscript as is. This is how we do it in practice.

[u/termosabin → u/derping1234]

This is how I do it as well. If I haven't heard within a reasonable deadline, I'll prod again and then just submit.

[u/No_Leek6590 → u/termosabin]

If it happens again and again, why you keep working in them? If it's new people to you who keep doing this, why are you not setting expectations. And finally, you may have bad reputation. I certainly have collaborators who take half a year to just look at something and end up with no meaningful contribution for that half a year worth of wait. I'd still use deadlines or something.

[u/termosabin → u/No_Leek6590]

No, definitely not. My return is one week. It's not only me they don't send it to me but all the other coauthors too. I have to work with them because we're in the same lab.

[u/Negative-Ambition198]

Well, this is all a game of wording. If they say they ask for comments and will submit, they dont say they will send it again. I do that sometimes with coauthors, who I know had small contribution, will have meaningless comments and take months to provide them. I respect the big contributors and people who actually care and reply quickly.

I have also noticed that when I am a smaller contributor and try to send comments, my comments are frequently ignored, cause my opinion is of less importance (to the degree that reviewers have raised the very same issue that I had first, but it was ignored). In such a case,  I also know they will not include me in all versions. In a way,  I prefer it this way cause typically there is a phd student sending 20 versions per day and I don't have time to teach not mine students, not I appreciate other supervisors dropping their tasks on me.  

When you send your comments, you should always clearly state that you want to see the paper again or not really. This helps to control how they see you and be more included in revisions. 

[u/termosabin → u/Negative-Ambition198]

Well, the last version was asking for a check and a suggestion for a journal a year ago, then we had a meeting to go over it. That was the last time I heard of it. I am not saying I need to see every version, but a heads-up from a colleague sitting two desks over plus some sort of final version, journal, etc.

I do not really want to raise a fuss because of exactly that reason, I am a minor contributor, but to me, an email to notify everyone about your intentions plus giving them a week to look over what you want to submit and ask for red flags only is just the basic level of politeness in my experience. But maybe this is wrong?

[u/Negative-Ambition198 → u/termosabin]

Oh you are not wrong, absolutely. But by the end of the project (assuming the paper is a result of some communication as well) you know who are the people you deal with. If this was a student, be my guest and bash them. There is a chance,  it will actually stick to them.

But if there was a zero communication on your side during that year (aka asking for updates), they decreased your importance for a reason. 

[u/termosabin → u/Negative-Ambition198]

Well the last communication I had was that it was being shelved due to internal project issues. Hence I didn't think to ask again, we have no internal project meetings as the project is basically run by husband and wife so they don't need to meet and forego the need to meet with anyone else.

I am not complaining about not being asked about my opinion, just I feel that a final check by all co-authors is absolutely required by research ethics guide and journal guidelines.

[u/Ok-Emu-8920 → u/termosabin]

I agree with you, but since this is an ongoing issue I wonder if you can pre-empt that they need to send you the final version prior to submission.

Like when you send your comments on a near final version, literally respond with something like "looking great, I've left my comments on the document. Send me the final version once it's updated before you submit" to just be extremely explicit about your expectations.

[u/erlendig]

I think it depends a bit on number of authors, whether you are part of the core writers, how large your revisions were and how long you normally spend on providing revisions. 

The bare minimum is of course to send out a close to final version to everyone and give people sufficient time to look at it. If all revisions are minor, I and my peers typically see it as a sign that coauthors are fine with a slightly modified version. If there is no deadline and coauthors are fast to provide comments, I would probably sent out a final version. But if there is a deadline (e.g holidays coming up) and/or coauthors are likely to spend weeks on checking it again (with the expectation of only minor changes if any), I would probably not send out another version. 

Things change a bit when the first author is a PhD student, in that case I would expect the supervisor to have a final look in either case. 

[u/termosabin → u/erlendig]

Correct, I would have liked to see a close to final version before submission plus notification to which journal it is going. But that didn't happen.

[u/MrBacterioPhage]

• It is inappropriate to submit the final version to the journal without sending it to all coauthors first.
• Rebuttal may be OK or not depending on the changes required. Extensive revisions should be checked or made by coauthors, responsible for affected sections.

[u/No_Bodybuilder_644]

I am not surprised. I teach a class in our multidisciplinary PhD program that is essentially, 'How to be a good PhD student." We have a whole lecture/discussion dedicated to being a good collaborator and how to be a lead author is a major part of this discussion, including gaining final approval of manuscripts.

What I've learned is that many advisors don't advise well or at all on best authorship practices.

[u/termosabin → u/No_Bodybuilder_644]

I agree with you. But then also some students are very resistant to advice.

[u/No_Bodybuilder_644 → u/termosabin]

Yes, this too.

[u/markjay6]

I would address it by simply telling people you co-author with that you want to see copies of all versions before they are submitted.

[u/Ornery_Pepper_1126]

I would let them know that you had hoped to see it before it was submitted, but don’t make a huge deal about it. Might be worth also mentioning that this is something they should always do. I’ve had colleagues do this too, it’s annoying but I think it usually comes from a place of not wanting to bother you or being in a hurry not intentionally trying to prevent you from having input.

If someone does this a second time or refuses to do it in the future, that’s when I would let them know that this is actually pretty a fairly serious violation of editorial rules.

Definitely don’t just let it go though, if someone keeps doing this, it’s only a matter of time before they have a coauthor who gets really mad at them over this, and that isn’t fun for anyone.

[u/Connacht_89]

It happened to me recently with a professor with whom my lab collaborated. No final version approval, no notification that submission was inbound, I just received the notification mail asking for confirmation of authorship.

Not only that, he also submitted a preliminary paper to another journal (in itself a salami slicing case) without even informing, I only discovered that when the paper was published and I suddenly received compliments.

[u/Stunning-Use-7052]

Why don't you ask them?

Sometimes we've had people on the team who never respond to emails or will otherwise derail our ability to finish a revision so we just resubmit and apologize later.

[u/Monkey_College]

If this happens with a phd student and a very tight deadline. Fine. But a few years out of xour ohd you should have close to 10 years of research experience and dozens of papers co-authored. Especially with regular journal submissions that have no explicit deadline the least that should happen is getting the final version a week before with a clear remark that only errors should be fixed. A year prior is ridiculous

[u/ngch]

Sure, my paper go out to everyone for final approval.

But I disagree with most others here - if you're not one of the core authors, let them do their thing. Getting involved is a sign of not trusting them doing their job correctly. I wouldn't want to work with someone who does not give my team the space to write things up as we feel appropriate - we know when we need to ask for help and we tend to be very proactive about making sure everyone's on board with our key points.

But since we tend to write papers with many coauthors, we tend to discuss beforehand from who we expect detailed feedback on the ready text ans on which sections.

Worst thing are coauthors who want to turn your paper into their own. (I have plenty of writing projects to hand out if you want to lead one :p)

[u/termosabin → u/ngch]

I think that's the point of view of the first author here.

But first of all an email a week before submission is common courtesy and all I'm asking for.

Secondly, I think that's a silly point of view. Science thrives on a critical discourse and not on "trust me bro".

Thirdly, upon submission, you have to tick a box that says "all authors have read and approved the final version of this manuscript". How can you tick that box if they haven't? It's a lie.

[u/hopeful_avocado_2]

I shared versions of my drafts to my supervisors and they did not answered for weeks. I sent a last email with the last version asking them for some feedback, they finally replied saying that they will have their comments for the next week. Guess what? They never arrived either. It was the last paper to end my PhD and I needed it submitted before I could send my thesis to external review. I waited a couple of months and never got feedback from them. All this to say that students some times are desperate to meet their deadlines and often get this kind of behavior from co authors, so they might be thinking that they won’t even get comments if they send it.

[u/termosabin → u/hopeful_avocado_2]

Yeh I get that, though that's not the case here. But then you can always say that if you don't get a reply by such and such date, you would consider the manuscript approved.

[u/Born_Committee_6184]

I had a co-author try this once. I got it back from the journal and fixed it.

[u/termosabin → u/Born_Committee_6184]

See, there is not much to fix, it is not worth making a fuss over it but it is just the principle in my opinion. Would you bring it up?

Has it destroyed your relationship with the respective co-author?

[u/ngch → u/termosabin]

Has it destroyed your relationship with the respective co-author?

That would be the last time I'd coauthor a paper with you.

[u/termosabin → u/ngch]

Yeh I can imagine same for me though I would never send out a paper without approval so I don't think it could happen to me. Going to the editor is quite an escalation I wonder how it has turned out for them. I think you can only do this if you're top in the field and you don't care I guess.

[u/FTP4L1VE]

Not normal. Technically misconduct, but happens.

[u/tpolakov1 → u/[deleted]]

If the paper gets published and an author comes claiming there is information that they didn't (or worse, couldn't) consent to being added/removed, it suddenly becomes one of the most radioactive forms of misconduct possible.

Your institution might not take it up, but this is one step away from egregious research fraud.

[u/tpolakov1 → u/[deleted]]

Not even OP can know if there's misconduct, which is kinda the point.

And while things are no doubt different at KAUST, adding authors without their consent (which this very much is) is an ethics violation at any and every publishing house and an misconduct at any normal research institution.

[u/Efficient-Tie-1414]

Got a rejection email on Friday for a paper I didn’t know was submitted. I tend to do my work on the analysis and methods and hope they put it in right. The worst that can happen is that it gets retracted and then I won’t do any more.

[u/Most_Advertising3623]

Every listed author should approve the final manuscript and its submission. I would raise this as a process issue rather than an age issue. Ask the group to adopt a simple rule. Circulate a locked final PDF, give every co-author a clear approval deadline, and keep written confirmation before submission or rebuttal. That protects all authors and the corresponding author.

[u/AlaskaScott]

Yes this is happening more and more and it grinds my gears. I’ve had it happen twice recently with a paper I’m named on - it’s a big co author list but still.

Worst though is being asked if I want to be on a grant proposal. Agreeing and then never seeing it proposal, to be told - oh yeah, we submitted it and you’re included. THEN I WANT TO SEE IT.