How can one prevent a co-author from publishing without consent?

Question

I have been reading about several cases in which a co-author submitted a paper without the consent of another author (for example in What to do after I was named as co-author on a paper, without my consent?).

Consider a situation where one co-author goes on to publish without my consent when I am the first author.

I know the rule for most publishers would legally prevent a co-author from doing this as the submitting author requires consent from all authors. However, it seems that in practice many journals have no practical processes in place to prevent this. The co-author would likely submit to an Elsevier journal. It seems that the Elsevier submission system (EES) would allow them to submit and go through the whole process by themselves without informing me if they wanted to.

Moreover, it seems that for Elsevier journals, only the submitting author is informed of advancements through the process, so that the co-author could indeed go through the whole process without other authors knowing.

If I only find out when it is published, it also seems that I have nothing to do about it. It seems that a retraction would only do more damage to my career as the paper will just stay online with my name and also be tagged as retracted. There seems to be no way if disassociating yourself with a published paper.

I am a bit worried to see that in fact there seems to be no real barriers to a co-author doing something like that. Note again that I am referring to the Elsevier process, though there may be other publishers with a similar process (and potentially the process is not like this for all Elsevier journals).

To summarize, it seems that, at least for certain journals:

• A co-author could submit a paper without the consent of other authors and the journal would not inform or ask explicitly for consent from other authors.
• The co-author could go through the entire process, even up to publication, without any other author explicitly being asked for confirmation.
• Other authors in such a case would not even be informed of the submission or status changes of the paper
• If eventually the paper is published, the only option unaware authors have is retraction, which is likely to do even more damage to their career than the fact that the paper has been published prematurely.

Am I correct in my assessment? it seems like if this is true for even some journals, then the publishing process for such journals has been designed quite poorly.

I would like to know how, as an author, I could prevent such a thing from occurring to me. How can I prevent a co-author from publishing without my consent?

I am aware that the best means is having a good relationship and communication with the co-author in the first place and I will do the best I can in this regard. But I would like to know what other practical means I have of preventing this.

Answer 1

Write an email to the editor.

As you said, submission needs formal aproval of all coauthors so if you tell the editor or publisher that this is not the case, the paper will not be published.

Publishers usually assume academics are grown ups and the likelihood of person naming people as co-authors against their will is very low and thus the hassle of sending multiple emails or having everyone involved in the online submission is not worth the trouble. Keep in mind that some articles have up to 1000 authors.

Answer 2

I have recently received an e-mail from an Elsevier journal, which went like this:

Dear Dr. Roland [...],

You have been listed as a Co-Author of the following submission:

Journal: [...]

Corresponding Author: [submitting author]

Co-Authors: [all co-authors]

Title: [the title of our manuscript]

If you did not co-author this submission, please contact the Corresponding Author of this submission at [e-mail address of the submitting author]; do not follow the link below. ...

There is a number of journals which send out similar e-mails (although Elesevier does this to advertise ORCID and not to ensure that all co-authors are aware of the process). I agree that the editorial systems of all journals should send out automated messages to all co-authors (and demand a confirmation), but unfortunately that's not the case.

If I didn't agree with this submission, I would of course confront the submitting author as advised, but I would also inform the editor-in-chief ASAP.

There is no way to protect yourself against other people attaching your name to a manuscript without your knowledge. However, something like that is actually quite rare.

Answer 3

I haven't had any bad co-author experiences like this (thankfully), but have friends who had, and have had some "less than optimal" experiences of a similar nature.

The best single piece of advice I've come up with (for myself) is to address co-authorship expectations early and often. If there are plans to turn an analysis into a paper, talk about who will be on it, the order, the expected roles, etc. the first or second time you meet about it. That gets expectations out in the open. If it's a multi-person project with several papers, talk about that (who will use which variables, co-author which papers, etc.).

Then, stay connected with the group (particularly if you're junior). Check-in with the leads often, do whatever work you can with/for them, etc. So they know you're still interested, active, and available. Sometimes, people fall off papers because they just lose contact with their team. Other times it's for poor performance. So don't hesitate to ask your seniors and peers what else you can do to help (and if what you did was helpful). For example, you might feel like you're being helpful by giving a lot of comments on a draft, but if none of them are useful, and all you do is comment (not edit), you might start to be seen as the person who just drags out the writing process without adding much to it. If you're senior or the money-getter, you can do that and stay on the paper. Not so much if junior or in the middle.

Another thought is to make yourself indispensible. Learn one part of the data, one technique for analysis, one lit area better than everyone on your team. That will make you the go-to person for that element for all papers to come.

I hope this is answering your question. I've been assuming that your co-authors are all working in good faith. That is, that if you get dropped it's because they accidentally dropped you or you really weren't doing your job well. There are malicious people out there, too though. Short of literally holding their hand, there's not much you can do if they wan't to publish without you. If that happens, take it up with the journal immediately. If you're at the same institution, take it up with your department head or other ombudsperson. If you have a close friend on the paper, ask them what happened. You may find out it's an oversite, and they add you to the paper. But it's better not to let these things fester.

Good luck!