Retraction watch: Editor takes credit for textbook chapters

[Parasaurolophus]

Elsevier has something of a bad reputation in my field, but this really goes way beyond the pale. Story here:

When Ina Vandebroek read the latest edition of Pharmacognosy, an Elsevier textbook to which she contributed a chapter for the 2017 edition, she was shocked. Although she had declined to write for the 2023 update, her chapter was still in the book, under a different author's name.

[...]


In emails seen by Retraction Watch, Wolff acknowledged "this credit line does not reflect appropriately the chapter authorship. We have placed a correction request to rectify the issue." He also said "miscredited chapter authorship" occurred in other chapters and he would communicate with the affected authors about the corrections.

Six other chapters mention Badal as a co-author, and three list her as the sole author, including Vandebroek's contribution.


Badal said Vandebroek's signed agreement stipulated ownership of the material transfers to the publisher of the book:

When asked to revise her chapter for the second edition, the author refused and I therefore I undertook [sic] this task. After the book was published, the author contacted the Publisher regarding the crediting of authors. The Publisher's representative from Elsevier clarified that the chapter formatting credited current authors at the top of the chapter and acknowledged prior authors in footnotes. Although not required to do so, the Publisher apologised to the author and promised to make the relevant and appropriate edits.

A spokesperson for Elsevier told us:

Several chapter authors declined to revise their chapter for the second edition of the book and these chapters were reviewed, and in some cases updated by the volume editor. An error in the production process resulted in the original author names being replaced by the volume editor. This was a production error and not the responsibility of the volume editor and these errors are in the process of being corrected.

[kaysixteen]

Will the grafting editor be likely to suffer any professional consequences for this behavior?