Integrated Research Dataset for Academic Communication Governance and Authorship Regulation

Dataset for the governance of scholarly communication through the lens of authorship regulation in higher education policy, focusing on the “non-single author” requirement introduced in Indonesian academic promotion guidelines. The regulation stipulates that publications submitted for academic career advancement should not be authored by a single scholar, thereby transforming authorship structure into a formal policy criterion intended to encourage collaboration and increase research productivity. From a communication science perspective, authorship functions as a communicative signal of intellectual responsibility, scholarly contribution, and academic accountability, meaning that regulating authorship structures represents a significant intervention in the communication infrastructure of science. Using a mixed-methods research design, the study combines critical policy analysis of higher education regulations, policy discourse analysis, and quantitative content analysis of social media discussions related to the policy. The findings indicate that public discourse surrounding the regulation is organised around several dominant themes, including publication ethics, disciplinary differences in authorship traditions, academic freedom, structural inequality within research ecosystems, and the legitimacy of policy intervention in scholarly communication. Statistical analysis of social media discourse shows that critical perspectives dominate the debate, particularly regarding concerns about gift authorship, coercive authorship, and the potential erosion of intellectual autonomy. The study also demonstrates that mandatory co-authorship requirements may unintentionally create incentives for unethical authorship practices and disproportionately affect scholars working in institutions with limited research networks. To address these challenges, the article proposes an Academic Communication Governance Model that conceptualises the interaction between higher education policy, authorship norms, scholarly communication practices, and research ethics, thereby offering policy-relevant insights for designing academic evaluation systems that promote collaboration while preserving disciplinary diversity, ethical authorship practices, and intellectual autonomy in contemporary research communities.