Transparency In Authors’ Contributions And Responsibilities To Promote Integrity In Scientific Publication

Abstract

In keeping with the growing movement in scientific publishing toward transparency in data and methods, we argue that the names of authors accompanying journal articles should provide insight into who is responsible for which contributions, a process should exist to confirm that the list is complete, clearly articulated standards should establish whether and when the contributions of an individual justify authorship credit, and those involved in the generation of scientific knowledge should follow these best practices. To accomplish these goals, we recommend that journals adopt common and transparent standards for authorship, outline responsibilities for corresponding authors, adopt the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) methodology for attributing contributions, include this information in article metadata, and encourage authors to use the digital persistent identifier ORCID. Furthermore, we suggest that research institutions have regular open conversations on authorship criteria and ethics and that funding agencies adopt ORCID and accept CRediT. Scientific societies should further authorship transparency by promoting these recommendations through their meetings and publications programs.