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 propose changes to journal authorship policies and procedures to provide insight into which author is responsible for which contributions, better assurance that the list is complete, and clearly articulated standards to justify earning authorship credit. To accomplish these goals, we recommend that journals adopt common and transparent standards for authorship, outline responsibilities for corresponding authors, adopt the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) (docs.casrai.org/CRediT) methodology for attributing contributions, include this information in article metadata, and require authors to use the ORCID persistent digital identifier (https://orcid.org). Additionally, we recommend that universities and research institutions articulate expectations about author roles and responsibilities to provide a point of common understanding for discussion of authorship across research teams. Furthermore, we propose that funding agencies adopt the ORCID identifier and accept the CRediT taxonomy. We encourage scientific societies to further authorship transparency by signing on to these recommendations and promoting them through their meetings and publications programs.

Keywords: authorship principles; research transparency; scientific integrity.

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest statement: M. McNutt is president of the National Academy of Sciences, the publisher of PNAS. I.V. was Editor-in-chief of PNAS until January 1, 2018. V.K. serves as Chair of the ORCID Board of Directors in a volunteer capacity. Several authors' employers are ORCID member organizations.

Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.