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Transparent Attribution of Contributions to Research: Aligning Guidelines to Real-Life Practices

Author

Listed:
  • Valerie Matarese

    (Authors’ editor and Editorial consultant, Via Roma 10, 31020 Vidor (TV), Italy)

  • Karen Shashok

    (Translator and Editorial consultant, C./Compositor Ruiz Aznar 12 2-A, 18008 Granada, Spain)

Abstract

Research studies, especially in the sciences, may benefit from substantial non-author support without which they could not be completed or published. The term “contributorship” was coined in 1997 to recognize all contributions to a research study, but its implementation (mostly in biomedical reports) has been limited to the inclusion of an “Author Contributions” statement that omits other contributions. To standardize the reporting of contributions across disciplines, irrespective of whether a given contribution merits authorship or acknowledgment, the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) was launched in 2014. Our assessment, however, shows that in practice, CRediT is a detailed authorship classification that risks denying appropriate credit for persons who contribute as non-authors. To illustrate the shortcomings in CRediT and suggest improvements, in this article we review key concepts of authorship and contributorship and examine the range of non-author contributions that may (or may not) be acknowledged. We then briefly describe different types of editorial support provided by (non-author) translators, authors’ editors and writers, and explain why it is not always acknowledged. Finally, we propose two new CRediT taxa and revisions to three existing taxa regarding both technical and editorial support, as a small but important step to make credit attribution more transparent, accurate and open.

Suggested Citation

  • Valerie Matarese & Karen Shashok, 2019. "Transparent Attribution of Contributions to Research: Aligning Guidelines to Real-Life Practices," Publications, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-13, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jpubli:v:7:y:2019:i:2:p:24-:d:219757
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Blaise Cronin & Debora Shaw & Kathryn La Barre, 2003. "A cast of thousands: Coauthorship and subauthorship collaboration in the 20th century as manifested in the scholarly journal literature of psychology and philosophy," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 54(9), pages 855-871, July.
    2. Françoise Salager‐Meyer & María Ángeles Alcaraz Ariza & Maryelis Pabón Berbesí, 2009. "“Backstage solidarity” in Spanish‐ and English‐written medical research papers: Publication context and the acknowledgment paratext," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(2), pages 307-317, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Tanmoy Konar, 2021. "Author-Suggested, Weighted Citation Index: A Novel Approach for Determining the Contribution of Individual Researchers," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-8, July.

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