AUTHORSHIP AND CONTRIBUTORSHIP

Authorship and Contributorship

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1. Eligibility for Authorship

A person is listed as an author only when all four of the following criteria are met.

No.	Criterion	Requirement
1	Substantive contribution	A substantive contribution to the conception or design of the work, to the collection of data or materials, or to the analysis and interpretation of the results.
2	Drafting and revision	Drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
3	Final approval	Approving the final version of the manuscript that is submitted, and any later substantive revisions.
4	Accountability	Accepting accountability for the work and cooperating in answering questions about the accuracy and the integrity of any part of it.

People who contributed substantively to the work should be given a fair chance to take part in developing, reviewing, and approving the manuscript. Contributors who do not meet all four criteria should be named in the Acknowledgments instead.

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2. Author Contribution Statement

Every manuscript must be accompanied by a statement that names each author and describes the actual contribution of that author. All authors must review and accept the statement. It may be written as a narrative or with the terms of the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy), which are listed below. Contributions may be shared, and one author may hold several roles. Listing a role does not by itself confer authorship. A manuscript with a single author also needs a statement.

The INSOLOGI template does not have a dedicated section for this statement. Please provide it in the comments to the editor in the submission form, or supply it when the editorial team requests it.

CRediT role	What it means
Conceptualization	Formulating the research ideas, goals, and aims.
Methodology	Developing or designing the method and the research design.
Software	Programming, software development, and implementing computer code.
Validation	Verifying the replication and the reproducibility of the results and other research outputs.
Formal analysis	Applying statistical, mathematical, or other techniques to analyze the data.
Investigation	Conducting the research, including performing experiments and collecting data and evidence.
Resources	Providing study materials, instruments, samples, participants, or other resources.
Data curation	Managing, annotating, and maintaining the research data.
Writing: original draft	Preparing the first version of the manuscript.
Writing: review and editing	Critically reviewing, commenting on, and revising the manuscript.
Visualization	Preparing the figures, tables, and other presentations of the data.
Supervision	Providing oversight and leadership for the planning and the execution of the research.
Project administration	Managing and coordinating the research activity.
Funding acquisition	Obtaining the financial support for the project.

Example of a contribution statement:

This example only illustrates the format. A real statement must reflect the actual contributions of the authors and must not be used as an unsupported declaration.

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3. Author Approval, Order, and Metadata

Topic	Rule
Agreement of all authors	All authors must agree to the submission of the manuscript, the list and the order of the authors, the contribution statement, the designation of the corresponding author, and any substantive revisions.
Order of authors	The authors should decide the order together, based on their contributions and on the norms of their discipline. The position of an author in the list does not indicate the size of the contribution of that author.
Equal contribution	A statement of equal contribution is allowed if it is accurate and agreed by all authors.
Submission metadata	The metadata of the submission must include the names, affiliations, and email addresses of all authors, and they must match the manuscript. Each author should understand the whole work.

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4. Responsibilities of the Corresponding Author

The corresponding author is the main contact of the editorial team and is marked with an asterisk (*) in the author information of the manuscript. The corresponding author does not own the work and cannot override the approval of the coauthors. The responsibilities are listed below.

No.	Responsibility
1	Confirm that all eligible authors are included and have approved the manuscript.
2	Coordinate the author information, the contribution statement, and the declarations that are required.
3	Pass on the editorial correspondence to the coauthors and coordinate the responses that have been agreed.
4	Keep a working email address and answer questions about the work before and after publication.

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5. Contributors Who Are Not Authors and Acknowledgments

Contributors who are not authors are named in the Acknowledgments, which are placed after the Conclusion and before the References. The role of each person is stated, and each person must agree to be named.

Category	Explanation
Roles that alone do not confer authorship	Acquiring funding, general supervision of a research group, institutional leadership, providing access to research sites or laboratories, routine technical work, translation, proofreading, and administrative support. These persons may be authors only if they meet all the criteria of Section 1.
Writing and editorial assistance	Professional writing or editorial assistance must be acknowledged, together with the source of the funding of that assistance.
Funders and providers of facilities	Funders and the providers of facilities that supported the research are also named in the Acknowledgments.

An acknowledgment does not replace the disclosures that are required by the policy on Conflicts of Interest.

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6. Unacceptable Authorship Practices

The following practices are not acceptable.

Practice	Description
Gift or honorary authorship	Listing a person as an author because of status, position, or favors, without a real contribution.
Guest authorship	Adding a prominent name to give the manuscript more credibility.
Ghost authorship	Leaving out a person who is eligible for authorship, or hiding substantial help that was received in the preparation of the work.
Authorship trading or coercion	Buying, selling, or forcing a place in the list of authors.

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7. Changes to Authorship

Requests to add an author, remove an author, change the order of the authors, or change the corresponding author must be sent to the editorial office. Each request must contain the following information.

No.	Information required in the request
1	The title of the manuscript and the submission ID.
2	The proposed change and the reason for it.
3	An updated contribution statement, if the statement is affected by the change.
4	The written agreement of every author who is affected, including the authors who are added or removed.

Requests are assessed and are not approved automatically. The processing of the manuscript may be paused while a request is assessed, and requests that are made after acceptance receive closer scrutiny. Approved changes are entered by the editorial office.

Changes after publication follow the policy on Correction and Retraction. If an author cannot be reached, for example because of death or incapacity, the remaining authors must explain the situation so that the editors can assess it. The approval of that author must not be assumed.

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8. Authorship Disagreements

Authors should resolve any disagreement about contributions or the order of authors before they submit the manuscript. The journal may ask the authors for explanations, but it does not decide between competing claims. Unresolved disagreements may be referred to the institution of the authors or to another competent body, and the editorial processing may be paused in the meantime.

Formal investigations follow the policy on Allegations of Misconduct, and actions after publication follow the policy on Correction and Retraction.

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Related Instructions and Enquiries

Further information is available on the following pages.

Page	What it covers
Manuscript Preparation	The author information and the Acknowledgments in the manuscript.
Author Guidelines	The submission process and the checklist for authors.
Conflicts of Interest	The disclosure of interests that may affect the work.
Publication Ethics	The general standards of conduct for authors, reviewers, and editors.

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