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Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication

View ORCID ProfileMarcia K. McNutt, Monica Bradford, Jeffrey M. Drazen, Brooks Hanson, Bob Howard, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Véronique Kiermer, Emilie Marcus, View ORCID ProfileBarbara Kline Pope, View ORCID ProfileRandy Schekman, Sowmya Swaminathan, Peter J. Stang, and View ORCID ProfileInder M. Verma
PNAS March 13, 2018 115 (11) 2557-2560; first published February 27, 2018; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1715374115
Marcia K. McNutt
aNational Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC 20001;
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  • ORCID record for Marcia K. McNutt
  • For correspondence: NASPresident@nas.edu
Monica Bradford
bScience Journals, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC 20005;
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Jeffrey M. Drazen
cNew England Journal of Medicine, Boston, MA 02115;
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Brooks Hanson
dAmerican Geophysical Union, Washington, DC 20009;
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Bob Howard
eSAGE Publishing, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320;
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Kathleen Hall Jamieson
fAnnenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104;
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Véronique Kiermer
gPLOS (Public Library of Science), San Francisco, CA 94111;
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Emilie Marcus
hCell Press, Cambridge, MA 02139;
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Barbara Kline Pope
iThe National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Washington, DC 20418;
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  • ORCID record for Barbara Kline Pope
Randy Schekman
jUniversity of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
keLife, Cambridge CB2 1JB, United Kingdom;
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Sowmya Swaminathan
lNature Research, San Francisco, CA 94104;
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Peter J. Stang
mUniversity of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112;
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Inder M. Verma
nSalk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego, CA 92037
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  • ORCID record for Inder M. Verma
  1. Edited by Karen S. Cook, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, and approved January 18, 2018 (received for review August 30, 2017)

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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.

  • authorship principles
  • research transparency
  • scientific integrity

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: NASPresident{at}nas.edu.
  • ↵2Present address: Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD 21218.

  • Author contributions: M.K.M., M.B., J.M.D., B. Hanson, B. Howard, K.H.J., V.K., E.M., B.K.P., R.S., S.S., P.J.S., and I.M.V. designed research; M.B., J.M.D., B. Hanson, K.H.J., V.K., E.M., B.K.P., S.S., and I.M.V. conducted review and editing; K.H.J. provided funding acquisition, project administration, and resources; and M.K.M. and K.H.J. wrote the paper.

  • 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.

  • Marcia McNutt, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0117-7716; Monica Bradford, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2440-649X; Jeffrey Drazen, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2715-9890; Brooks Hanson, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6230-7145; Bob Howard, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3774-6896; Kathleen Hall Jamieson, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4167-3688; Véronique Kiermer, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8771-7239; Emilie Marcus, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4806-6503; Barbara Kline Pope, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0575-3605; Randy Schekman, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8615-6409; Sowmya Swaminathan, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0285-4910; Peter Stang, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2307-0576; Inder Verma https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4059-075X

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

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

This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).

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Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication
Marcia K. McNutt, Monica Bradford, Jeffrey M. Drazen, Brooks Hanson, Bob Howard, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Véronique Kiermer, Emilie Marcus, Barbara Kline Pope, Randy Schekman, Sowmya Swaminathan, Peter J. Stang, Inder M. Verma
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Mar 2018, 115 (11) 2557-2560; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1715374115

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Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication
Marcia K. McNutt, Monica Bradford, Jeffrey M. Drazen, Brooks Hanson, Bob Howard, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Véronique Kiermer, Emilie Marcus, Barbara Kline Pope, Randy Schekman, Sowmya Swaminathan, Peter J. Stang, Inder M. Verma
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Mar 2018, 115 (11) 2557-2560; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1715374115
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