Authorship Criteria
The authorship criteria should be agreed upon by all investigators at an early stage of the research. Where possible, it is advisable to keep written records of decisions regarding authorship and these should be revisited where roles and contributions change over the lifecycle of the study.
Normally, an author is an individual judged to have made a substantial intellectual or practical contribution to a publication and who agrees to be accountable for that contribution. This would normally include the following individuals.
- Anyone who made a significant contribution to the conception or design of the project or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work.
- Anyone who drafted the work or reviewed/revised it critically for important intellectual content.
- Anyone listed as an author on a paper should approve the final version of the paper and accept responsibility for ensuring that he or she is familiar with its contents and can identify his or her contribution to it.
NOTE: Individuals who contributed to the work, but whose contributions were not of sufficient magnitude to be listed as authors should be properly acknowledged, usually on the author biography page of the paper. In particular, the help of technical services staff (e.g. facility staff) should be acknowledged, if relevant.
Authors should be careful to ensure fair and proper acknowledgment of contributions from individuals who have not been listed as an author and make sure that acknowledgments fully reflect the level of the input of the contributor.
