Dictionary domainTrack A
CRediT extensions and adjacent contribution vocabularies
Extending CRediT to acknowledged contributors, peer reviewers, technical staff.
For implementers
Operational deployment checklist for CRediT extensions and adjacent contribution vocabularies: prerequisites, five deploy steps, integration notes for Pure, Symplectic Elements, Worktribe, DSpace, and more, plus the pitfalls that recur in the field.
Terms in this domain
26 terms
Co-corresponding author convention
The practice of designating two or more authors as jointly corresponding on a published work, each taking responsibility for post-publication communication, editorial liaison, and queries about the work, with all co-corresponding authors typically marked by a symbol in the byline.
Reviewer role typology
A controlled vocabulary for distinguishing types of peer-review activity — e.g., manuscript peer reviewer, grant reviewer, conference programme committee member, data peer reviewer, software peer reviewer, reproducibility reviewer — used to give differentiated credit for review work.
“Degree of contribution” qualifier (lead/equal/supporting)
The optional CRediT modifier that may be applied to any of the 14 CRediT roles to indicate the relative magnitude of a contributor's input: 'lead' (primary responsibility), 'equal' (co-equal with one or more others), or 'supporting' (contributed but did not lead).
Conceptualization lead vs supporting
Under the CRediT taxonomy, the distinction between the contributor who led the formulation of the overarching research question, aims, or ideas for a project (Conceptualization: lead) and those who contributed to but did not originate the conceptual framing (Conceptualization: supporting).
Funding-acquisition lead vs supporting
Under the CRediT taxonomy, the distinction between the contributor who led the funding acquisition for a research project (typically the named principal investigator on the grant) and contributors who supported but did not lead the proposal (co-investigators, named collaborators).
Methodology consultant
A specialist who provides substantive advice on research methodology — study design, sampling, instrument selection, analytic strategy, or implementation approach — to a research project on which they are not a primary investigator.
Data validator
A contributor whose role is to check the integrity, accuracy, completeness, and conformance to schema of a dataset before its use, deposit, or publication — including range checks, plausibility tests, cross-source comparison, and metadata verification.
Reproducibility reviewer
A reviewer whose specific role is to verify that the computational, analytic, or experimental procedures reported in a manuscript can be re-executed by another party using the provided code, data, and instructions, distinct from a content peer reviewer.
Domain expert advisor
A subject-matter expert (clinical, technical, policy, lived-experience) who advises a research project on questions within their expertise — typically through formal advisory boards, steering committees, or focused consultations — distinct from co-authorship or formal investigator roles.
Indigenous-knowledge holder contribution
Substantive contribution to research from Indigenous knowledge keepers, elders, or community members who hold and share traditional knowledge, ecological observations, language, or cultural expertise relevant to the research, in accordance with CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance.
Citizen-scientist contribution
Substantive contribution to research by members of the public participating as volunteers in data collection, classification, observation, analysis, or interpretation, distinct from being a study subject and distinct from professional research staff.
Patient-partner contribution (PPI)
Substantive input from patients, service users, carers, or members of the public into the design, conduct, analysis, or dissemination of health and care research — as partners in the research process rather than as study participants.
Lab leadership (supervision extension)
Substantive oversight of a research team or laboratory by a principal investigator or group leader, including scientific direction, resource allocation, mentoring, and accountability for research conduct, recognised under CRediT 'Supervision' and increasingly through narrative-CV team-leadership categories.
Equipment provision (resources extension)
The provision of specialised equipment, reagents, materials, animals, samples, or computational infrastructure that materially enabled a research output, captured under CRediT 'Resources' or in acknowledgements when the contribution does not include intellectual input on the work itself.
Open-software contribution
The development, documentation, packaging, testing, or maintenance of research software released under an open-source licence, including authoring new code, contributing to existing projects, releasing reusable libraries, or operating long-term maintenance.
Open-data contribution
The substantive work of preparing, documenting, depositing, and maintaining a research dataset in a FAIR-aligned open repository under a permissive licence, distinct from the original data collection.
Medical writer contribution
Professional writing assistance to drafting a biomedical manuscript by a person whose primary role is writing rather than research — including drafting, restructuring, language polishing, and preparing submission — disclosed transparently per Good Publication Practice (GPP) guidelines.
Statistical consultancy
Substantive statistical advice or analysis provided by a statistician to a research project — including study design, sample-size calculation, analytic plan, model selection, code, or interpretation — that materially shapes the research's quantitative findings.
Translator contribution
The intellectual work of converting a scholarly work from one natural language to another while preserving meaning, register, and technical accuracy, including the translator's own scholarly judgement on terminology, idiom, and disciplinary convention.
Mentorship contribution
Career, intellectual, or methodological guidance provided to a researcher (typically more junior) that shapes the conduct or development of their research, distinct from formal supervision (which has institutional authority) and from co-authorship (which requires direct work on the output).
Pre-submission feedback contribution
Substantive intellectual input — comments, critique, suggested revisions, or methodological advice — provided by a colleague on a draft manuscript or proposal before it is submitted to a journal or funder, recognised in acknowledgements rather than as authorship.
Editorial contribution
Intellectual work performed in the role of editor for a scholarly venue — including soliciting submissions, selecting reviewers, synthesising review feedback, making accept/reject/revise decisions, and shaping the venue's scope and standards.
Peer reviewer contribution
The intellectual labour of evaluating a scholarly submission's validity, originality, significance, and clarity for a journal, funder, or conference, distinct from authorship and from editorial decision-making.
Technical staff contribution
Substantive technical work — laboratory technique, instrument operation, data acquisition, sample preparation, software engineering, or facility operation — performed by research-support staff (technicians, engineers, lab managers) that materially enables a research output.
Non-author contributor
An individual who made a meaningful contribution to a research output but is not listed in the author byline, typically because the contribution is partial (does not meet all authorship criteria) or because they declined authorship.
Acknowledged contributor
An individual whose contribution to a research output is recognised in the acknowledgements section rather than by authorship, typically because their contribution does not meet all four ICMJE authorship criteria but is substantive enough to warrant named credit.
