Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
Author A: 'Writing — original draft: lead'; Author B: 'Writing — original draft: supporting'
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Assigning every contributor 'equal' on every role to avoid difficult conversations defeats the qualifier's purpose
Editorial commentary
The degree-of-contribution qualifier is an optional CRediT modifier — introduced in the NISO CRediT standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022) — that can be applied to any of the 14 CRediT roles to indicate the relative weight of a contributor’s input within that role: “lead” (primary responsibility), “equal” (co-equal with one or more other contributors), or “supporting” (contributed, but did not lead). It resolves a long-standing complaint about the base CRediT taxonomy: a bare role listing (“Writing — original draft: A, B”) does not distinguish who led the drafting from who made a smaller supporting pass.
How it differs from related terms: Conceptualization: lead vs. supporting and Funding acquisition: lead vs. supporting are this same general qualifier applied to two specific roles; the qualifier itself is role-agnostic and can equally apply to Data curation, Writing — original draft, or any other CRediT role. It is a separate mechanism from co-first authorship, which signals equal standing in the byline order rather than within a specific CRediT role.
Use of the qualifier is optional under the standard but encouraged, and many publishers’ CRediT-capture submission forms now offer it as a dropdown alongside each role. Assigning “equal” to every contributor on every role by default, to avoid a difficult conversation about who actually led what, defeats its purpose.
References
- NISO CRediT Standard, ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022
- Holcombe et al., “Contributorship, not authorship,” PLOS ONE (2020)
Also known as
CRediT contribution magnitude qualifier · Lead/equal/supporting qualifier
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="“Degree of contribution” qualifier (lead/equal/supporting)"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/degree-of-contribution-qualifier-lead-equal-supporting" />{
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"name": "\"Degree of contribution\" qualifier (lead/equal/supporting)",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/degree-of-contribution-qualifier-lead-equal-supporting",
"description": "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).",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/credit-extensions#set",
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"alternateName": [
"CRediT contribution magnitude qualifier",
"Lead/equal/supporting qualifier"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"author": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
},
"datePublished": "2026-05-21T02:00:27",
"dateModified": "2026-09-05T14:22:02",
"inLanguage": "en-GB",
"isAccessibleForFree": true
}
