Implementing CRediT in submission systems

Why CRediT capture belongs at submission

Contributor attribution is data, and like all data it is most reliable at the point of creation. The submitting author knows who did what; their co-authors are typically still reachable; the manuscript itself is fresh enough that the boundary between roles is well-remembered. Once a paper has been typeset, indexed, and published, retro-fitting structured roles becomes a manual, imprecise task that nobody wants to fund. Editorial offices that decide to take CRediT seriously decide it at submission or not at all.

The downstream pipeline — production typesetting, JATS XML, Crossref deposit, ORCID push, indexing services, the reader-facing article page — operates on the principle of trusting upstream. Whatever the submission system writes into the article XML is what propagates. If the submission system collected a free-text contribution paragraph, the JATS file contains a free-text paragraph; the Crossref deposit cannot carry it; ORCID does not see it. If the submission system collected structured roles with canonical URIs, the JATS file carries them, Crossref ingests them, ORCID surfaces them on each contributor's profile, and downstream analytics platforms aggregate them across the corpus.

The CRediT v2022 JATS structure

The encoding is small and stable. Inside each contrib element, one or more role elements name the CRediT roles applicable to that contributor. The vocab, vocab-identifier, vocab-term, and vocab-term-identifier attributes pin the value to the controlled vocabulary; the vocab-term-identifier resolves to a stable per-role URL at casrai.org/credit. The full attribute conventions live on the CRediT in JATS XML reference.

<contrib contrib-type="author">
  <name>
    <surname>Zhang</surname>
    <given-names>San</given-names>
  </name>
  <role vocab="credit"
        vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
        vocab-term="Conceptualization"
        vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/conceptualization">Conceptualization</role>
</contrib>

The optional degree-of-contribution qualifier

CRediT optionally distinguishes the degree of contribution a contributor made to each role. The JATS encoding uses the specific-use attribute on the role element and accepts three values: lead, equal, and supporting. The qualifier is genuinely useful when two authors share, for example, the methodology role — one led the protocol design and the other refined it. It is also commonly omitted; capture it if the journal's author community is willing to engage with the granularity, and otherwise leave it off.

Structured CRediT is not a contribution paragraph

The distinction matters. A free-text contribution statement at the end of a paper — "M.G. and S.Z. designed the study; S.Z. collected the data; M.G. wrote the manuscript" — is human-readable and zero-machine-readable. It cannot be queried, aggregated, deposited at Crossref, propagated to ORCID, or used by funders to audit attribution at scale. Structured CRediT capture solves all of those problems in exchange for a slightly more elaborate submission form. The published article can still render a contribution paragraph; it should be generated from the structured data, not entered separately.

Clarivate ScholarOne Manuscripts

Status: Native — configurable per journal · Typical users: Wiley, Sage, Taylor & Francis (selected portfolios), most academic societies

ScholarOne Manuscripts is the most widely deployed commercial submission system in scholarly publishing. Recent releases include a structured Author Contribution step that can be switched on per journal: rather than collecting a free-text contribution paragraph, authors are presented with the 14 CRediT roles and check which apply to each named contributor. The captured roles export as JATS-compatible XML in the production hand-off package.

Step-by-step enablement

1. In the journal configuration area, open Configuration → Submission → Step Configuration and locate the "Author Contributions" (sometimes labelled "Contributor Roles") step.
2. Enable the step and choose "Use CRediT controlled vocabulary" rather than the legacy free-text contribution box. The two are mutually exclusive on most modern templates.
3. Set the step position so it appears after the author list is complete (typically immediately before File Upload). Authors cannot assign roles to contributors who have not yet been added.
4. Choose whether the step is required for submission. The majority of journals make it required; a soft-launch journal may make it optional for the first issue.
5. Optionally enable the degree-of-contribution qualifier (lead, equal, supporting). This maps to the JATS specific-use attribute on export.
6. Save the configuration and submit a test manuscript end-to-end to confirm the step renders for the submitting author and writes the expected structured fields.
7. Coordinate with the production vendor (Wiley CMS, Sage Track production, etc.) to confirm the JATS export profile picks up the role element. ScholarOne writes the data; the production pipeline has to be set to read it.
8. Switch on the Author Contribution Reporting view in the editorial dashboard so editors can review captured roles before acceptance.

What authors see

The submitting author sees a matrix: rows are the listed contributors (already entered earlier in the workflow), columns are the 14 CRediT roles. The author checks each cell that applies. When the degree-of-contribution qualifier is enabled, a dropdown next to each checked cell offers lead, equal, or supporting. The interface includes role definitions on hover, drawn from the NISO standard text.

JATS output

<contrib-group>
  <contrib contrib-type="author">
    <contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">https://orcid.org/0000-0001-2345-6789</contrib-id>
    <name>
      <surname>Zhang</surname>
      <given-names>San</given-names>
    </name>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Conceptualization"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/conceptualization">Conceptualization</role>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Writing - original draft"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/writing-original-draft"
          specific-use="lead">Writing - original draft</role>
  </contrib>
  <contrib contrib-type="author">
    <contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3456-7890</contrib-id>
    <name>
      <surname>Liu</surname>
      <given-names>Mei</given-names>
    </name>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Investigation"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/investigation"
          specific-use="lead">Investigation</role>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Formal analysis"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/formal-analysis">Formal analysis</role>
  </contrib>
</contrib-group>

Common pitfalls

• Free-text fallback is sticky. If your journal previously collected an "Author Contributions" paragraph in the cover-letter step, that field does not disappear automatically — turn it off explicitly or your editors will get both, with neither authoritative.
• Co-author confirmation is not enforced by default. The submitting author can attribute roles unilaterally. Some journals add a co-author email confirmation step downstream; ScholarOne supports this but it is opt-in.
• The Author Contribution Reporting view is hidden behind a feature flag on older site templates. Ask the Clarivate account team to enable it if it is missing.
• Bulk re-export of historical submissions in the new structured format is not automatic. Roles captured pre-rollout typically stay free-text unless the journal commissions a back-fill.

Official documentation: https://clarivate.com/academia-government/scientific-and-academic-research/research-publishing-solutions/scholarone/

Aries Editorial Manager

Status: Native — Contribution Disclosure step · Typical users: Elsevier, Springer Nature (large portion), AAAS Science journals, Wolters Kluwer, PLOS

Editorial Manager from Aries Systems (now part of Elsevier) is the second of the two dominant commercial systems. Elsevier announced CRediT capture in Editorial Manager in 2019 for its journals, and the underlying platform feature is available to any Editorial Manager customer. The implementation is the "Contribution Disclosure" step: each contributor is shown the role list and selects what applies. The data flows into the production pipeline as JATS role elements alongside the rest of the article metadata.

Step-by-step enablement

1. In the PolicyManager interface, open Submission Policies → Submission Items and enable "Contribution Disclosure" (some journals see it as "CRediT Roles" depending on template version).
2. Choose whether to apply the step to original research only or to all article types. Editorials and letters are commonly excluded.
3. Configure required vs optional. Aries supports requiring the step before the submission can be completed; most Elsevier journals enforce this.
4. In the Submission Items step ordering, place Contribution Disclosure after Add/Edit/Remove Authors. The list of contributors is the data source for the role-assignment matrix.
5. Enable the optional degree-of-contribution qualifier if the journal wants lead/equal/supporting captured. The dropdown is per-role per-contributor.
6. Configure the corresponding-author co-author email confirmation if the journal policy requires each named contributor to acknowledge their assigned roles. The confirmation token is sent automatically.
7. Submit a sandbox manuscript and download the production hand-off ZIP. Confirm the JATS XML in the package contains the role elements with the casrai.org/credit URIs.
8. Liaise with the typesetter or in-house production team to confirm the published article carries a CRediT statement generated from the captured roles, not a fabricated free-text version.

What authors see

After the author list is finalised, the submitting author lands on a Contribution Disclosure screen with one row per contributor and the 14 roles as checkboxes. On Elsevier journal templates the screen also displays the role definitions inline. The submitting author cannot leave the step until at least one role per contributor is selected (when the step is marked required). Co-author confirmation emails, when enabled, contain a one-click link to the same matrix scoped to the recipient.

JATS output

<contrib-group>
  <contrib contrib-type="author" corresp="yes">
    <contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid" authenticated="true">https://orcid.org/0000-0001-2345-6789</contrib-id>
    <name>
      <surname>Garcia</surname>
      <given-names>Maria</given-names>
    </name>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Conceptualization"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/conceptualization"
          specific-use="lead">Conceptualization</role>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Methodology"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/methodology">Methodology</role>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Supervision"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/supervision">Supervision</role>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Writing - review &amp; editing"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/writing-review-editing">Writing - review &amp; editing</role>
  </contrib>
</contrib-group>

Common pitfalls

• The legacy "Statement of Authorship" free-text field can remain enabled in parallel by accident. Audit Submission Items and disable the legacy field once Contribution Disclosure is live.
• Sub-types of Editorial Manager configuration differ by publisher. Elsevier journals have a slightly different default than Springer Nature ones; copy a working configuration from a sister journal rather than starting from a blank template.
• The captured roles do not automatically populate the published PDF unless the production typesetter is configured to render them. Confirm with the production team that the article XML feeding their composition system is being read.
• Editorial Manager stores roles per-revision. If an author edits the contribution matrix on revision and the data feed pulls from the original submission rather than the latest version, the published article may misrepresent the agreed contributions.

Official documentation: https://www.ariessys.com/solutions/editorial-manager/

eJournalPress (eJP)

Status: Configurable — supported on current platform versions · Typical users: AAAS (selected journals), ASBMB, Cold Spring Harbor, Rockefeller University Press, several society publishers

eJournalPress is used by a long tail of society publishers, including ASBMB, Cold Spring Harbor Press, and Rockefeller University Press. CRediT capture is available on current platform versions and is enabled per journal through the eJP configuration interface, but the implementation is less publicly documented than ScholarOne or Editorial Manager — the canonical reference is the per-publisher implementation guide that eJP supplies to its customers. Operational behaviour is essentially equivalent: a per-contributor role matrix collected during submission and exported as structured XML.

Step-by-step enablement

1. Contact your eJP account manager or open a configuration ticket — the CRediT module is not always switched on by default for older journal sites.
2. In the journal configuration screen, locate the Author Information section and enable "Contributor Roles" (also seen labelled "CRediT Statement").
3. Decide whether the journal requires the field for submission, peer review, or only at acceptance. Some eJP journals defer required capture to revision.
4. Configure the role definitions display. eJP supports inline role descriptions; turn these on for first-time authors.
5. If the journal wishes to capture lead/equal/supporting, enable the degree qualifier. Not every eJP template version exposes this; confirm with your account manager.
6. Run a test submission and inspect the resulting XML package delivered to production. The role element should carry the casrai.org/credit term identifiers.
7. Update the journal's author instructions to reference CRediT explicitly and to point at the role definitions on casrai.org/credit.

What authors see

The eJP author-information page presents a structured form. Below the standard contributor fields (name, affiliation, ORCID iD), a Contributor Roles block lists the 14 CRediT roles as checkboxes with definition tooltips. On templates that support it, a dropdown next to each checked role offers the degree-of-contribution qualifier. The interface is functional rather than glossy; the data captured matches what ScholarOne and Editorial Manager produce.

JATS output

<contrib-group>
  <contrib contrib-type="author">
    <name>
      <surname>Okafor</surname>
      <given-names>Chinwe</given-names>
    </name>
    <contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-8901</contrib-id>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Software"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/software"
          specific-use="lead">Software</role>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Data curation"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/data-curation">Data curation</role>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Visualization"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/visualization">Visualization</role>
  </contrib>
</contrib-group>

Common pitfalls

• Documentation is largely behind a customer portal. Implementation questions usually need to go via the eJP support desk; the public web has limited reference material.
• Older eJP templates collected contributions as free text. Migrating an existing journal to the structured module requires a configuration change, an author-instructions update, and editor training — do not assume the switch is silent.
• Production hand-off varies by typesetter. Some societies receive a CSV export rather than a JATS package; confirm with downstream how the role data is delivered.

Official documentation: https://www.ejournalpress.com/

Open Journal Systems (OJS)

Status: Plugin or custom — not native in core · Typical users: 25,000+ open-access and society journals worldwide, PKP-hosted and self-hosted

Open Journal Systems from the Public Knowledge Project is the dominant open-source submission and publishing platform, deployed by an estimated 25,000+ journals globally. CRediT capture is not part of OJS core but is available via a community plugin (notably the "CRediT Contributor Roles" plugin and variants of the "Author Statement" plugin) or by adding a custom metadata field. For journals managing their own OJS instance the work is straightforward; for hosted-OJS customers the plugin needs to be installed by the host. Output flows into the OJS article galley XML and, for journals depositing via the OJS Crossref Plugin, into the Crossref deposit.

Step-by-step enablement

1. Confirm your OJS version. CRediT plugins target OJS 3.3 and later; older 3.x and 2.x sites should be upgraded before adding the plugin.
2. Install the CRediT Contributor Roles plugin (or your chosen equivalent) via the OJS Plugin Gallery, or by uploading the plugin tarball to the plugins/generic/ directory and enabling it.
3. In Website Settings → Plugins, enable the plugin and open its settings page. Choose which submission step the role capture appears on (typically the Contributors step in the multi-step submission wizard).
4. Configure whether the field is required, the list of available roles (default: the 14 NISO roles), and whether the degree qualifier is offered.
5. Update the journal's submission guidelines to reference CRediT, ideally linking the role definitions at casrai.org/credit.
6. Verify the plugin writes the roles to the article metadata in a way the OJS Crossref Plugin can read. On recent plugin versions this is automatic; on older versions you may need to map the field manually in the deposit template.
7. For self-hosted journals also depositing in DOAJ, confirm that the DOAJ metadata export carries the contribution data, or accept that CRediT lives on the article landing page only.
8. Run a full submission-to-publication test, including a Crossref deposit, to confirm the casrai.org/credit URIs are present in the deposit XML.

What authors see

In the OJS submission wizard, the Contributors step lists each contributor in turn. With the CRediT plugin enabled, the contributor edit modal grows an additional Roles section: a list of the 14 CRediT checkboxes with definition tooltips, optionally a degree-of-contribution dropdown. The submitting author saves contributor-by-contributor. The behaviour is functionally equivalent to the commercial systems but visually plainer.

JATS output

<contrib-group>
  <contrib contrib-type="author">
    <name>
      <surname>Andersson</surname>
      <given-names>Erik</given-names>
    </name>
    <contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">https://orcid.org/0000-0004-5678-9012</contrib-id>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Conceptualization"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/conceptualization">Conceptualization</role>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Funding acquisition"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/funding-acquisition"
          specific-use="lead">Funding acquisition</role>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Project administration"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/project-administration"
          specific-use="lead">Project administration</role>
  </contrib>
</contrib-group>

Common pitfalls

• Plugin variants are not interchangeable. There have historically been at least two community plugins doing similar things with different field names. Pick one and stay with it; switching mid-stream leaves orphaned metadata.
• Hosted OJS (PKP-Publishing-Services-hosted or third-party-hosted) customers cannot install plugins themselves. The host has to enable it on the instance; lead time can be weeks.
• The OJS Crossref Plugin's default deposit template does not necessarily include role elements. After enabling the CRediT plugin, inspect a sample deposit XML and add a template override if roles are missing.
• JATS galley generation is optional in OJS. If your journal publishes HTML only and never generates JATS, the captured roles never reach a JATS file — they live only in the OJS database and the Crossref deposit (if depositing).
• PKP's roadmap may absorb CRediT into core in a future release. When that happens, plugin-captured data may need to be migrated; track the PKP community release notes.

Official documentation: https://pkp.sfu.ca/software/ojs/

Aries Manuscript One

Status: Emerging — feature parity with Editorial Manager in progress · Typical users: Newer entrant; pilot deployments at selected society publishers

Manuscript One is Aries Systems' newer submission platform, positioned as a lighter and faster alternative to Editorial Manager. Public information about its CRediT support is limited; vendor briefings have indicated that the Contribution Disclosure capability from Editorial Manager is being carried across, but rollout is staged. Implementers should treat published statements about Manuscript One CRediT support as date-stamped and confirm directly with Aries before relying on a specific behaviour.

Step-by-step enablement

1. Ask your Aries account manager which version of Manuscript One your journal is on and whether Contribution Disclosure is available on that version.
2. If available, follow the equivalent configuration path to Editorial Manager: enable the submission step, choose required vs optional, place it after the author list.
3. If not yet available, capture contribution information as free text in the interim and plan a migration path once the structured field is released.
4. Confirm the production hand-off format. Manuscript One's export profile may differ from Editorial Manager's; ask for sample output and verify the role element is present.
5. Update author instructions once the structured capture is live, and consider a soft-launch issue before making the step required.

What authors see

Where the Contribution Disclosure step is available, the experience is similar to Editorial Manager: a per-contributor role matrix surfaced as a discrete step in the submission flow. The visual design is more modern and the step is faster, but the data captured is the same shape.

JATS output

<contrib-group>
  <contrib contrib-type="author">
    <name>
      <surname>Patel</surname>
      <given-names>Anika</given-names>
    </name>
    <contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">https://orcid.org/0000-0005-6789-0123</contrib-id>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Methodology"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/methodology"
          specific-use="lead">Methodology</role>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Validation"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/validation">Validation</role>
  </contrib>
</contrib-group>

Common pitfalls

• Public documentation is sparse; rely on Aries-supplied implementation guides rather than third-party blog posts.
• Feature availability changes between releases — what was unavailable last quarter may have shipped this quarter, and vice versa for pilot features that get pulled.
• Migration from Editorial Manager to Manuscript One does not automatically port historical CRediT data unless explicitly scoped in the migration plan.

Official documentation: https://www.ariessys.com/solutions/manuscript-one/

Cabells, ScienceOpen, in-house, and other custom systems

Status: Retrofit — custom form work required · Typical users: Long tail of niche, regional, and discipline-specific publishers

A long tail of journals run on Cabells-style review platforms, ScienceOpen, smaller commercial systems, or fully in-house submission tools. None of these have a single off-the-shelf CRediT module; the retrofit pattern is the same across them: add a structured per-contributor role field to the submission form, capture against the 14 NISO roles using the canonical URIs, and emit JATS-compatible XML on the production hand-off.

Step-by-step enablement

1. Add a per-contributor multi-select form field listing the 14 CRediT roles. Store the canonical URI alongside the human-readable label rather than the label alone.
2. Optionally add a degree-of-contribution dropdown (lead, equal, supporting) per assigned role.
3. Validate at submission that at least one role is assigned per contributor (if the journal makes capture required).
4. On production hand-off, render a JATS contrib-group with role elements carrying the vocab, vocab-identifier, vocab-term, and vocab-term-identifier attributes documented at /credit/jats.
5. Update author instructions and submission tooltips to reference CRediT and the NISO standard.
6. If the journal deposits at Crossref directly, add the same roles into the schema 5.5 deposit XML; see /implement/crossref for the structure.

What authors see

Whatever the host platform looks like, the user-facing pattern that works is consistent: a contributor list followed by a per-contributor role matrix, with the 14 NISO roles, definitions on hover, and an optional degree qualifier. Implementers should resist the temptation to invent a "simpler" four-role custom vocabulary — downstream interoperability evaporates.

JATS output

<contrib-group>
  <contrib contrib-type="author">
    <name>
      <surname>Nakamura</surname>
      <given-names>Hiroshi</given-names>
    </name>
    <contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">https://orcid.org/0000-0006-7890-1234</contrib-id>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Investigation"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/investigation">Investigation</role>
    <role vocab="credit"
          vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit"
          vocab-term="Writing - original draft"
          vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/credit/roles/writing-original-draft"
          specific-use="lead">Writing - original draft</role>
  </contrib>
</contrib-group>

Common pitfalls

• Free-text capture is the easy default and the worst answer. A contribution paragraph cannot be programmatically aggregated, cannot be deposited as structured Crossref metadata, and cannot propagate to ORCID. Capture structured roles even if you display a generated paragraph downstream.
• Custom URI schemes (e.g., your-domain.com/roles/conceptualization) defeat the purpose. Always use the casrai.org/credit URIs; they are the stable identifiers downstream consumers look for.
• Local translations of role names are fine in the UI; the stored vocab-term and vocab-term-identifier must remain the canonical English term and the canonical URI.

Official documentation: https://casrai.org/credit