CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: COPE guidance

  • Authorship and Contributorship: A Policy Guide

    Authorship and contributorship are related but distinct publication-ethics concepts: authorship is a formal status earned by meeting all four ICMJE criteria, while contributorship is a broader, non-exclusive record of who did what, captured in a statement that can include both authors and non-author contributors.

    Contributorship is the practice of documenting each individual’s specific input to a research output — via a contributorship statement or a standardised taxonomy such as CRediT — independent of whether that input meets the threshold for authorship.

    What Is Authorship Under ICMJE Criteria?

    Authorship is a formal, credit-bearing status defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Under the ICMJE Recommendations, an individual qualifies as an author only if they meet all four of the following criteria simultaneously.

    • Substantial contribution to the conception, design, acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the work.
    • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
    • Final approval of the version to be published.
    • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, including its accuracy and integrity.

    Meeting three of the four criteria is not sufficient. ICMJE is explicit that everyone who meets all four criteria should be named as an author, and no one who meets them should be excluded for administrative convenience. This all-or-nothing threshold is what separates authorship from the broader concept of contributorship.

    What Is Contributorship, and How Does It Differ From Authorship?

    Contributorship is the practice of recording every person’s specific input to a research output, regardless of whether that input clears the authorship bar. BMJ’s authorship and contributorship policy distinguishes the two mechanically: authorship is expressed as a byline at the start of the article, while contributorship is expressed as a statement — typically at the end — detailing who did what in planning, conducting, and reporting the work.

    Contributorship statements can include both author contributors, who meet all four ICMJE criteria, and non-author contributors, who performed real work such as data collection, statistical analysis, or supervision without drafting or taking accountability for the manuscript. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) maintains a dedicated flowchart, published 22 June 2023, for resolving authorship and contributorship concerns once a paper is already in print, underscoring that the two categories require separate governance even after publication.

    How Does the CRediT Taxonomy Operationalise Contributorship?

    Contributorship only functions as usable policy if roles are named consistently, and this is the gap a standardised taxonomy closes. CRediT defines 14 role labels — including conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, software, supervision, validation, and writing (original draft and review & editing) — that a journal’s submission system can attach to each listed name instead of relying on free-text descriptions.

    CASRAI originated the CRediT contributor role taxonomy in 2014 to give publishers a controlled vocabulary for contributorship statements. The standard is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022. University open-research services, including the University of Surrey’s library guidance, now direct researchers to select from these 14 predefined roles rather than write ad hoc contributorship text. This is the practical link editors need when drafting policy: contributorship is the ethics concept, and CRediT roles are the machine-readable vocabulary that implements it in submission systems.

    Authorship vs Contributorship: A Side-by-Side Comparison

    The table below summarises the operational differences editors should encode into policy language.

    Dimension Authorship Contributorship
    Governing threshold All four ICMJE criteria, met simultaneously Any genuine, describable input to the work
    Where recorded Byline at the start of the article Contributorship statement, typically at the end
    Who is eligible Only those meeting all four criteria Authors and non-author contributors alike
    Standard vocabulary None mandated (author list is free-text names) CRediT’s 14 roles (ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022)
    Primary governance reference ICMJE Recommendations COPE (disputes); NISO (CRediT taxonomy)
    Carries accountability Yes, for the whole work Only for the specific role described

    Answer-First Q&A

    What is the difference between authorship and contributorship?

    Authorship requires meeting all four ICMJE criteria and appears as a named byline; contributorship is broader, recording any genuine input — including work by non-author contributors — in a separate statement. Every author’s role should appear in the contributorship statement, but not every contributor qualifies as an author.

    What is the role of a contributor?

    A contributor’s role is whatever specific, describable task they performed, such as data acquisition, statistical analysis, funding acquisition, or manuscript editing, recorded under a defined label like a CRediT role. Unlike authors, contributors are not required to approve the final manuscript or take accountability for the whole work.

    Is a contributor the same thing as an author?

    No. A contributor is anyone whose input is recorded, while an author is a contributor who additionally meets all four ICMJE criteria, including drafting or critically revising the work and agreeing to be accountable for it. All authors are contributors; most contributors are not authors.

    What do we mean by authorship?

    Authorship means formal, credited responsibility for a published work’s intellectual content and integrity. Per ICMJE, it confers academic, social, and financial recognition, but also obligates the named individual to answer for the accuracy of the parts of the work they are responsible for, even after publication.

    Implications for Editors Drafting Policy Language

    Editors who conflate authorship and contributorship in policy documents create two recurring problems: contributors who did real work but never see it recorded, and authorship disputes that COPE’s flowcharts must later untangle. Clear policy language should:

    • State the ICMJE four-criteria test explicitly, rather than deferring to a vague standard such as “significant contribution.”
    • Require a mandatory contributorship statement for every submission, independent of the author list.
    • Reference a named taxonomy such as CRediT, rather than free-text role descriptions, to keep statements machine-readable and auditable.
    • Name a guarantor — the individual accepting overall responsibility for the finished work — separately from the author list, following BMJ’s model.

    Institutions that adopt this structure reduce the volume of post-publication authorship disputes referred to COPE, because the contributorship statement becomes the evidentiary record editors and institutions can point to when questions arise.

    The Outlook: Contributorship as Standard Practice

    Contributorship statements, once optional, are becoming a default submission requirement across major publishers, and CRediT is the taxonomy most journals now point authors toward when asked to complete one. For editors and research-administration teams, treating authorship and contributorship as two separate, precisely governed policy fields, rather than one blended concept, is what makes both defensible under ICMJE and COPE scrutiny.

    For broader context on the taxonomy’s origin and current standardisation, see CASRAI’s CRediT overview and the authorship pillar page.

  • Duplicate Publication vs. Salami Slicing: A COPE Guide for Editors

    Duplicate publication is the republication of substantially the same data, analysis or conclusions in more than one paper without full disclosure and cross-referencing to the original. Splitting one dataset into several papers is legitimate only when each paper answers a genuinely distinct question, adds a new contribution, and is fully disclosed to every editor involved — anything less risks being classed as salami slicing or redundant publication under COPE guidance.

    Duplicate publication is one of the most common editorial integrity problems editors encounter. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) treats it, alongside “salami slicing” (dividing one study into the smallest publishable units), as a form of redundant publication that misleads readers and wastes peer-review capacity. This guide uses COPE’s own case guidance to show exactly where the line sits between a legitimate multi-paper research programme and a compliance breach.

    Contents

    What is duplicate publication and how does it differ from salami slicing?

    Duplicate (or redundant) publication is the submission or publication of a paper that overlaps substantially — in hypothesis, data, methods, results or conclusions — with a paper already published, without acknowledging or citing the earlier work. The COPE case archive documents this pattern repeatedly: two journals independently publish near-identical articles from the same author group, unaware of each other, because the overlap was not disclosed at submission.

    Salami slicing is related but distinct: instead of publishing the same paper twice, authors divide one coherent study into the smallest set of “publishable units”. Neither practice is automatically dishonest at the point of writing; both become misconduct at the point of non-disclosure. The ICMJE Recommendations (updated January 2024) state that authors must not submit “papers describing essentially the same content to more than one journal” and must disclose all related submissions from the same dataset at the point of submission.

    When is splitting one dataset into multiple papers legitimate?

    Partial publication in research is not, by itself, unethical. Large studies — multi-site trials, longitudinal cohorts, complex mixed-methods programmes — routinely generate more than one legitimate paper. The test COPE and ICMJE apply is whether each paper stands alone as a distinct, substantial contribution, not whether the data originate from a single collection exercise.

    A split is defensible when the following conditions hold:

    • Each paper addresses a separate, pre-specified research question with its own hypothesis, analysis plan and conclusion — not a restatement with a slightly different subgroup.
    • Each paper makes a substantial, non-overlapping contribution, so a reader needs both papers to understand the full programme, but neither is redundant alone.
    • Authors disclose all related and prior submissions to every editor involved, including manuscripts under review elsewhere from the same dataset.
    • Papers are explicitly cross-referenced, so readers and systematic reviewers can identify the shared dataset and avoid double-counting participants.
    • Any secondary or translated publication follows the ICMJE’s conditions for acceptable secondary publication — both journals’ editors informed, primary publication respected, and readers told via a footnote.

    A cohort study reporting baseline characteristics in one paper and a distinct clinical outcome analysis eighteen months later is typically legitimate partial publication. A single trial reported twice with the discussion reworded is not — this is what duplicate publication bias in evidence synthesis refers to: the same result counted twice in a meta-analysis because the overlap went undetected.

    What do COPE case studies show about editorial decisions?

    COPE’s published case discussions are instructive because they show how editors reason through ambiguous, real submissions rather than textbook definitions. In one widely cited case, a newly appointed editor noticed that an article just published in their journal closely resembled one published months earlier elsewhere by the same author group (with two additional names added). The later paper reported a subset of the earlier paper’s results, and both reached an identical conclusion.

    The authors explained that the first paper reported “preliminary findings” and the second “final results based on a larger dataset” — an explanation COPE Council members treated with scepticism. Their advice highlighted several markers editors should weigh:

    Marker What it suggests
    Sentences rearranged but conclusions identical Deliberate reworking rather than genuine reanalysis
    All authors signed copyright forms without flagging overlap Plausible but unlikely genuine oversight
    Same conclusion drawn from an overlapping subset No new substantial contribution — redundant, not partial
    Neither editor informed of the other submission Breach of the disclosure obligation, regardless of intent

    The outcome was a jointly published notice of inadvertent duplicate publication in both journals — a remedy COPE’s redundant (duplicate) publication flowchart sets out for a confirmed post-publication overlap. Where overlap is caught at submission instead, COPE’s parallel flowchart directs editors to seek explanation from the authors before deciding to accept, reject, or request the manuscripts be combined.

    What should editors and authors check before publication?

    Editors handling a manuscript that may derive from a previously used dataset should not rely on author self-declaration alone. A structured check reduces both false accusations and missed cases:

    • Ask authors directly, at submission, whether any part of the data, cohort or findings has appeared in — or been submitted to — another publication.
    • Compare the introduction, methods and conclusion sections for substantive overlap, not just the abstract.
    • Check whether the “new” paper’s conclusion could reasonably have been drawn from the earlier paper alone.
    • Confirm that any secondary or translated publication meets the ICMJE’s disclosure and footnote conditions.
    • Ask authors to state, in the cover letter, how this submission differs from and complements other linked outputs.

    Clear, role-specific contributorship statements also help editors assess legitimacy quickly: where different authors led different analyses within a shared dataset, a structured contributor role taxonomy such as CRediT makes it easier to see that a paper’s intellectual contribution is genuinely distinct rather than a relabelled version of prior work. CASRAI originated the CRediT contributor role taxonomy in 2014; the standard is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022. Journals that also require full authorship criteria disclosure alongside dataset provenance statements catch most cases before peer review.

    Answer-first Q&A on duplicate publication

    What is a duplicate publication?

    A duplicate publication is a paper that overlaps substantially — in hypothesis, data, methods, results or conclusions — with an article already published, submitted without disclosing that overlap. It differs from legitimate secondary publication because the earlier work is not acknowledged or cross-referenced.

    What is the difference between redundant publication and duplicate publication?

    Redundant publication is the broader category, covering any republication of substantially the same material, including salami slicing. Duplicate publication is the specific case where two papers are near-identical in content — the narrowest and most serious form of redundancy.

    What is a dual publication?

    “Dual publication” is a synonym for duplicate publication: the same article, or one overlapping substantially with it, published in two separate journals without acknowledgement of the first. It is treated identically under COPE and ICMJE guidance regardless of which term is used.

    What should an editor do if duplicate publication is suspected?

    Editors should follow COPE’s published flowcharts: for a submitted manuscript, seek an explanation from the authors before deciding to accept, reject or request combination into a single paper; for an already-published article, contact both journals’ editors, review the extent of overlap, and issue a joint notice or correction as warranted.

    Implications for multi-paper research programmes

    For research administrators overseeing large, multi-output programmes, the practical implication is procedural: build dataset-provenance disclosure into submission workflows before manuscripts reach a journal, not after a reviewer flags overlap. Funders and institutions increasingly expect research offices to demonstrate that outputs from a shared dataset are distinct contributions, not salami-sliced units inflating a publication count.

    Analyses of retraction reasons catalogued in the Retraction Watch Database consistently place duplication among the recurring categories behind retraction notices, alongside plagiarism and data-integrity concerns — a reminder that the cost of getting this wrong is a permanent mark on the published record, not merely a desk rejection. As multi-site and multi-arm studies become more common, editors and authors who apply COPE’s disclosure-first standard consistently, rather than relying on ad hoc judgement calls, are best placed to keep legitimate partial publication distinct from redundant publication.