Authorship
Authorship gives credit and implies accountability for published work, so there are academic, social and financial implications. Listing authors’ names on an article is an important mechanism to give credit to those who have significantly contributed to the work. It also ensures transparency for those who are responsible for the integrity of the content. There are a couple of types of authorship to be aware of: Co-author and Corresponding author.
Authors listed on an article must meet all of the following criteria:
Use of Artificial Intelligence
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT or Large Language Models in research publications is expanding rapidly. COPE joins organizations, such as WAME and the JAMA Network among others, to state that AI tools cannot be listed as an author of a paper.
AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements.
Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.
Changes to authorship
If you need to change the co-authors for any reason, after the journal has accepted your article, you will need to write to the editor of the journal. You will need to send them a Authorship Change Request letter, signed by all the authors, including the person you are adding or removing. The editor will need to agree to the change. If a clear rationale has not been provided, the request may be rejected.
Any changes in authorship prior to or after publication must be agreed upon by all authors – including those authors being added or removed. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to obtain confirmation from all co-authors and to provide a completed Authorship Change Request letter to the editorial office. We follow the COPE guidelines on this matter.
Acknowledgments
Any individuals who have contributed to the article (for example, technical assistance, formatting-related writing assistance, translators, scholarly discussions which significantly contributed to developing the article), but who do not meet the criteria for authorship, should be listed by name and affiliation in an ‘Acknowledgments’ section.
It is the responsibility of the authors to notify and obtain permission from those they wish to identify in this section. The process of obtaining permission should include sharing the article, so that those being identified can verify the context in which their contribution is being acknowledged.
Any assistance from AI tools for content generation (e.g. large language models) and other similar types of technical tools which generate article content, must be clearly acknowledged within the article. It is the responsibility of authors to ensure the validity, originality and integrity of their article content.