Authorship Criteria & Contributions
- Eligibility for Authorship
Authorship should be rest ricted to those who have made a substantial contribution to the work and accept accountability for its contents. In accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines, all listed authors must meet all four of the following criteria:
a) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
b) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
c) Final approval of the version to be published; AND
d) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
- Non-Author Contributors & Acknowledgments
Individuals who contributed to the manuscript but do not meet all four criteria above should not be listed as authors. Instead, their contributions (such as providing research funding, administrative support, technical assistance, language editing, or general supervision) should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section with their written permission.
- Author Roles (CRediT Taxonomy)
To ensure transparency, authors must specify their specific roles using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) upon submission. Roles include: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
- Ghost, Guest, and Gift Authorship
The journal strictly prohibits ghost, guest, or gift authorship:
a) Gift/Honorary Authorship: Including individuals who made no significant contribution.
b) Ghost Authorship: Omitting individuals who made substantial intellectual contributions.
c) AI Assistance: AI tools (such as ChatGPT or Large Language Models) do not meet authorship criteria as they cannot take responsibility for the paper's integrity. Their use must be explicitly disclosed in the Methods or Acknowledgments section.
