1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The Background of Contributor Role Ontologies and Taxonomies’ Emergence
Collaborative research has increased significantly over the past few decades, though the extent of this trend varies across academic fields. Prior studies suggest that research conducted collaboratively often yields productivity advantages compared to solo research (Jokić, 2020; Larivière et al., 2015; Lee & Bozeman, 2005; Mwantimwa & Kassim, 2023). This growth in collaboration can be largely attributed to the increasing complexity of research questions, which frequently necessitates expertise from multiple disciplines. Furthermore, collaboration among researchers from diverse backgrounds is particularly valuable as it fosters the generation of novel ideas and creative solutions (Allen et al., 2014).
However, collaboration introduces challenges less common in solo research. A significant issue is the inflation in the number of authors, which can lead to dissatisfaction over authorship attribution and instances of improper contributorship (Brand et al., 2015; Holcombe et al., 2021; Jabbehdari & Walsh, 2017; Paul-Hus et al., 2017). For example, in biomedicine, ghost authorship—where a researcher contributes but is not credited—accounts for approximately 20% of cases (Wislar et al., 2011). Similarly, honorary authorship, including guest and gift authorship, is estimated to occur in 20-40% of cases (Hardjosantoso et al., 2020; Jabbehdari & Walsh, 2017; Mowatt et al., 2002). Both practices undermine the integrity of authorship and pose risks to researchers’ morale and the academic publishing ecosystem.
To address these challenges, adopting Contributor Role Ontologies and Taxonomies (CROTs) offers a potential solution. CROTs are a framework for clearly classifying and defining the roles of each contributor in research, and CRediT is the most widely used CROT. CROTs can explicitly specify each researcher’s role in a publication, thereby ensuring transparency and accountability. Including contributorship statements in academic papers clarifies contributions for readers and stakeholders alike, providing a clear account of contributors’ responsibilities (Alpi & Akers, 2021; Ding et al., 2021; Hosseini et al., 2024; Teixeira da Silva et al., 2023). This transparency benefits journal editors, who can easily identify individual contributions, and funders, who can assess whether researchers fulfilled their assigned roles. University administrations could also use CROTs to evaluate faculty members’ contributions for hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions. Furthermore, CROTs assist project managers in identifying research personnel for specific tasks (Hosseini et al., 2023).
Despite these advantages, consensus on the necessity of CROTs has not yet been reached across all academic fields. Disciplines such as biomedicine, life sciences, and medicine have actively embraced CROTs, driven by the prevalence of large research teams and the associated challenges of contributorship (Allen et al., 2014; Hosseini et al., 2024; Larivière et al., 2021). Discussions about CROTs began in these fields as early as the late 1990s, gaining traction when the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommended their inclusion in academic publications (Larivière et al., 2021; Vasilevsky et al., 2021). In 2012, the Wellcome Trust spearheaded efforts to standardize CROTs, which culminated in the development of the CRediT system, specifying 14 distinct roles. By 2014, CRediT was finalized, and its adoption by several medical journals in 2015 marked a turning point. Major publishers, including Cell, Public Library of Science (PLOS), Springer, and BMJ, soon joined this initiative, leading to the adoption of CRediT by over 120 journals. The movement gained further momentum in 2019 when Elsevier began strongly advocating for its implementation (Reller, 2019).
1.2. Need for CROTs in LIS Research
Library and information science (LIS) is undergoing a significant transformation. While it may not be dominated by massive research teams like the medical field, LIS research is increasingly collaborative and interdisciplinary, naturally leading to a growing interest in how contributions are recognized. LIS uniquely draws theories and methods from a wide array of fields, including sociology, psychology, business administration, and computer science (Petras, 2023; Vakkari et al., 2023). This interdisciplinary nature is further emphasized by reports indicating that a substantial two-thirds of LIS master’s and doctoral theses originate from non-LIS departments (Prebor, 2010). Moreover, the field, particularly information science, now deeply integrates IT domains such as big data, artificial intelligence, and digital preservation (Chang, 2018; 2021; Petras, 2023). As LIS research grows more complex, experts from diverse backgrounds contribute, resulting in more layered and varied roles for participants. Fitzgerald et al. (2020) argue that for collaborative research, it is generally considered standard practice and aligns with research ethics to clearly define each researcher’s individual contributions, and it is based on this principle that College & Research Libraries intends to adopt such a policy.
While specific reports on the prevalence of ghost or honorary authorship in LIS are not yet available, these evolving shifts strongly suggest the field is vulnerable to such problems. Fortunately, some valuable early studies are already urging LIS to develop its own suitable model for handling contributions (Fitzgerald et al., 2020; Herbert & Kaspar, 2019). Given these challenges, implementing CROTs is essential for ensuring transparency and accountability in LIS research publications.
This study, therefore, explores how current LIS journals record individual contributions. Specifically, the CROTs practices of journals within the Journal Citation Reports’ Information Science & Library Science categories were examined. The focus was on those typically indexed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), which are referred to as SSCI LIS journals in this study. This selection reflects their high visibility within the academic community and strong author publication preferences (Lee et al., 2020; Nicholas et al., 2022; Rowley et al., 2022).
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
As research competition intensifies, academic interest in specifying CROTs to clarify contributions in collaborative projects and ensure fair credit allocation continues to grow. Most prior studies on CROTs emphasize their importance, evolution, and current state, alongside recommendations for adapting them to specific academic fields.
Allen et al. (2014) noted the frequent difficulty in discerning the precise contributions of individual researchers from the author lists, acknowledgments, and contribution sections currently provided by many academic journals. Highlighting the importance of clarity in participant roles, especially in large-scale studies, they suggested that adopting CROTs could address this issue. By explicitly adopting CROTs, researchers can highlight their specialized expertise and relevant skills, thus increasing opportunities such as grant applications and academic appointments. Additionally, CROTs may provide a platform for junior researchers to emerge as key authors and for methodological innovators—who might otherwise go unnoticed in traditional author lists—to gain recognition. Funding agencies could benefit from clearer insights into each team member’s specific role, while universities and research institutions could leverage CROTs for innovations in academic appointments and promotions. As a result, Allen et al. (2014) underscored the necessity of implementing CROTs. They also emphasized the potential value of implementing such systems, proposing the addition of a feature to online submission systems allowing authors to specify their detailed roles.
Furthermore, Ware and Mabe (2015) stressed the need for standardizing CROTs. In most fields, papers typically involve multiple authors with varied roles, such as study design, data analysis, or writing. While these roles are sometimes detailed in acknowledgments, especially in medical journals, descriptions are often inconsistent and unstructured. To address this, editors, journals, and publishers are working on developing a standardized taxonomy for contributor roles in academic journals. The evolution of CROTs is discussed in Allen et al. (2019), who found that the dissemination of CROTs largely depends on how well editors, journals, and publishers understand their purpose and take steps to implement them. For instance, the PLOS played a pivotal role by adopting the 14-role CRediT structure. Similarly, Cell Press encourages authors to specify their contributions, while Learned Publishing has advocated for documenting contributors’ role allocations since 2015. The implementation of CRediT by Elsevier in 2019 further accelerated the use of CROTs, marking a significant step in its evolution (Reller, 2019).
In addition to publishers, online submission systems have played a critical role in the dissemination of CROTs. Since 2015, select journals using Editorial Manager have asked authors to specify contributions via CRediT. Committees involved in academic publishing have also facilitated the spread of CROTs. According to Larivière et al. (2021), the widespread adoption of CROTs can be attributed to efforts by the ICMJE and the Committee on Publication Ethics, which have encouraged journal editors to implement these standards. As a result, medical journals began implementing CRediT in 2015, marking a turning point in the broader adoption of CROTs.
Analyzing PLOS journal data from 2017 to 2018, Larivière et al. (2021) investigated how research contributions are distributed within teams. Their findings revealed that while fundamental tasks such as conceptualization, methodology, and writing are prevalent across research, disciplinary variations highlight the significance of more specialized roles, including visualization and software in specific fields, thereby suggesting a need for more diverse evaluation metrics that account for these differences. Furthermore, their analysis underscored the prevalent yet under-supported role of data curation, which is crucial for the advancement of open science initiatives. The study also indicated that women are more frequently involved in data curation and other technical tasks. This disparity points to potential gender inequities within academic labor and highlights the necessity for transparent contribution systems.
Drawing on a dataset of over 80,000 PLOS ONE articles (2018-2023), Maddi and Teixeira da Silva (2024) collected and analyzed author roles, DOIs, affiliations, and funding acknowledgments. Their investigation revealed that over 9% of publications exhibited at least one instance of inappropriate authorship, affecting approximately 2.5% of the authors. Furthermore, their analysis indicated a higher likelihood of potential monetary authorship among established researchers and those affiliated with companies or nonprofits. While acknowledging the reliance on self-reported author roles and acknowledgments, their findings underscore the necessity for stronger journal oversight and more conscientious author practices to ensure the integrity of academic publishing. They not only outlined authorship eligibility for the 14 CRediT contributors but also identified potential contributorships, such as article processing charge (APC)-paying, clarifying that this could apply even when the individual’s sole contribution was APC payment, without involvement in securing funding.
Fitzgerald et al. (2020) observed that the introduction of CRediT, which clearly specifies contributors’ roles, has been encouraging, particularly for collaborative research. However, they argued that the 14 roles specified by CRediT may not fully suit social science journals, particularly in LIS, such as College & Research Libraries. To address this, they analyzed 49 papers published in College & Research Libraries in 2019, specifically investigating the roles of contributors involved in the production of these papers. Their analysis revealed that while the existing taxonomy is useful, roles specific to LIS and social science research should be added. One such role is “literature synthesis,” which involves reviewing previous studies, identifying research gaps, and clarifying research questions—processes essential in nearly all social science research. In applied fields such as LIS, interpreting results is often a key aspect of the study, and so “interpretation of the results” should also be included. The role of “instruments” is another consideration that should be considered, as it pertains to survey instruments and interview protocols. Based on the analysis conducted by Fitzgerald et al. (2020), they recommended that LIS research include 12 roles: conceptualization, data analysis, data curation, instruments, investigation, interpretation, literature synthesis, methodology, software, visualization, writing, and editing. Their research appears to have provided valuable insights for journal editors within the LIS field as they navigate the complexities of specifying contributor roles.
What these prior studies lack, however, is a clear data-driven illustration of the active adoption of CROTs within LIS journals. To address this gap, this study investigated this matter by following the methodology described, ultimately helping foster a better understanding of CROTs’ integration into LIS journals.
3. METHODS
The selection process for this study began by identifying all 82 journals indexed under the ‘Information Science & Library Science’ category in the 2023 edition of the Journal Citation Reports. To evaluate their engagement with CROTs, each journal’s official website was meticulously analyzed, followed by a manual review of all articles published by these 82 journals throughout 2023. This initial screening revealed that 13 journals had at least one publication incorporating CROTs. Recognizing that isolated instances might not reflect an established editorial policy and aiming to focus on journals with a demonstrably consistent commitment to CROTs adoption, a threshold was set. Based on an assessment of publication frequencies within the field, and to ensure a meaningful representation of sustained adoption, a minimum of 10 articles explicitly mentioning CROTs in 2023 were required for inclusion. This criterion was instrumental in identifying the final cohort of nine journals, which exhibited a robust and complete integration of CROTs.
To understand how journals incorporate contributor roles, this study first pinpointed CROTs information. This information appeared under various headings, including ‘contributors,’ ‘author contributions,’ ‘CRediT,’ and ‘author’s notes.’ Following this, each paper’s CROTs section was systematically analyzed to ascertain whether its content delineated the 14 roles defined by CRediT, a prominent CROTs model (refer to Table 1) (Brand et al., 2015). Beyond this, the analysis extended to include three additional roles particularly relevant to LIS research, as suggested by Fitzgerald et al. (2020): literature synthesis, interpretation, and instruments. This broader investigation involved reviewing not only explicit CROTs sections but also the acknowledgments within the publications.
Table 1
CRediT–Contributor Role Taxonomy
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Conceptualization | Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims |
| Methodology | Development or design of methodology; creation of models |
| Software | Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components |
| Validation | Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs |
| Formal analysis | Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data |
| Investigation | Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection |
| Resources | Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools |
| Data curation | Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse |
| Writing - original draft | Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation) |
| Writing - review & editing | Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision—including pre-or post-publication stages |
| Visualization | Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation |
| Supervision | Oversight and leadership responsibility for research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team |
| Project administration | Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution |
| Funding acquisition | Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication |
Data was gathered through a manual collection process, where CROTs information was extracted from articles published in the nine selected journals by accessing their official websites. Two doctoral students participated in this collection, with the paper’s author performing a final verification of all collected data to ensure accuracy. As this study focused on a limited scope of nine specific journals, no difficulties were encountered in accessing the full text. While the possibility of journal website discrepancies is very low, it cannot be entirely excluded. For methodological clarity, single-authored articles were excluded from the analysis due to their limited relevance for CROTs analysis in non-collaborative research. Review articles were also excluded to sharpen the study’s focus on complex collaborative research. This decision was further supported by their limited presence in the collected data, and preliminary data review indicated they typically involve only one or two participant roles, which diverged from the study’s objective to investigate the diverse activities of participants in complex collaborative work found in original research papers.
Ultimately, the dataset for this study comprised 955 multi-authored papers. From these, 749 CROTs were identified within a subset of publications from the nine chosen journals, found specifically in their acknowledgment sections or where such details were pertinent. The subsequent analysis involved descriptive statistics applied to this collected data, and illustrative examples were included to clarify the findings.
4. RESULTS
4.1. Overview of Publishing with CROTs
While it is important to recognize that CROTs were not a standard feature in every paper, this analysis highlights that a focused group of nine journals demonstrated a more complete adoption of this framework. Table 2 shows the specific sections where CROTs were listed in each journal. Most journals included CROTs in the CRediT section, utilized by five journals, and in the author contributions section, utilized by four journals. One journal also listed them in the notes section. Table 2 indicates that Elsevier was the most active publisher in adopting CROTs, with CROTs appearing in five of their journals. Other publishers, including Taylor & Francis, Oxford University Press, PUC-Campinas, and Wiley, each had one journal that included CROTs.
Table 2
Adoption of CROTs across journals and publishers
| Title (publisher) | Issues per year | CROTs | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CRediT | Author Contributions | Notes | ||
| Gov Inform Q (E) | 4 | Y | ||
| Inform Manage-Mster (E) | 8 | Y | ||
| Inform Organ-UK (E) | 4 | Y | ||
| Inform Process Manag (E) | 6 | Y | ||
| Int J Geogr Inf Sci (T) | 12 | Y | Y | |
| Int J Inform Manage (E) | 6 | Y | ||
| J Am Med Inform Assn (O) | 12 | Y | ||
| Learn Publ (W) | 4 | Y | ||
| Transinformacao (P) | 1 | Y | ||
4.2. Distribution of Authorship and Contributorship
Table 3 shows the average number of authors, single-authored papers, multi-authored papers, and papers listing CROTs across the analyzed journals. The average number of authors varied significantly among the journals. For instance, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association had a high average of 8.21 authors per paper, while Transinformacao had a low average of 2.69 authors. On the other hand, the proportion of multi-authored papers was generally high in all journals. The journals with the highest proportion of multi-authored papers were Information Processing & Management and the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, both at 99%. In contrast, Learned Publishing had a relatively lower proportion at 82%. Meanwhile, the number of papers listing CROTs varied significantly between journals. The Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association included CROTs in all 176 of its multi-authored papers, representing 100% of the papers. In contrast, the International Journal of Geographical Information Science listed CROTs in 43 out of 93 multi-authored papers, accounting for 46%.
Table 3
Distribution of authorship and CROTs in papers published 2023
| Title | No. of authors (mean) | Type of authorship | CROTs (B)a) | B/A (%) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single-authored | Multi (A) (n [%]) | Total | ||||
| Gov Inform Q | 3.29 | 7 | 69 (91) | 76 | 47 | 68 |
| Inform Manage-Mster | 3.39 | 3 | 92 (97) | 95 | 68 | 74 |
| Inform Organ-Uk | 3.00 | 1 | 19 (95) | 20 | 11 | 58 |
| Inform Process Manag | 4.41 | 3 | 349 (99) | 352 | 271 | 78 |
| Int J Geogr Inf Sci | 4.78 | 4 | 93 (96) | 97 | 43 | 46 |
| Int J Inform Manage | 4.12 | 6 | 75 (93) | 81 | 59 | 79 |
| J Am Med Inform Assn | 8.21 | 1 | 176 (99) | 177 | 176 | 100 |
| Learn Publ | 3.79 | 12 | 55 (82) | 67 | 50 | 91 |
| Transinformacao | 2.69 | 2 | 27 (93) | 29 | 24 | 89 |
| Total | 4.19 | 39 | 955 | 994 | 749 | 78 |
Table 4 summarizes the contribution roles of authors listed in the papers of each journal. The most frequently cited role was conceptualization, with an average of 90%. For example, Information and Organization indicated conceptualization in 100% of its papers, while Learned Publishing did so in only 58%. Across all journals, writing-related roles such as writing - original draft (89%) and writing - review & editing (89%) were commonly specified. In contrast, roles such as funding acquisition (21%), resources (21%), and project administration (28%), which are not inherently substantial contributions to a paper’s design, analysis, or writing, were listed less frequently by journals.
Table 4
Distribution of CROTs contribution across papers by journal (unit: %)
| GIQ | IM | IO | IPM | IJGIS | IJIM | JAMIA | LP | TI | All journals | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conceptualization | 98 | 96 | 100 | 94 | 93 | 95 | 83 | 58 | 92 | 90 |
| Writing - original draft | 100 | 93 | 91 | 96 | 98 | 92 | 91 | 92 | 50 | 89 |
| Writing - review & editing | 96 | 96 | 100 | 93 | 72 | 95 | 90 | 70 | 88 | 89 |
| Methodology | 98 | 96 | 73 | 96 | 70 | 90 | 39 | 48 | 92 | 78 |
| Formal analysis | 77 | 79 | 82 | 54 | 60 | 71 | 70 | 58 | 79 | 70 |
| Investigation | 66 | 68 | 91 | 69 | 58 | 61 | 51 | 38 | 63 | 63 |
| Supervision | 68 | 63 | 36 | 73 | 33 | 51 | 19 | 8 | 17 | 41 |
| Data curation | 57 | 60 | 27 | 60 | 19 | 58 | 30 | 24 | 8 | 38 |
| Validation | 30 | 49 | 36 | 56 | 30 | 42 | 20 | 12 | 8 | 32 |
| Visualization | 45 | 43 | 27 | 45 | 21 | 34 | 10 | 24 | 13 | 29 |
| Project administration | 36 | 41 | 45 | 31 | 16 | 36 | 6 | 30 | 8 | 28 |
| Software | 28 | 37 | 9 | 68 | 53 | 22 | 19 | 6 | 13 | 28 |
| Funding acquisition | 40 | 34 | 9 | 36 | 28 | 22 | 6 | 14 | 0 | 21 |
| Resources | 36 | 31 | 36 | 31 | 14 | 24 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 21 |
4.3. Applicable CROTs in LIS Journals
Table 5 (Fitzgerald et al., 2020; Maddi & Teixeira da Silva, 2024) compares the 14 roles in CRediT with the 12 roles proposed by Fitzgerald et al. (2020) for College & Research Libraries CROTs. This study specifically examined the three additional roles suggested by Fitzgerald et al. (2020)—instruments, interpretation, and literature synthesis—and assessed their presence in the papers.
Table 5
Comparison of contribution roles: CRediT vs. C&RL
| Categorya) | Roles | CRediT | C&RL (Fitzgerald et al. [2020]) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author contribution roles | Conceptualization | Y | Y |
| Literature synthesis | N | Y | |
| Methodology | Y | Y | |
| Data curation | Y | Y | |
| Formal analysis | Y | Y | |
| Investigation | Y | Y | |
| Instruments | N | Y | |
| Interpretation | N | Y | |
| Software | Y | Y | |
| Visualization | Y | Y | |
| Writing - original draft | Y | Y | |
| Writing - review & editing | Y | Y | |
| Validation | Y | N | |
| Non-author contribution roles | Funding acquisition | Y | N |
| Supervision | Y | N | |
| Project administration | Y | N | |
| Resources | Y | N |
Table 6 (Fitzgerald et al., 2020) shows the frequency with which the three roles were specified in the journals. The “Instruments” role was included in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, while the “Interpretation” role was found in six journals, including Government Information Quarterly. The “Literature Synthesis” role appeared in seven journals, including Information & Management, and was prominently featured in all but one of those. Though literature synthesis is not directly specified as a role within the CRediT taxonomy, its inclusion is notable, as many papers explicitly identified contributors to this task. In contrast, Table 7 (Fitzgerald et al., 2020) highlights the frequency of five roles that Fitzgerald et al. (2020) considered difficult to categorize as authorship. The analysis showed significant variation in the inclusion of roles related to research projects, such as funding acquisition, project administration, and supervision, across the journals. Overall, few journals assigned contributorship to these roles, although Information Processing & Management was an exception, with a higher frequency of these roles being specified. This suggests that it may be important to consider the inclusion of these five roles in certain journals like Information Processing & Management.
Table 6
Distribution of roles incorporated by Fitzgerald et al. (2020)
| Title | All CROTs | Roles (na)) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Literature synthesis | Instruments | Interpretation | ||
| Gov Inform Q | 47 | 1 (1) | ||
| Inform Manage-Mster | 68 | 1 (1) | ||
| Inform Organ-Uk | 11 | 1 (1) | ||
| Inform Process Manag | 271 | 8 | ||
| Int J Geogr Inf Sci | 43 | 3 | 4 | |
| Int J Inform Manage | 59 | 2 | ||
| J Am Med Inform Assn | 176 | 14 (2) | 4 (2) | 43 (1) |
| Learn Publ | 50 | 5 (1) | 5 (1) | |
| Transinformacao | 24 | 1 | 9 | |
Table 7
Distribution of roles not incorporated by Fitzgerald et al. (2020)
| Title | All CROTs | Funding acquisition | Project administration | Resources | Supervision | Validation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gov Inform Q | 47 | 19 | 17 | 17 | 32 | 14 |
| Inform Manage-Mster | 68 | 23 | 28 | 21 | 43 | 33 |
| Inform Organ-UK | 11 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Inform Process Manag | 271 | 98 | 85 | 84 | 197 | 152 |
| Int J Geogr Inf Sci | 43 | 12 | 7 | 6 | 14 | 13 |
| Int J Inform Manage | 59 | 13 | 21 | 14 | 30 | 25 |
| J Am Med Inform Assn | 176 | 10 | 11 | 5 | 34 | 36 |
| Learn Publ | 50 | 7 | 15 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| Transinformacao | 24 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 |
4.4. Diverse Approaches to CROTs Adoption in LIS Publications
The selected journals demonstrated diverse strategies for CROTs implementation and disclosure. Of the nine journals that were published with CROTs, more than half were from Elsevier. These journals include a section titled “CRediT authorship contribution statement” at the end of the paper, where authorship contributions are outlined based on the CRediT model. However, some papers listed contributorship in author statements rather than the official section recommended by the journal (Table 8), which may be due to authors’ lack of understanding of the submission guidelines.
Table 8
CROTs posting example 1: Author statement
| Contributorship | Source |
|---|---|
|
Author statement Xixi Ye: Conceptualization, Methodology, Result Analysis, Writing-Original draft preparation. Yan-Kai Fu: Methodology, Validation. Huabing Wang: Writing-final draft preparation, Supervision. Jinghong Zhou: Methodology, Validation. |
Ye, X., Fu, Y. K., Wang, H., & Zhou, J. (2023). Information asymmetry evaluation in hotel e-commerce market: Dynamics and pricing strategy under pandemic. Information Processing & Management, 60(1), 103117. |
The data analysis revealed variations in how CROTs are presented across journals. One journal, the International Journal of Geographical Information Science, adopted a unique format by combining contribution details with author biographies (Table 9). The journal provides information such as the author’s affiliation and research interests before listing their specific roles.
Table 9
CROTs posting example 2: Integrating biography into CROTs
| Contributorship | Source |
|---|---|
|
Notes on contributors David A. Bennett is a professor and department chair in the Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences. His research interests lie in GIScience with a focus on agent-based modelling, spatial optimization with application to sustainability and the environment. He contributed to the literature review, analysis of simulated data, review and editing of this paper. |
Xiong, H., Zhou, X., & Bennett, D. A. (2023). Detecting spatiotemporal propagation patterns of traffic congestion from fine-grained vehicle trajectory data. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 37(5), 1157-1179. |
Some journals also modified the CRediT format by adding additional keywords for clearer contributorship. This suggests that the CRediT taxonomy may not fully capture the diversity of roles in LIS research. Indeed, as proposed by Fitzgerald et al. (2020), there are additional roles, such as instruments, interpretation, and literature synthesis, which could be incorporated into the CRediT framework. This study found examples where these roles were specified, even though they are not part of the official CRediT taxonomy (Tables 9Table 10-11).
Table 10
CROTs posting example 3: Instruments
| Contributorship | Source |
|---|---|
|
Acknowledgements The authors express their gratitude to both Calvin Beidleman and Kevin Peters for their instrumental assistance with many technical details, including alert programming and randomization of participants. |
Wright, A., Schreiber, R., Bates, D. W., Aaron, S., Ai, A., Cholan, R. A., ... & Sittig, D. F. (2023). A multi-site randomized trial of a clinical decision support intervention to improve problem list completeness. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 30(5), 899-906. |
Table 11
CROTs posting example 4: Interpretation
| Contributorship | Source |
|---|---|
|
Acknowledgment We thank the following individuals for their support during the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data: Dzmitry Katsiuba, Yiwei Wu, Anna Boos, and Francis Cheneval. We thank all participants of the interpretation workshops. Most prominently, we thank David Wyss for his engagement during the field trial and initial data analysis, which he conducted as part of his master’s thesis. We also want to thank the members of the involved police departments for the effective collaboration throughout the project. The study was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation under grants 208013 and 197485. |
Dolata, M., & Schwabe, G. (2023). Moving beyond privacy and airspace safety: Guidelines for just drones in policing. Government Information Quarterly, 40(4), 101874. |
Additionally, the removal of five roles from the CROTs list, as suggested by Fitzgerald et al. (2020), warrants careful consideration by individual journals. Information Processing & Management displayed a notably higher frequency of non-author roles, such as funding acquisition, project administration, and supervision, compared to other journals. Therefore, removing these roles could potentially confuse its contributors. Conversely, journals like College & Research Libraries, where research project outcomes are less frequently the focus of publication, might find some detailed roles less relevant, especially the non-author roles within CRediT. In such cases, the editorial board could consider revising the CROTs roles or providing guidelines for contributors to list these roles in the CROTs or acknowledgement section.
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of research in the LIS field highlights a growing need for clear contributorship specification. Despite this, research on CROTs in LIS remains extremely scarce. Existing studies, if any, have not analyzed CROTs across various journals, with only a frontier study by Fitzgerald et al. (2020) examining contributor roles in 49 papers from College & Research Libraries. In contrast, this study provided a significant data-driven illustration of the CROTs landscape in LIS papers. Data was collected and analyzed for 749 instances of CROTs from nine SSCI-indexed LIS journals, which often demonstrate authors’ preferences for submission within the field, to assess their current implementation. This assessment revealed that the adoption of CROTs in LIS journals remains limited. However, some journals, notably Elsevier, proactively implemented CROTs by listing them for co-authors in their papers. Despite these positive efforts, instances occurred where papers were published without adhering to the prescribed CROTs format, which can be considered a significant shortcoming.
Furthermore, directly applying CRediT, the standardized contributorship model prevalent in the medical field, presents challenges for LIS research. Literature reviews, an integral part of LIS research, often span the entire study. While CRediT roles such as conceptualization or investigation may partially cover literature reviews, the taxonomy lacks an explicit role for this critical task. Therefore, it is proposed that roles such as “literature synthesis” or “literature review” be incorporated into the CRediT framework. Indeed, the data analysis revealed instances where these roles were specifically mentioned, underscoring the necessity for their inclusion. This effort aims to foster a broader discussion on ensuring fairer role distribution among research collaborators.
For example, in almost all journals, the phrase “All authors have contributed equally” was occasionally used instead of specifying individual roles. While this study identified this phenomenon, it did not concretely determine its causes. However, it is possible to speculate on potential reasons. One possibility is that authors collaborated so closely that roles overlapped rather than being strictly divided, unlike in fields such as medicine. Another reason could be that authors reluctantly complied with journal requirements for CROTs specification, resulting in vague or boilerplate statements. This may indicate a lack of awareness of CROTs’ importance or a failure to reach consensus among authors on how to define their roles. Ultimately, preventing such ambiguous CROTs statements will require enhancing authors’ awareness and commitment to clear role definition. Therefore, future research is needed to investigate LIS authors’ perceptions of CROTs, ideally through an in-depth interview approach rather than a simple survey, as interviewing corresponding authors from papers that declare equal contribution could offer particularly rich and meaningful insights.
It is important to recognize the limitations of this study. While this research analyzed CROTs from nine SSCI-indexed LIS journals, its findings may not fully represent the diversity across the entire LIS field or other academic disciplines. The sample might be biased due to the exclusion of journals that publish fewer than 10 articles explicitly mentioning CROTs per year, potentially misrepresenting the actual adoption of CROTs in the broader LIS landscape. A limitation to be acknowledged is that while identifying CROTs-related sections (such as CRediT, Author Contributions, or Notes) is a straightforward task, the manual nature of the data collection process introduces a possibility of human error. Consequently, interpretations of these results should be considered within this context. Future research employing a broader scope and automated methods would be beneficial to validate these findings.
Consequently, future research should focus on developing next-generation CROTs standards that address the needs of academic publishing stakeholders. A crucial step involves conducting surveys or interviews with authors, editors, and publishing organizations to determine the most appropriate CROTs standards for specific fields. For LIS, once a field-specific CROTs standard is established, it should be incorporated into online submission systems to ensure each contributor’s role is clearly specified. A potential solution is to make it mandatory for authors to specify their co-authors’ roles, similar to how keywords are provided for research content.
Successful implementation of such initiatives could prevent non-contributors from being listed as authors and alleviate dissatisfaction among early-career researchers due to unclear role attribution. It would also ensure proper acknowledgment for researchers contributing innovative methodologies, such as software developers (implementing code, supporting algorithms, conducting code testing) and those involved in statistical analysis. This fosters professional pride and potentially opens new funding opportunities (Holcombe, 2019). Ultimately, establishing clear and fair contributorship practices will not only enhance collaboration and build trust among research teams, but also advance the transparency and maturity of academic publishing cultures.
REFERENCES
, , (2019) How can we ensure visibility and diversity in research contributions? How the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) is helping the shift from authorship to contributorship Learned Publishing, 32, 71-74 https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1210.
, , , , (2014) Publishing: Credit where credit is due Nature, 508, 312-313 https://doi.org/10.1038/508312a.
, (2021) Journal of the Medical Library Association Journal of the Medical Library Association, 109, 362-364 https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2021.1294.
, , , , (2015) Beyond authorship: Attribution, contribution, collaboration, and credit Learned Publishing, 28, 151-155 https://doi.org/10.1087/20150211.
(2018) Examining interdisciplinarity of library and information science (LIS) based on LIS articles contributed by non-LIS authors Scientometrics, 116, 1589-1613 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2822-7.
(2021) Characteristics of high research performance authors in the field of library and information science and those of their articles Scientometrics, 126, 3373-3391 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03898-y.
, , , (2021) PLOS ONE Scientometrics, 126, 7561-7581 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-04075-x.
, , , (2020) Modeling transparency in roles: Moving from authorship to contributorship College & Research Libraries, 81, 1056-1060 https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.7.1056.
, , , , (2020) Honorary authorships in the ophthalmological literature Journal of Current Ophthalmology, 32, 199-202 https://doi.org/10.4103/JOCO.JOCO_104_20. Article Id (pmcid)
, (2019) Authorship and the consideration of alternatives College & Research Libraries, 80, 2-7 https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.80.1.2.
(2019) Contributorship, not authorship: Use CRediT to indicate who did what Publications, 7, 48 https://doi.org/10.3390/publications7030048.
, , , (2021) tenzing PLOS ONE, 15, e0244611 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244611. Article Id (pmcid)
, , , , , (2023) Evolution and adoption of contributor role ontologies and taxonomies Learned Publishing, 36, 275-284 https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1496.
, , , (2024) A systematic scoping review of the ethics of Contributor Role Ontologies and Taxonomies Accountability in Research, 31, 678-705 https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2022.2161049. Article Id (pmcid)
, (2017) Authorship norms and project structures in science Science, Technology, & Human Values, 42, 872-900 https://doi.org/10.1177/ .
(2020) Productivity, visibility, authorship, and collaboration in library and information science journals: Central and Eastern European authors Scientometrics, 122, 1189-1219 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03308-4.
, , , (2015) Team size matters: Collaboration and scientific impact since 1900 Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66, 1323-1332 https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23266.
, , (2021) Investigating the division of scientific labor using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) Quantitative Science Studies, 2, 111-128 https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00097.
, , (2020) Factors influencing the choice of a publication venue in library and information science Learned Publishing, 33, 323-332 https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1300.
, (2005) The impact of research collaboration on scientific productivity Social Studies of Science, 35, 673-702 https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312705052359.
, (2024) PLOS ONE Journal of Data and Information Science, 9, 88-115 https://doi.org/10.2478/jdis-2024-0015.
, , , , , , , , (2002) Prevalence of honorary and ghost authorship in Cochrane reviews JAMA, 287, 2769-2771 https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.287.21.2769.
, (2023) Why does researchers' collaboration matter in research activities? Higher Education Quarterly, 77, 741-755 https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12431.
, , , , , , , , , , , , , (2022) Choosing the 'right' journal for publication: Perceptions and practices of pandemic-era early career researchers Learned Publishing, 35, 605-616 https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1488.
, , , (2017) The sum of it all: Revealing collaboration patterns by combining authorship and acknowledgements Journal of Informetrics, 11, 80-87 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2016.11.005.
(2023) The identity of information science Journal of Documentation, 80, 579-596 https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-04-2023-0074.
(2010) Analysis of the interdisciplinary nature of library and information science Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 42, 256-267 https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000610380820.
(2019) Elsevier expands CRediT approach to authorship https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elsevier-expands-credit-approach-to-authorship-300972468.html
, , , (2022) Factors influencing researchers' journal selection decisions Journal of Information Science, 48, 321-335 https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551520958591.
, , (2023) Acknowledgments in scientific papers Publishing Research Quarterly, 39, 280-299 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-023-09955-z.
, , (2023) The association of disciplinary background with the evolution of topics and methods in library and information science research 1995-2015 Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 74, 811-827 https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24757.
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (2021) Is authorship sufficient for today's collaborative research? A call for contributor roles Accountability in Research, 28, 23-43 https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2020.1779591. Article Id (pmcid)
, , , (2011) Honorary and ghost authorship in high impact biomedical journals: A cross sectional survey BMJ, 343, d6128 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d6128. Article Id (pmcid)