Authorship Policy

IntechOpen's Authorship Policy is based on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. Although these criteria are drafted for medical journals editors, we believe that they are not field specific to but can be universally applied across all disciplines. In order to be identified as an Author, the following requirements must be met:

A substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
Participation in drafting or revising the work;
Approval of the manuscript version to be published;
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.

All contributors who meet these criteria are listed as Authors. Their exact contributions should be described in the manuscript at the time of submission. We recognise Authors as persons of full legal age, with the age of majority defined by the country of residence.

Contributors who do not meet all four criteria should not be listed as Authors but their contribution (e.g. technical assistance, acquisition of funding, administrative support, research supervision, language editing, etc.) acknowledged.

The Corresponding Author is responsible for ensuring that all Authors fulfill the criteria for authorship.

CORRESPONDENCE

Each manuscript should have a named Author for correspondence. The Corresponding Author is responsible for all communication during the peer review and publication process. This Author also takes responsibility for submitting the manuscript and ensuring it adheres to all editorial and ethical requirements, has been submitted with any relevant documentation, and includes a conflict of interest statement.

All other Authors should be listed in order of contribution (noting any Authors who made equal contributions) and their affiliations specified. If a paper is authored by a consortium, the consortium should be named in the author list and all Authors within the consortium listed in an appendix to the manuscript.

Authors’ first names should be given in full, followed by initials for additional or middle names, and then surname in full.

CHANGES IN AUTHORSHIP

IntechOpen follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines for changes in authorship or managing potential disputes among Authors.

Any changes to an author list at any point during the submission and publication process will result in verification checks to ensure added, or removed Authors are aware of the changes and can verify their contributions to the manuscript. Any change to an author list after the official publication may be realized through a Correction Notice. All authorship disputes will be addressed based on the COPE guidelines.

AFFILIATION

All Authors should provide an affiliation and an institutional email address at the point of submission for verification purposes and to attribute the place where the work was performed, supported, or approved. If an institutional email cannot be provided Authors will need to verify their institutional address via a different means. IntechOpen will use internationally recognised country affiliations and may occasionally need to request changes to affiliations for consistency across the journals and books portfolios. IntechOpen will remain neutral in regard to affiliations used.

RESPONSIBILITY

The Corresponding Author is responsible for ensuring that all Authors fulfil the criteria for authorship. To be listed, Authors should have made substantial contributions to the work submitted to IntechOpen, for example, by designing the study, conducting experiments, collating, or analysing data or providing software/tools/services used in the generation of the submitted work. If researchers do not fulfil the requirements to be listed as an Author, please include them within the acknowledgements section of the manuscript.

The Corresponding Author:

acts on behalf of all Co-Authors and contributors,
warrants and represents that they have the authority to act on behalf of all Co-Authors
warrants and represents that all Co-Authors agree on the submission and the terms and conditions set by the publisher

AUTHORSHIP AND AI TOOLS

As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics, IntechOpen fully aligns with COPE’s position on authorship and Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools.

AI tools cannot be listed as Authors on a manuscript since they fail to meet the criteria set for defining the authorship, including the accountability for the work (for both the accuracy and integrity of the work), managing copyright and license agreements, and asserting the presence or absence of conflict of interest.

Authors should disclose in the Materials and Methods (or similar) section how the AI tool was used in producing the manuscript and which tool was used. The responsibility for the content, including those parts produced by an AI tool, lies entirely with the Author. The Authors are liable for any breach of publication ethics.

Since the AI tools are constantly evolving this policy is to be updated with the most current developments.

Policy last updated: 05 October 2023