Beyond authorship: recognising the contributions to research

Researcher Responses to the CReDIT Taxonomy

[David Baker, Jo Scott, Micah Altman]

First Draft: What respondents liked

• Using the taxonomy was generally clear/well defined

• All contributors should be recognised for their work

• Formalising the process is a good idea

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First Draft: Respondents’ concerns

• Ensuring that taxonomy is

– comprehensive

– Inclusive

– fit-for-purpose

• Challenging to

– appreciate all aspects of author contributions in a paper

– ensure agreement among authors

– ensure the system is fairResearcher Responses to the CReDIT

Taxonomy12/10/14 4

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 analyse 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 re-use.

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 the 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.Researcher Responses to the CReDIT Taxonomy

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Summary of FindingsWho responded?

Predominantly senior male researchers located in the US or UKconducting work in biological or biomedical sciences.

How did they respond to terms?

A clear majority agreed with almost all of the proposed terms.

How did they respond to other questions?

A strong majority were in favor of having the contributing author assign roles, with some form of confirmation from other contributors, and reporting coarse-grained degree of contribution

12/10/14Researcher Responses to the CReDIT

Taxonomy7

Consultation on the taxonomy

Aim

• To obtain feedback on the refined 14-term contributor role taxonomy and to think about implementation

Method

• An online feedback form to collect views from the scientific community (i.e. researchers, funders, publishers etc.) around the 14 terms in the taxonomy

• 116 complete responses were received

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Respondent Characteristics

12/10/14Researcher Responses to the CReDIT

Taxonomy10

Term 4: Validation

Term 13: Project Administration

Term 11: Visualization

Term 8: Data Curation

Term 14: Funding Acquisition

Term 7: Resources

Term 10: Writing - Review & Editing

Term 3: Software

Term 12: Supervision

Term 2: Methodology

Term 5: Formal Analysis

Term 9: Writing - Original Draft

Term 1: Conceptualization

Term 6: Investigation

Strongly disagree Tend to disagree No strong opinion either way Tend to agree Strongly agree

To what extent do you agree or disagree that this term should be included in a contributor roles taxonomy?Base: All, n=116

50%

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Term 4: Validation

Term 13: Project Administration

Term 11: Visualization

Term 8: Data Curation

Term 14: Funding Acquisition

Term 7: Resources

Term 10: Writing - Review & Editing

Term 3: Software

Term 12: Supervision

Term 2: Methodology

Term 5: Formal Analysis

Term 9: Writing - Original Draft

Term 1: Conceptualization

Term 6: Investigation

Strongly disagree Tend to disagree No strong opinion either way Tend to agree Strongly agree

To what extent do you agree or disagree that this term should be included in a contributor roles taxonomy?Base: All, n=116

50%

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Coarse-Grained Degree of contribution

73

43 Yes

No

In any given implementation of the taxonomy, in your opinion, should contributors be able to express what degree of contribution they made in relation to each role? Base: All, n=116 Researcher Responses to the CReDIT

Taxonomy12/10/14 13

Who should assign contributor roles?

1410

66

26

Correspondingauthor

Self-assigned byeach contributor

Correspondingauthor initially,

followed byconfirmation byeach contributor

Other

In any given implementation of the taxonomy, in your opinion, who should assign contributor roles?Base: All, n=116

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Unpacking other…

Most favored some form of confirmation.

E.g. corresponding author with appeal, consensus, or self assigned with confirmation by corresponding author.

Selected Critical Comments

Funding acquisition – main issue was that this should not count as authorship. If this is implemented need to make sure that researchers recognise that this system is moving away from the concept of author

Data curation – part of methodology or analysis?

Visualization – not worth a separate category, should be within data analysis?

Project administration - should be with supervision, shouldn’t qualify for authorship

Validation – shouldn’t be a separate activity; part of methodology/investigation

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Current Profile Terms and Definitions

• Each term received suggested alternate terms.– For example:

• Each term received alternate or expanded definitions.– For example:

Current Term: Methodology

Methods development Designing the experiment

Methodology designer Method planning

Study design Optimization of methodology

Definition of Methodology: Development or design of methodology; creation of models.

Creation of procedures or methods.

Development of methodological plan; design of new methodology; creation of models.

The planned process of creating an action plan for procedures, that when carried out, will produce an analysis of data that answers the hypothesis. It includes both a plan for conducting the experiment, collecting and managing data, and analysis of data for answering the hypothesis.

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Selected Additional Terms

• Over 30 new terms suggested, most with definitions– Examples include:

Term Definition

Interpretation Using results to produce sound conclusions.

Data Illustration Production of illustration, graphics and figures essential to the data production, publication or presentation.

Ethics Approval Responsibility for acquiring and compliance with ethics approval.

Useful Discussions

Informal discussions about the research work that lead to refinement of ideas and/or approaches/methodologies.

Communication Similar to visualisation but broader - can include summarising, blogging, press/media work. Communicating the results of research, either to a specialist or lay audience.

Editorial Journal editor who curated from submission to publication.

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Recommendations

1. Adopt all proposed terms, as defined

2. Adopt coarse-grained degree of contribution(e.g. “substantial/equal/supporting”)

3. Recommend practice for implementers:corresponding author assign roles, with review and confirmation by all contributors.

4. Gather targeted input from social scientists, natural scientists, junior researchers(e.g. through field test)

5. Capture additional suggestions from responses {terms, clarifications, synonyms} in user-facing documentation (e.g. online contextual “help”)

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