Authorship Policies

Improvement: Jurnal Ilmiah Untuk Peningkatan Mutu Manajemen Pendidikan expects authorship to reflect real intellectual contribution and accountability. Authorship brings credit, and it also brings responsibility for the published work. This policy:

• defines who qualifies as an author;
• explains how contributions are reported;
• sets out step-by-step procedures for changes to authorship and for disputes.

It follows the ICMJE authorship criteria, the CRediT taxonomy, and COPE guidance.

1. Authorship Criteria

An author is a person who meets all four of the following criteria:

1. Substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data. Examples include fieldwork, interviews, document analysis, or theoretical development.
2. Drafting the manuscript, or critically revising it for important intellectual content.
3. Approval of the final version to be published.
4. Accountability: agreeing to be responsible for all aspects of the work, and making sure that questions about the accuracy or integrity of any part of it are properly investigated and resolved.

Each author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for which parts of the work, and should have confidence in the integrity of their co-authors’ contributions.

Contributions that do not by themselves justify authorship

• Acquiring funding, or general supervision or leadership of a research group or unit.
• Providing administrative, technical, or logistical support, such as research permits or access to schools or communities.
• Collecting data without involvement in its design or interpretation, such as enumerators or transcribers.
• Language editing, translation, proofreading, or formatting.
• Holding a position such as dean, head of department, or thesis supervisor, without meeting the four criteria.

These contributors should be named in the Acknowledgements, with their permission.

2. Unacceptable Authorship Practices

• Gift or honorary authorship: including people who did not meet the criteria, for example because of their seniority, position, or to increase the chances of publication.
• Guest authorship: adding a well-known name to give the manuscript more credibility.
• Ghost authorship: leaving out people who made substantial contributions, including professional writers, or failing to disclose their role.
• Purchased or traded authorship: buying, selling, or exchanging authorship positions, including through paper mills.
• Coercive authorship: requiring that a supervisor or official be included as a condition of access, supervision, or employment.
• AI authorship: listing generative AI tools as authors (see the Generative AI Policy).

These practices are treated as misconduct under the journal’s Research Misconduct policy.

3. Order of Authors and Roles

• The order of authors is a joint decision of all co-authors and should be agreed before submission. Authors should be ready to explain the order if asked.
• Corresponding author: the person who handles communication with the journal during submission, review, and publication. The corresponding author:
  • makes sure that all co-authors approve the submission and any revisions;
  • collects their declarations;
  • keeps them informed of the progress of the manuscript;
  • remains the contact person for questions after publication.
• Manuscripts based on student theses or dissertations should normally list the student as the first author. Supervisors may be co-authors only if they meet all four criteria.
• For group authorship (e.g., a research consortium), the individuals who meet the criteria must be named, and the group name may be given as well.

4. Reporting Contributions (CRediT)

All manuscripts with more than one author must include an Author Contributions statement on the title page, using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) roles:

Roles such as Supervision, Resources, or Funding acquisition alone do not qualify for authorship. Every author must also contribute to writing (original draft or review & editing) and meet all four criteria in Section 1.

5. Author Information Requirements

• Use full names without academic titles or degrees, written consistently across publications.
• Give each author’s affiliation (university and country) at the time the research was carried out, and add a note for any current affiliation that differs.
• Provide an institutional email address and an ORCID iD for every author.
• Enter the same information in the OJS metadata, in the same order as in the manuscript.
• Author details appear only on the title page, not in the anonymised manuscript.

6. Changes to Authorship

6.1 Before acceptance

1. Request. The corresponding author emails the editor, with the subject line “Authorship change request – [Submission ID]”, and includes:
   • the current and proposed author lists, in order;
   • the reason for the change;
   • the CRediT contribution of any author being added.
2. Agreement. Written confirmation is required from all authors, including the author being added or removed. Confirmations may be given by email from each author’s institutional address, or on a signed form.
3. Assessment. The editor checks that the reasons are convincing and that any new author meets the criteria. The review process is paused while this is checked.
4. Decision. The editor approves or rejects the request within 14 days. If it is approved, the authors update the title page and the OJS metadata.

6.2 After acceptance

• Changes after acceptance are allowed only in exceptional circumstances. They follow the same procedure and need the approval of the Editor-in-Chief.

6.3 After publication

• Changes are made only through a published corrigendum, after the procedure in 6.1 and with the agreement of all authors (see the Correction & Retraction policy).
• Name changes for personal reasons, such as marriage or gender transition, can be made on request. If the author prefers, this is done discreetly, without a public notice.

7. Authorship Disputes

1. The editors encourage authors to resolve disagreements among themselves, before submission if possible.
2. The journal does not judge who deserves authorship. If the authors cannot agree, the editor pauses the review or publication process. The case is then referred to the authors’ institution(s), which are asked to investigate and report back.
3. The journal acts on the institution’s findings. For example, it may continue the review with the agreed author list, publish a corrigendum, or reject or retract the work if the dispute cannot be resolved.
4. If an author’s name was used without their knowledge or consent, the matter is handled under the Research Misconduct policy.

8. Responsibilities after Publication

• All authors share responsibility for responding to questions and concerns about the published work.
• All authors must cooperate with any correction, investigation, or retraction.
• Deceased authors may be included if they met the criteria. This is noted in the article, and the corresponding author takes responsibility for the authorship declaration.

Sources

• Allen, L., O’Connell, A., & Kiermer, V. (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(1), 71–74. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1210
• Committee on Publication Ethics. (2017). Core practices. https://publicationethics.org/core-practices
• Committee on Publication Ethics. (2023). Authorship and AI tools: COPE position statement. https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author
• Committee on Publication Ethics. (n.d.). Flowcharts [Request for addition or removal of an author before and after publication; suspected ghost, guest, or gift authorship]. https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (2024). Recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals (Section II.A: Defining the role of authors and contributors). https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/
• National Information Standards Organization. (2022). CRediT, Contributor Roles Taxonomy (ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022). https://credit.niso.org/