Authorship Contributorship

Editorial Policies

Authorship and Contributorship

The Journal of Rural and Tropical Nursing (JRTN) requires that authorship reflects genuine intellectual contribution and responsibility. All authors listed on a submission must meet the criteria below. JRTN follows the authorship recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Authorship Criteria

Each person listed as an author must meet all four ICMJE criteria. Meeting only one or two criteria qualifies a person as a contributor, not an author.

Criterion 1 Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data.
Criterion 2 Drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content.
Criterion 3 Approval of the final version of the manuscript to be published.
Criterion 4 Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, including investigating and resolving questions related to accuracy or integrity.
Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript, with a brief description of their contribution.

CRediT Contributor Roles

JRTN encourages authors to describe individual contributions using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT).

CRediT provides a standardised vocabulary of 14 contributor roles that describe the specific contributions made by each author. Authors should assign one or more roles to each contributor in the authorship contribution statement included on the Title Page.

CRediT Roles

  • Conceptualisation
  • Data curation
  • Formal analysis
  • Funding acquisition
  • Investigation
  • Methodology
  • Project administration

 

  • Resources
  • Software
  • Supervision
  • Validation
  • Visualisation
  • Writing — original draft
  • Writing — review and editing

Changes to Authorship

Any change to the author list after submission requires a formal request and the written consent of all authors.

Adding an author The corresponding author must submit a written request to the editorial office explaining the reason for the addition. The request must be accompanied by signed consent from all existing authors and confirmation that the new author meets all four authorship criteria.
Removing an author A written request must be submitted with a clear explanation of the reason. The editorial office requires confirmation from the author being removed that they agree to the removal, or a formal justification when consent cannot be obtained.
Changing author order A written request must be submitted with a clear explanation of the reason for the change. Written agreement from all authors is required.
After acceptance Changes to authorship after a manuscript has been accepted are subject to additional scrutiny and may require editorial approval from the Editor-in-Chief. Changes after publication are only made in exceptional and documented circumstances.

Disputed authorship

JRTN will not adjudicate authorship disputes between authors. If a dispute is reported, the editorial office will request that the authors resolve the matter through their institution before the review or publication process proceeds. JRTN follows COPE guidelines in managing such situations.

Prohibited Authorship Practices

Ghost authorship: the practice of omitting an individual who meets all authorship criteria from the author list is not permitted.

Gift or guest authorship: listing an individual who does not meet all four ICMJE authorship criteria solely on the basis of seniority, position, or funding is not permitted.

AI as author: AI tools and large language models cannot be listed as authors because they cannot accept accountability for the work as required by Criterion 4. Use of AI tools must be disclosed in a separate statement on the Title Page.