Authorship & Contributorship

Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal

Authorship & Contributorship

ASSRJ’s authorship criteria, CRediT contributor roles, ORCID, authorship changes and the journal’s position on guest, ghost and gift authorship.

ASSRJ expects authorship to be assigned honestly and transparently. This policy follows the principles of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and COPE.

Who qualifies as an author

Authorship should be based on all of the following:

✓a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data;
✓drafting or critically revising the work for important intellectual content;
✓approving the final version to be published; and
✓agreeing to be accountable for the work, including the accuracy and integrity of all parts of it.

Those who contributed but do not meet all four criteria (for example funding acquisition, general supervision, language editing or data collection alone) should be recognised in the Acknowledgements rather than listed as authors.

Contributor roles (CRediT)

Authors must specify each individual’s contribution using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) — for example Conceptualisation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualisation, Supervision, Project Administration and Funding Acquisition. This statement is published with the article.

ORCID

The corresponding author is required to provide an ORCID iD, and all co-authors are strongly encouraged to do so. ORCID ensures work is correctly attributed and discoverable. Register free at orcid.org.

Corresponding author

The corresponding author manages communication with the journal, ensures all co-authors meet the criteria and have approved the submission, and is responsible for administrative requirements such as ethics documentation and conflict-of-interest disclosures.

Changes to authorship

Any addition, removal or reordering of authors after submission requires the written agreement of all authors (including any being added or removed), sent to the Editorial Office with the reason for the change. Authorship cannot normally be changed after acceptance; requests at that stage are handled following COPE guidance.

Guest, ghost and gift authorship

The journal prohibits ghost authorship (omitting a qualifying contributor), gift or honorary authorship (naming someone who did not contribute) and guest authorship intended to lend prestige. Such practices are treated as misconduct. Generative-AI tools cannot be listed as authors, as they cannot take responsibility for the work (see the Generative AI Policy).

Disputes

The journal does not adjudicate authorship disputes on their merits; it asks the authors and, where necessary, their institutions to resolve them, following COPE flowcharts. Publication may be paused until a dispute is resolved.