AUTHORSHIP AND CONTRIBUTORSHIP

On This Page

1. Eligibility for Authorship	5. Contributors Who Are Not Authors
2. Author Contribution Statement	6. Unacceptable Authorship Practices
3. Author Approval, Order, and Metadata	7. Changes to Authorship
4. Responsibilities of the Corresponding Author	8. Authorship Disagreements

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1. Eligibility for Authorship

A person may be listed as an author only if he or she meets all four of the criteria below.

No.	Criterion
1	Makes a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work, to the collection of data or materials, or to the analysis and interpretation of the findings.
2	Drafts the manuscript, or revises it critically for important intellectual content.
3	Approves the final version that is submitted to the journal, and any later substantial revision.
4	Agrees to be accountable for the work, and helps to answer questions about the accuracy and the integrity of any part of it.

People who make a substantial contribution must be given a fair opportunity to take part in the preparation, the review, and the approval of the manuscript.

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2. Author Contribution Statement

• Every manuscript must be accompanied by a statement that names each author and describes the actual contribution of that author. All authors must review and approve the statement.
• The contributions may be described in narrative form or with the terms of CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy), which are listed below.
• One contribution may be shared by several authors, and one author may hold several roles.
• Listing a role does not by itself make a person eligible for authorship.
• A manuscript with a single author also needs a statement about what the author did.
• The MUKASI template does not have a dedicated section for this statement. Send it together with the submission, for example in the comments for the editor, or when the editorial team asks for it during the review.

The 14 roles of CRediT

Role	Short meaning
Conceptualization	Formulating the ideas, the aims, and the goals of the research
Methodology	Developing or designing the method and the research design
Software	Programming and the development of computer code
Validation	Verifying the replication and the reproducibility of the results
Formal analysis	Applying statistical, mathematical, or other techniques to analyze the data
Investigation	Carrying out the research, including the collection of data and evidence
Resources	Providing materials, instruments, participants, or other resources
Data curation	Managing, annotating, and maintaining the data
Writing: original draft	Preparing the first version of the manuscript
Writing: review and editing	Reviewing the manuscript critically, commenting on it, and revising it
Visualization	Preparing figures, tables, and other presentations of data
Supervision	Overseeing and leading the planning and the execution of the research
Project administration	Managing and coordinating the research activities
Funding acquisition	Obtaining financial support for the project

Example of a contribution statement

This example is only an illustration of the format. The statement of your own manuscript must describe the real contribution of each author, and it must not be copied without a basis.

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3. Author Approval, Order, and Metadata

• All authors must approve the submission of the manuscript, the list and the order of the names, the statement of contributions, the choice of the corresponding author, and any substantial revision.
• The order of the names is agreed by the authors on the basis of their contributions and the norms of their discipline. The journal does not judge the size of a contribution from the position of a name.
• A statement of equal contribution is allowed if it is accurate and agreed by all authors.
• When you submit, enter the names, the affiliations, and the email addresses of all authors in the metadata of the submission. The names and their order must be the same as in the manuscript.
• Every author is expected to understand the work as a whole and to know who is responsible for each part of it.

4. Responsibilities of the Corresponding Author

The corresponding author is the main contact between the authors and the journal. The corresponding author does not have sole ownership of the work and cannot override the approval of the co authors. In the manuscript, an asterisk (*) marks the corresponding author, as explained in the Author Guidelines.

No.	Duty of the corresponding author
1	Make sure that all the people who are entitled to be authors are listed, and that all of them have approved the submission.
2	Coordinate the author information, the statement of contributions, and the declarations that the policies of the journal require.
3	Pass on the editorial correspondence and the requests for revision to the co authors, and coordinate the responses that they agreed on.
4	Keep an active email address, and answer the questions of the editorial team and of the readers, both before and after publication.

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5. Contributors Who Are Not Authors

People who do not meet all the criteria of section 1 are named in the acknowledgments. This section is placed after the conclusion and before the references. Describe the contribution of each person, and make sure that every person agrees to be named. Funders and providers of facilities are also named in the acknowledgments.

The activities in the table below do not make a person an author by themselves. A person who does them can be an author only if he or she also meets all four criteria of section 1.

Activity	How it is recognized
Obtaining funding	Named in the acknowledgments, with a description of the contribution
General supervision of a research group
Leadership of an institution
Providing access to facilities, research sites, or informants
Routine technical work
Translation
Language editing and proofreading
Administrative support
Professional writing or editing assistance (the source of funding must also be stated)

Naming a person in the acknowledgments does not replace the declarations that the Conflicts of Interest policy requires.

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6. Unacceptable Authorship Practices

MUKASI does not accept the practices in the table below.

Practice	What it means
Gift or honorary authorship	Listing a person who does not meet the criteria because of status, seniority, position, a relationship, or a favor. An example is adding a supervisor, a head of a study program, or a dean only because of the position.
Guest authorship	Adding a well known name to increase the credibility of the work, although the person does not meet the criteria.
Ghost authorship	Leaving out a person who is entitled to be an author, or hiding substantial help that was received.
Authorship trading or coercion	Selling, exchanging, or forcing authorship without a contribution that meets the criteria.

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7. Changes to Authorship

A request to add or remove an author, to change the order of the names, or to change the corresponding author must be sent to the editorial office at jurnal.mukasi@gmail.com. The request must include the items below.

No.	Required item
1	The title of the manuscript and the submission ID
2	The proposed change and the reason for it
3	An updated statement of contributions, if the change affects it
4	The written approval of every author who is affected, including the person who is added or removed

• The editorial team assesses every request and does not approve it automatically. The processing of the manuscript may be paused while the request is clarified.
• A request that is made after the manuscript has been accepted is examined more closely. If the request is approved, the editorial office updates the author data of the submission.
• After publication, an approved change is made in accordance with the Correction and Retraction policy.
• If an author cannot be reached, for example because of death or incapacity, the other authors must explain the situation so that the editorial team can assess it. The authors must not assume that approval has been given.

8. Authorship Disagreements

• Disagreements about contributions or about the order of the names should be settled before the manuscript is submitted.
• The journal may ask for an explanation and for supporting evidence, but it does not decide by itself between competing claims.
• An unresolved disagreement may be referred to the institution of the authors or to another competent body, and the editorial processing of the manuscript may be paused.
• A formal investigation follows the Allegations of Misconduct policy. Action on an article that has already been published follows the Correction and Retraction policy.

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Related Instructions and Enquiries

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