Authorship Guidelines
Introduction
The University of Illinois (UI) fosters publication of scientific and scholarly periodicals, pursuant to UI Statutes Article XII, which are edited, published, and subsidized by the system. Authors and artists who are member of the academic ranks, as defined by the UI Statutes, may copyright their works except for works specifically commissioned by the system in writing and works prepared under terms of a system grant or contract which provides otherwise. The UI General Rules Concerning University Organization and Procedures Article III., Section 4 provides additional guidance regarding ownership of traditional academic copyrightable works, stating that, except in the circumstances therein described, creators retain ownership of their copyrightable works. Therefore, except in specific circumstances, members of the UIC academic ranks maintain ownership and control over their publications, including authorship decisions associated with those publications.
The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is committed to fostering the highest standards of research integrity, including the attribution of authorship based on appropriate authorship criteria. UIC researchers and scholars regularly disseminate their ideas, research, and scholarship in the form of scholarly publications. Scholarly publications may include books, book chapters, manuscripts, white-papers, articles, abstracts, proceedings, presentations at professional meetings, or other scholarly works. Scholarly publications allow the authors to convey their ideas, findings, and accomplishments to their peers and/or to the lay public.
It is commonly understood and accepted that authorship should be based on clearly defined contributions to scholarly publications. Authorship has benefits, so individuals that have made substantial, direct intellectual contributions should be properly acknowledged. Failure to appropriately acknowledge an individual who has made a defined contribution to a scholarly publication includes situations known as orphan authorship and ghost authorship, where ghost authorship is typically voluntary.
Authorship has responsibilities, so individuals that have not made substantial, direct intellectual contributions should be generally not acknowledged. Inappropriate, unearned authorship includes honorary authorship, guest authorship, coercive authorship, forged authorship, gift authorship, mutual support authorship, authorship for sale, and other forms of unearned authorship.
The criteria for determining contributions and the ordering of authors are discipline specific and many disciplines have generally recognized authorship guidelines or codes of ethics. The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research recommends that each unit at the UIC either develop authorship guidelines consistent with those generally recognized in their discipline or with the UIC recommended guidelines (see below).
Those guidelines should outline the criteria for both appropriately acknowledging an author and determining the order of authorship. Once developed and approved by the Unit head, the guidelines should be made available to all unit scholars. If the authorship practices within a unit are too diverse, units may recommend that sub-units or individual faculty to develop and publicly disseminate guidelines.
Authorship disputes occur most often as a result of failure to have clearly defined authorship criteria that are known to all potential authors leading to intentional or mistaken failure to assign authorship to an individual earning authorship, inability of authors to agree to the order of authors, and/or conflict in assignment of specific authorship responsibilities. Authorship disputes also occur when an individual who has not made substantial, direct intellectual contributions is acknowledged as an author or requests authorship. Discussing authorship criteria and order of authorship early in a research collaboration can help to avoid authorship disputes before they happen, especially in situations involving potential authors from various institutions and providing different levels of contribution. For trainees, this discussion should occur as early as possible in the relationship, even before agreeing to join a research group.
Authorship Attribution and Order
It is generally accepted that authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial, direct, and intellectual contributions to the scholarly publication through conception and design, data collection and analysis, or interpretation.
All authors should be given the opportunity to review and approve the final scholarly publication.
The following recommended criteria for authorship and authorship order are based on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommended criteria.
Authorship Criteria
All individuals that have made substantial, direct, and intellectual contributions should be given, prior to submission of a scholarly publication, an opportunity to meet three additional criteria for authorship:
- Writing, drafting, and/or revising the scholarly publication; AND
- Reviewing and approving of the final submitted scholarly publication prior to submission; AND
- Accountability for the accuracy and integrity of:
- the whole of the scholarly publication; or
- the part of the scholarly publication to which that the individual has been documented to have contributed and faith in the accuracy and integrity of the parts contributed by other individuals.
Order of Authorship
The order of authorship should generally reflect each author’s level of substantial, direct, and intellectual contributions.
First Author(s): The first author(s) is(are) individual(s) who contributed to the scholarly publication to the greatest extent and who typically composed the first draft of the manuscript. Shared first authorship (co-first authors) should reflect that all co-first authors made equal substantial, direct, and intellectual contributions to the manuscript.
Remaining Author(s): The remaining authors should be listed in order of decreasing substantial, direct, and intellectual contributions.
Senior authors: The senior authors may be listed last in order with the senior author who oversaw the work being last and the other contributing senior authors being listed in inverse order of their individual and group’s substantial, direct, and intellectual contributions.
Acknowledgement of other Individuals
Individuals that contributed to the work, but who did not meet the criteria for authorship, should be acknowledged in the acknowledgment section of the manuscript, but not as authors. For example, individuals who conducted physical labor, supplied widely available materials or instrumentation, provided funding without substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution, or conducted copy editing services should not be awarded authorship, and may be acknowledged for those contributions.
Changes to Authorship
Authorship decisions may change during the course of the development of a scholarly publication, including during the peer review process when new information is added, information is removed, or data is reworked to address reviews, and can also occasionally change after acceptance of the manuscript. All authors and potential authors should use these authorship guidelines, unless otherwise agreed upon in advance, to determine who is an author and the order of authorship. Any changes to authorship and order of authorship of a scholarly publication should be done consistent with these guidelines. All authors should be informed of and review any proposed changes to authorship and authorship order. Disputes related to changes in authorship should be handled as “authorship disputes” pursuant to these guidelines.
General Authorship Concepts
These ideas are concepts that are related to authorship or should be considered when submitting a scholarly publication.
Acknowledgement of Financial Interest
All authors should disclose financial interests in each scholarly publication and as part of the outside activity disclosure process.
Financial interests should also always be disclosed at the submission of a manuscript and/or within the manuscript text as required by the journal, publisher, or similar group that oversee the scholarly publication.
Financial support may be grants, contracts, awards, in-kind support, or gifts that support the research. In-kind support includes materials, personnel time working on a project for free, and other non-financial support.
Artificial Intelligence as an Author
Authors may use generative artificial intelligence (AI) aid in preparation of scholarly publications; however, the authors must review any AI-generated content for accuracy and absence of plagiarism to assure the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work. Documentation of the use of AI in forming scholarly publications is encouraged. Authors should not list or cite AI as an author. This is consistent with the ICMJE recommendations for AI usage.
Authorship Affiliation(s)
Authors should always list in their published works all the affiliated institutions where and/or for which the underlying work was conducted. A published work should identify the University of Illinois Chicago as an affiliated institution if it resulted from scholarly activities or research conducted at or for the University of Illinois Chicago. An authors should include all current affiliations.
An author may add any current affiliations when the author has changed institutions, in addition to identifying affiliated institutions where or for which the underlying the work for the publication was conducted. The new affiliation should be identified as a current affiliation. For example, the University of Illinois Chicago can be added as the current affiliation for scholarly publications where the scholarly activities or research were completed at another institution, but the individual has moved to the University of Illinois Chicago after the completion of the scholarly activities or research, but prior to publication.
Affiliations should be disclosed as appropriate to the journal, publisher, or meeting. However, all affiliations should be acknowledged, at minimum.
Authors should not list institutions to which they hold or held no affiliation. Previously held affiliations can be listed where substantial, direct, and intellectual contributions at that site are included in the publication as described above.
There may be exceptions to this guidance, but authors should always strive for full transparency.
Authorship Benefits
UIC acknowledges the following benefits of authorship of scholarly work:
- Authorship of scholarly publications provides credit to authors for their ideas, findings, and accomplishments.
- Authorship of scholarly publications demonstrates and establishes the expertise of the author.
- Authorship of scholarly publications demonstrates the successful completion of the scholarly process, suggesting the ability to complete scholarly works in the future.
- Authorship of scholarly publications is considered, at least in part, in employment, promotions, tenure, funding, and award decisions.
These benefits of authorship, therefore, should be reserved for those who substantially, directly, and intellectually contributed to a given scholarly publication.
Authorship Responsibilities
Authors are responsible for the accuracy and veracity of the manuscripts on which they are listed as author. Interdisciplinary scholarly publications result in situations where all authors may not be able to judge the substantial, direct, and intellectual contributions of all co-authors. In these situations, all authors should be able to clearly identify their own substantial, direct, and intellectual contributions and the substantial, direct, and intellectual contributions of their co-authors. All authors should also have confidence in the work of those co-authors.
Hostage Manuscripts
An individual who asserts an authorship right should not hold their approval of the manuscript for specific conditions unrelated to the quality and/or readiness of the manuscript for publication.
Holding the approval of the manuscript for issues related to authorship, authorship order, or issues other than the quality or readiness of the manuscript would be considered holding the manuscript hostage. Disputes related to alleged hostage manuscripts should be handled as authorship disputes.
Holding a manuscript to improve the quality of the manuscript, such as collection of additional information or data or revising the content, is considered to be a typical part of the revision process and is not usually considered holding the manuscript hostage.
Interunit and interinstitutional Scholarly Publications
Scholarly works may include contributions from authors from different units within the same institution and/or authors affiliated with different institutions. Authorship decisions should be made irrespective of the institution for which the individual is employed/affiliated.
All potential authors should determine as early as possible in the collaboration and in advance of publication, which guidelines for authorship will be used when multiple units or institutions are involved that have conflicting guidelines. The guidelines may be those already established by one unit or institution, or the guidelines may be negotiated among potential authors for a specific scholarly publication prior to final determination of the authorship and authorship order. Those guidelines should be shared with all contributors to underlying work prior to them engaging in the work whenever possible.
Plagiarism
Failure to give proper attribution to an author may constitute plagiarism. Plagiarism typically occurs when no formal collaborating or mentoring relationship exists where ideas are thought to be freely shared among the collaborators or mentee(s) and mentor(s). The burden of proof that the ideas, processes, results, or words were solely one individual’s (i.e. plagiarism may have occurred) lies with the individual making that claim when the involved individuals are collaborators and/or in a mentoring or training relationship. No Research Misconduct proceeding will be initiated, under the University of Illinois Policy on Integrity in Research and Publication, unless and until significant evidence of plagiarism is provided by the collaborating individual(s) making that claim. Disputes related to plagiarism among collaborators should be handled as authorship disputes.
Relinquishing Authorship
An author or potential author may elect to relinquish authorship rights so long as the individual is not coerced or pressured to do so. Documentation of the choice of an individual that has relinquished authorship outlining a general reason why authorship was relinquished should be maintained by the communicating author. Disputes over whether authorship has been relinquished, and if the choice was voluntary, should be handled as authorship disputes.
Authorship Disputes
Authorship disputes may arise for a variety of reasons, including failure to agree upon the extent and significance of specific individuals’ contributions and/or order of authorship. These disputes can be prevented if all potential authors should discuss and agree upon authorship guidelines that include the criteria for determining authorship and order of authorship early in the scholarly process. The potential authors should discuss who will be involved in the decisions and how the decisions will be made. Authorship decisions should not be made arbitrarily or unilaterally. All authors, and potential authors, should be consulted and agreement should be reached on authorship and authorship order prior to any submission using already agreed upon guidelines.
Authorship agreements that document the contributions of the authors are encouraged for all submissions. At least one author, typically the communicating author, last author, or senior author, should create and maintain a concise summary of the contributions of the authors in case there are disputes at a later date. The concise summary should include the rationale for any changes to authorship (e.g., the inclusion of any new authors or changes to the order of authorship) that take place before, during, or after the submission or revision of the scholarly publication.
Contributions may also be documented using the contributor role taxonomy (CRediT) in the manuscript or as supplemental information. Even when the CRediT system is used, a summary of the specific portions of the scholarly publication for which a given author may be responsible may be helpful for interdisciplinary works.
UIC acknowledges that, as described above, authorship and publication decisions are, with limited exceptions, within the sole discretion of the individual members of the academic ranks at UIC. The following are recommendations for resolving authorship disputes.
Recommendations for Resolving Authorship Disputes
All authors and potential authors involved in an authorship disputes should attempt to resolve the dispute amicably whenever possible.
The UIC Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research recommends and encourages faculty, staff and students to use dispute resolution mechanisms available to them, specifically to approach and utilize the unit executive officer or their designee for assistance where amicable resolution cannot be reached directly among authors. This may be a department chair or head, department associate head for research, dean, associate dean for research, or another similar individual. When multiple units or institutions are involved, the unit executive officers should coordinate the dispute resolution or bring in an unbiased third party to resolve the dispute. If the unit executive officer(s) are unable or unwilling to assist with resolution, the UIC Dispute Resolution Services (DRS), or similar dispute resolution services at other involved institutions, may be helpful. The UIC Office of Research Integrity and Research Integrity Officer (RIO) do not mediate authorship disputes; however, the RIO may consult on authorship practices involving UIC affiliated authors, upon request and as appropriate.
This resolution approach is consistent with the committee on publication ethics (COPE) guidelines and recommendations.
Acknowledgement
Acknowledgement: These guidelines are the culmination of the work of many people over several years. A committee was charged with determining if policy or other guidelines were needed. These guidelines are the initial result of that committee composed of representatives of all UIC colleges.
Last Updated: January 1, 2026