An author must make significant contributions to the conception, design, data collection, analysis, or interpretation of the work, participate in drafting or revising the manuscript, approve the final version, and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

The University of Iowa Authorship Policy as well as journals and discipline-specific standards all should be considered when determining who belongs as an author on a scholarly work.

As soon as possible. It’s never too early to begin discussing authorship expectations with research collaborators, including order of authorship.

No, providing funding or administrative support alone does not qualify someone for authorship. Such contributions should be acknowledged separately.

The corresponding author handles communication with the journal during submission, peer review, and publication, and ensures all administrative requirements are met.

Authorship order should be decided collectively by the author group, based on the relative contributions of each author. This should be discussed and agreed upon early in the project.

Disputes should be resolved through open communication among the authors. If necessary, mediation can be sought through departmental or institutional channels.

Adding an author after submission requires an explanation and signed agreement from all listed authors and the new author.

Honorary or gift authorship is granting authorship to someone who has not made a significant intellectual contribution to the work. This practice is not allowed and violates ethical guidelines.

Contributions that do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged in a separate section of the manuscript.

Authors are responsible for ensuring the accuracy and integrity of their contributions and must be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific parts of the work.

No, AI tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the accuracy of the work. Their use should be disclosed in the acknowledgements.

An authorship agreement should outline each author’s contributions, the order of authorship, and the responsibilities of each author. It should be established early in the project and updated as needed.

The Research Integrity and Security Office, in collaboration with the Office of General Counsel, has developed an Authorship Agreement document to aid in the process.

Self-plagiarism is reusing substantial portions of one’s own published work without citation.  Some funding agencies, journals and publishers do not allow self-plagiarism. Authors should disclose and attribute their own previous work. Authors should always review funding agency, journal and publisher requirements and rules for submission of grant applications, manuscripts, creative materials and other scholarly work.

Multi-disciplinary projects should have clearly defined authorship agreements established before the project begins, with regular discussions to attribute individual contributions.

Violations include intentional exclusion of a qualifying author, acceptance of honorary or gift authorship, and failure to acknowledge significant contributions.

Concerns about authorship should be directed to the Research Integrity Officer (RIO) or to the Research Integrity and Security Office.