Contributorship, Not Authorship: Use CRediT to Indicate Who Did What
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Only focusing/ discussing one system in the journal paper may appear to be biased. Hence I would recommend that before suggesting CRediT, a para or two is added to cover the wider spectrum of other systems/ways (standardised or unstandardized) that may be in place,. Although most top journals now a days require contribution disclosures, several of them (i.e. PNAS or Nature) to my knowledge still do not have standardized templates for this.
The paper mainly cites ICMJE guidelines (which make writing contribution mandatory for all authors) to argue their standpoint. However, other systems, such as APA, may be more open. Although authors have touched upon ESA and ACS guidelines, I would suggest that they also discuss about APA guidelines.
A more pragmatic paper title is suggested.
Some papers in high energy physics have uotp 1,000 authors and it is highly possible that some may not have contributed in writing the manuscript (may have done significant lab work instead). ICMJE guidelines may not address such situations fully. So the author/s of the current paper here are making an excellent argument.
The paper is well written.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1:
Thank you for your helpful and encouraging comments. Below, I address each of your comments, with your comments indicated in italics.
- Only focusing/ discussing one system in the journal paper may appear to be biased. Hence I would recommend that before suggesting CRediT, a para or two is added to cover the wider spectrum of other systems/ways (standardised or unstandardized) that may be in place,. Although most top journals now a days require contribution disclosures, several of them (i.e. PNAS or Nature) to my knowledge still do not have standardized templates for this.
I agree that it looks, and possibly is, biased to focus on only one system. I actually have not found any other standardized contribution taxonomies, so the CRediT system is perhaps the “only game in town”. I try to make clear in the Introduction that I am focussing on CRediT in part because it happens to be a system that leaders in the publishing community have gotten behind, and has even already been implemented in multiple systems, so that I am focussing on it largely for practical reasons - that it is the system that realistically has a chance of changing science on a large scale. I do end up mentioning the requirement for unstandardized contribution disclosures by Nature and others toward the end of the manuscript, on page 9, which is where I prefer to put it, because in my framework I consider it as part of a pathway towards a full, standardized contributor ship model.
-The paper mainly cites ICMJE guidelines (which make writing contribution mandatory for all authors) to argue their standpoint. However, other systems, such as APA, may be more open. Although authors have touched upon ESA and ACS guidelines, I would suggest that they also discuss about APA guidelines.
I do actually mention the APA guidelines, although it was probably easy to miss it near the top of page two. The APA guidelines, rather than being more open, are actually even more restrictive, in that they require (as I write in that sentence on page 2) that all authors be involved in “manuscript drafting”, whereas the ICMJE guidelines also allow for “revising” instead which means authors need not be involved in the initial writing of the manuscript.
-A more pragmatic paper title is suggested.
Thank you for the suggestion. I have changed the title to “Contributorship, not authorship: Use CRediT to indicate who did what.” so that the uninitiated can better understand what the paper is about.
-Some papers in high energy physics have uotp 1,000 authors and it is highly possible that some may not have contributed in writing the manuscript (may have done significant lab work instead). ICMJE guidelines may not address such situations fully. So the author/s of the current paper here are making an excellent argument.
The paper is well written.
Thank you for this positive evaluation of the argument and the writing, it gives me hope that the paper may have some influence.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is well written and structured.
Iine 77 references Fig 3 - it was totally clear to me that this was Fig 3 of Patience et al, rather than of the author (until we see that there is no Fig 3 in this article) - just a minor text tweak would help the reader
line 219 talks about statisticians... but later(and I agree) other specialist areas would also benefit - this perhaps needs to be reworded (cf line 309)
344 "t" should be "to"
369 extraneous "."
Under section 5 adoption I would suggest an additional action. Authors can add CRediT attributes in free text (and use the excat wordings from the standard) - this is of course not ideal - but will help send the message to the publishers that authors want it. This is of course not a step for a Journal - but might be worth including - or it could be turned round... journal editors could see this in the free text as note it as an indication that some authors wish to include the contributorship in a structured manner.
Other than that it is an excellent and well written article
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2:
Thank you for your careful read of the manuscript and for your helpful and encouraging comments. Below, I address each of your comments, with your comments indicated in italics.
- The paper is well written and structured.
I appreciate the praise, particularly because I struggled to find a good structure that simultaneously made the basic case for contributorship while also respecting the pragmatic situation of how CRediT in particular has gained traction and thus focussing on it and also giving practical, optionally-gradual recommendations for adoption.
-Iine 77 references Fig 3 - it was totally clear to me that this was Fig 3 of Patience et al, rather than of the author (until we see that there is no Fig 3 in this article) - just a minor text tweak would help the reader
Thank you for catching this!
-line 219 talks about statisticians... but later(and I agree) other specialist areas would also benefit - this perhaps needs to be reworded (cf line 309)
Thank you for pointing this out, I have now revised it.
-344 "t" should be "to"
-369 extraneous "."
Thanks for catching these!
-Under section 5 adoption I would suggest an additional action. Authors can add CRediT attributes in free text (and use the excat wordings from the standard) - this is of course not ideal - but will help send the message to the publishers that authors want it. This is of course not a step for a Journal - but might be worth including - or it could be turned round... journal editors could see this in the free text as note it as an indication that some authors wish to include the contributorship in a structured manner.
This is a really good idea for action, thank you, I have added it to the adoption section, and for context added a couple more sentences about organized versus individual action.
-Other than that it is an excellent and well written article
I appreciate the comment as it increases my hope that my efforts were worthwhile.
Reviewer 3 Report
I really like this paper. Whilst I already have a good understanding of CRediT I think readers will get value in the extensive use of clearly articulated examples rather than just a description of the taxonomy and sales pitch about potential benefits.
I did wonder if the introduction could be more concise as the key points could lose emphasis and it seemed a little repetitive.
The sentence beginning 'Such people....' in lines 103-105 could be reworded to make the point clear.
I would suggest rewording the sentence that begins 'From that.....' in Lines 139-141. This is the first time 'writing-mandatory' is used as a term. Perhaps clarify that their guidelines do not require contributors recognised in a paper to have done any of the writing when the term if first used.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 3:
Thank you for your careful read of the manuscript and for your helpful and encouraging comments. Below, I address each of your comments, with your comments indicated in italics.
I really like this paper. Whilst I already have a good understanding of CRediT I think readers will get value in the extensive use of clearly articulated examples rather than just a description of the taxonomy and sales pitch about potential benefits.
I did wonder if the introduction could be more concise as the key points could lose emphasis and it seemed a little repetitive.
Thank you for this comment. I have gone back through the introduction and found several phrases, some words, and a few sentences that I was able to delete to make the introduction more concise. I also rearranged some phrases to make the writing more felicitous.
The sentence beginning 'Such people....' in lines 103-105 could be reworded to make the point clear.
Thank you, I have now changed this sentence.
I would suggest rewording the sentence that begins 'From that.....' in Lines 139-141. This is the first time 'writing-mandatory' is used as a term. Perhaps clarify that their guidelines do not require contributors recognised in a paper to have done any of the writing when the term if first used.
Actually the term was introduced back on page 2, but many other readers will also probably either miss it or forget it, so following your suggestion I have defined it again in that sentence.
