Evolution and adoption of contributor role ontologies and taxonomies

Abstract

Contributor Role Ontologies and Taxonomies (CROTs) are standard vocabularies to describe individual contributions to a scholarly project or research output. Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) is one of the most widely used CROTs, and has been adopted by numerous journals to describe author's contributions, and recently formalized as a ANSI/NISO standard. Despite these developments, there is still much work left to be done to improve how CROTs are used across different research domains, research output types, and scholarly workflows. In this paper, we describe how CROTs could be extended to include roles from various disciplines in an ethical and inclusive manner. We explore potential approaches to apply CROTs to diverse research objects and various disciplines; as well as envision their integration into various scholarly workflows, such as promotion and tenure in academic institutions. Lastly, we discuss potential mechanisms for wide adoption and use. While acknowledging that improving current systems of attribution is a slow and iterative process, we believe that engaging the community in the evolution of CROTs will ultimately enhance the ethical attribution of credit and responsibilities in scholarly publications.

Reward systems for cohort data sharing: An interview study with funding agencies

“…There are obviously no studies that explore the use of contributorship statements for other outputs that are not developed yet (e.g., data standards, cohort studies). Furthermore, the logic that guides the development of contributor models is often not made explicit [40]. This raises the question what principles should guide the development of contributor models for any outputs that are not publications, particularly if these models overlap (e.g., datasets $ publications using data).…”

“…This raises the question what principles should guide the development of contributor models for any outputs that are not publications, particularly if these models overlap (e.g., datasets $ publications using data). Hosseini et al propose the significant threshold test to identify core roles in contributorship models, which draws on the concepts of indispensability and specificity [40]. They define these dimensions as "so important that research objectives cannot be achieved without them" and "directly associated with the questions and content of research, and constructively affect the reliability, validity and the justification of the reported data, claims, results and conclusions", respectively.…”

Association between accuracy of weight perception and life satisfaction among adults with and without anxiety and mood disorders: a cross-sectional study of the 2015–2018 Canadian Community Health Survey

“…Individuals with anxiety and/or mood disorders are of particular interest as this subpopulation tends to have lower life satisfaction scores compared to those without any mental health disorders (8). Lower life satisfaction in adults with anxiety and/or mood disorders may be at least partially attributed to body dissatisfaction which has been associated with social anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder (9). It has also been found that adults with anxiety and/or mood disorders are more likely to have inaccurate weight perception (10).…”

Managing Bibliometrics with Contributor Roles and Literature Provenance for NPDS Metadata Records

“…With this in mind, we also set out to support representation of contributor roles and to make our approach compatible with the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), which provides a controlled vocabulary for describing contributions of both authors and non-authors (Holcombe 2019;Brand et al 2015). CRediT is one of several Contributor Role Ontologies and Taxonomies (CROTs), along with the Taxonomy of Digital Research Activities in the Humanities, but is notable for having attracted attention from a broad spectrum of disciplines and has become a National Information Standards Organization standard (at credit.niso.org) (Hosseini, Colomb, et al 2022). One panel of experts with the National Science Foundation has called for journals to require that all contributing authors affirm their contributions as described using this taxonomy in a statement to be published along with the article metadata in order to discourage ghost writing, gift authorship, orphan authorship, and forged authorship (McNutt et al 2018).…”