Authorship and contributorship


Providing guidance on the Cochrane Library editorial policy on authorship.





Cochrane editors as authors

Separating the authorial and editorial processes

Cochrane's editorial policy on authorship states that any "editor or editorial staff member who is an author of (a) Cochrane Review submitted for publication must exclude themselves entirely from the editorial process to ensure separation of the author and the editorial processes". The editorial process includes but is not limited to all editorial decisions and related activities, including selection of and contact with peer reviewers, liaison with editors, and sign-off for publication.

The policy also requires that editors in an authorship position "ensure that another editor of member of the editorial staff takes on these roles". It is essential that the selected editor is independent. For example, it is not appropriate for someone to be a Contact or Sign-off Editor if an author of the review is their line manager. 

Cochrane's Conflict of Interest policy also covers editors as authors; see Section 6.2, Rules for Cochrane Review Groups and editorial staff employed by Cochrane.

Statements to include in the manuscript

A statement that the editor or editorial staff member was not involved in the editorial process should be included in the ‘Declarations of Interest' section of the Cochrane review, and a summary of the process followed should be included in the Acknowledgements section of the Cochrane review using the following template: 

Editorial and peer-reviewer contributions:

Cochrane [NAME] supported the authors in the development of this [ARTICLE TYPE].

The following people conducted the editorial process for this article:

    • Sign-off Editor (final editorial decision): [NAME, AFFILIATION];
    • Managing Editor (selected peer reviewers, collated peer-reviewer comments, provided editorial guidance to authors, edited the article): [NAME, AFFILIATION];
    • Editorial Assistant (conducted editorial policy checks and supported editorial team): [NAME, AFFILIATION];
    • Copy Editor (copy editing and production): [NAME, AFFILIATION];
    • Peer-reviewers (provided comments and recommended an editorial decision): [NAME, AFFILIATION] (clinical/content review)*, [NAME, AFFILIATION] (consumer review), [NAME, AFFILIATION] (methods review), [NAME, AFFILIATION] (search review). [NUMBER] of additional peer reviewers provided [CLINICAL/CONTENT/CONSUMER/METHODS/SEARCH] peer review, but chose not to be publicly acknowledged.

*[PEER REVIEWER] is a member of Cochrane [NAME], and provided peer-review comments on this article, but [PEER REVIEWER] was not otherwise involved in the editorial process or decision making for this article.



Special circumstances in the author byline

Group name

Cochrane reviews may be authored by a group of authors who also choose to use a group name. Separate the list of the individual authors from the group name (if used) with either '[insert last individual author]; for the [insert group name]' or '[insert last individual author]; [insert group name]'. For example:

  • Smith A, Davis B, Jones C; for the TOPIC Group. Article title. Etc
  • Smith A, Davis B, Jones C; TOPIC Group. Article title. Etc

This approach is based on a recommendation by the Council of Science Editors.

For information on implementing group names, see Group authors in Archie Knowledge Base and Add or remove authors in RevManWeb Knowledge Base.

Joint authors

The specific template wording for joint authors is provided in Footnotes for authors in RevMan Knowledge Base.

Deceased authors

Information to be shared with the author team

If, in accordance with the editorial policy on authorship, the deceased author remains on the byline, then the following apply and should be shared with the remaining review authors for implementation:

  • Editorial Manager settings (pre-submission)

If the deceased author had been the corresponding author invited to submit the draft to Editorial Manager, authors should contact Cochrane Support to request that another member of the author team is invited to complete the submission.

  • Manuscript requirements (RevMan)

Byline: Authors should contact Cochrane Support to request that the deceased author is moved from the 'Author' list in RevMan to the 'Attributions' section; see Attributions in the RevMan Knowledge Base. The attribution should include the name, institution and country that were correct before the author died. A footnote should also be added to the byline indicating that the author passed away while the manuscript was being prepared; see Footnotes for authors.

Contributions of authors: This should inform readers that the author is deceased, when the author died (e.g. month and year), the author's contribution to the protocol or review, and whether the living authors made substantive changes to the review beyond the deceased author's contribution. 

Declarations of interest: Add the following statement to this section in the Cochrane protocol or review: "Author deceased; [declarations of interest, if provided before the author died]," or "Author deceased; no declarations of interest available."

  • License for publication form (post-submission)

If the author had not yet signed a license for publication, and had not granted to a co-author, in writing, the right to do so on their behalf, then the corresponding author of the article should obtain permission to do so from the deceased author's inheritor, as copyright is considered personal property under the law. With the inheritor's permission, a license may be submitted by the Managing Editor on the deceased author's behalf.

System updates to be made by the Managing Editor

  • Editorial Manager and Convey

In Editorial Manager, add an entry to the Manuscript notes regarding the deceased author. Consider changing the author's address in both Editorial Manager and Cochrane Account to a dummy address to prevent unwanted notifications.

If the deceased author's declaration of interest forms had been previously collected via Convey, it is the Managing Editor's responsibility to download the forms, add them as attachments to Editorial Manager, and request closure of the author's Convey account. See specific instructions in Section 5E of Cochrane's CoI Policy Guidance for Managing Editors.



Changes in authorship

Responsibilities

Authors have autonomy to change the author byline. Cochrane adheres to guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which recommends that editors check that all authors agree in writing to changes in the byline.

See 'Changes in authorship' in Cochrane's editorial policy on authorship for an explanation of the points at which changes may be sought. Authors seeking changes to a byline must submit a completed Changes in authorship form.

Changes to the byline sought after manuscript submission but before publication (changes to the submitted byline) should be received by the editor handling the article and delivered to a Managing Editor for approval. Note that byline changes sought after acceptance must be sufficiently justified and may be limited to the addition or removal of authors. Authors are made aware via the editorial policy and via standard communication that byline changes sought after acceptance may not be permitted.

Support resources

In accordance with ICMJE recommendations, Cochrane cannot mediate in authorship disputes.

Also see COPE flowcharts for the following scenarios:

For changes after publication, COPE flowcharts refer to publishing a 'correction'. For Cochrane reviews, please see Select the correct What's new event to determine if an amendment or new citation is required. Please contact Cochrane Support with any queries.

Changes in authorship where a new protocol supersedes a published review

Authors proposing to supersede a published review with a new protocol, with byline changes, are instructed to contact the author team of the latest published version and to attach a copy of their correspondence with their update proposal. See Propose a new or updated Cochrane review in Editorial Manager (EM Information for Authors) and Pre-approved proposals from Cochrane groups (Editorial Manager Knowledge Base).

Change in author name

If an author changes their name after the publication of a Cochrane Library article, the name on the published version should not be changed until the next citation version (e.g. with a review update); a new citation version should not be created for this purpose.

If, however, an article was published with an error in the author’s name (at the time of publication), then the article should be republished as an amendment with a new citation to correct this error.