Authorship and contributorship
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:
*[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.
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:
License for publication form
A signed licence is required, but the licence may be submitted by the Managing Editor on the deceased author's behalf, provided that they or the contact person for the review had the deceased author's agreement and consent to publish in advance of their passing.
Manuscript requirements
Contributorship statement: 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. A footnote can also be added to the author byline; see Footnotes for authors in RevManWeb Knowledge Base.
Declarations of interest: Add the following statement to this section in the Cochrane review: "Author deceased; declarations of interest published in the Cochrane review: [copy and paste here]." For a protocol, insert the text, "Author deceased; no declarations of interest available." or "Author deceased; [declarations of interest if provided before the author died]."The 'declarations of interest' form does not need to be completed for the deceased author.
Contact details: Modify contact details so that the published protocol or review will note that the author is deceased and include the name, institution and country, that were correct before they died. An email address is required. See Deceased contributors for details on how this field should be completed. Delete the rest of their contact details, and put "Deceased" in the footnote field of the author contact details in the review. This is a review-level annotation.
System updates to be made by the Managing Editor
Editorial Manager and Convey
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.
Archie
It is the responsibility of the Managing Editor to make changes in Archie in the case of a deceased author. See Inactive status in Archie Knowledge Base for implementation instructions.
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.
Support resources
In accordance with ICMJE recommendations, Cochrane cannot mediate in authorship disputes.
Also see COPE flowcharts for the following scenarios:
- Addition of extra author after publication
- Removal of author after publication
- Addition of extra author before publication
- Removal of author before publication
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.