Authorship and Contributorship Policy

The Academic Science Journal (ASJ) is committed to promoting transparency, accountability, and integrity in authorship and contributorship. Authorship should accurately reflect the individuals who have made significant scholarly contributions to the submitted work and who accept responsibility for its content.

All authors must meet the journal’s authorship criteria, approve the final version of the manuscript, and agree to its submission and publication in ASJ.

Authorship Criteria

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made a substantial contribution to the research. To qualify as an author, an individual should have contributed significantly to one or more of the following:

Conception or design of the study.
Data collection, acquisition, or generation.
Data analysis or interpretation.
Development of methodology, software, models, or experimental procedures.
Drafting the manuscript.
Critically revising the manuscript for important intellectual content.

All authors must also approve the final submitted version of the manuscript and agree to be accountable for the accuracy, integrity, and ethical compliance of the work.

Non-Author Contributions

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors. Their contributions may be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section, with their permission.

Examples of non-author contributions may include:

Technical assistance.
Administrative support.
Language editing.
General supervision.
Funding acquisition alone.
Data collection alone without intellectual contribution.
Laboratory assistance.
Formatting or clerical support.

Acknowledgment of such contributions should be clear and transparent.

Corresponding Author Responsibilities

The corresponding author is responsible for communication with the journal during submission, peer review, revision, and publication.

The corresponding author must ensure that:

All listed authors meet the authorship criteria.
No eligible author has been omitted.
No inappropriate author has been included.
All authors have approved the final manuscript.
All authors have agreed to submission to ASJ.
Author information, affiliations, and ORCID iDs are accurate.
Conflicts of interest, funding sources, ethical approvals, and data availability statements are properly disclosed.
All authors are informed of editorial decisions and required revisions.

Author Order

The order of authors should be agreed upon by all authors before submission. ASJ does not determine author order and assumes that the submitted order has been approved by all authors.

Any dispute regarding author order must be resolved by the authors and, where necessary, their institution before publication.

Changes in Authorship

Any request to add, remove, or rearrange authors after submission must be submitted in writing to the editorial office.

The request must include:

The reason for the proposed change.
Written approval from all authors, including any author being added or removed.
Confirmation that the revised authorship accurately reflects the contributions made to the work.

The journal may reject authorship changes that are not properly justified or approved by all authors.

Changes in authorship after acceptance are not normally allowed unless there is a clear and justified reason. After publication, authorship changes may require a formal correction notice.

Ghost, Guest, and Gift Authorship

ASJ does not accept inappropriate authorship practices, including:

Ghost authorship: Excluding individuals who made substantial contributions to the work.
Guest authorship: Including individuals who did not make a significant contribution.
Gift authorship: Adding individuals as a courtesy, favor, or due to seniority, position, or personal relationship.
Honorary authorship: Including individuals based only on administrative role, supervision, funding, or institutional position.

Such practices are considered unethical and may lead to rejection, correction, expression of concern, or other editorial action.

Group Authorship

For manuscripts submitted by research groups, teams, or collaborative projects, the manuscript should clearly identify the individuals who meet the authorship criteria.

Where group authorship is used, the corresponding author must provide details of individual contributions and ensure that all group members listed as authors approve the manuscript.

Contributorship Statement

ASJ encourages authors to include a contributorship statement describing each author’s role in the study. This statement promotes transparency and helps readers understand the contribution of each author.

A contributorship statement may include roles such as:

Formal analysis.
Data curation.
Writing – original draft.
Writing – review and editing.
Project administration.
Funding acquisition.

Example:

Author Contributions:
Author A contributed to conceptualization, methodology, and writing the original draft. Author B contributed to data analysis, validation, and visualization. Author C contributed to supervision, review, and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Responsibility and Accountability

All authors are collectively responsible for the integrity of the published work. Each author should be able to identify their own contribution and should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions made by co-authors.

If questions arise about the accuracy, ethics, or integrity of any part of the work, all authors are expected to cooperate with the journal in providing clarification, original data, documents, or other relevant information.

Authorship Disputes

Authorship disputes should be resolved by the authors and their institutions. ASJ will not adjudicate personal or institutional authorship disputes.

If an authorship dispute arises before publication, the editorial process may be suspended until the dispute is resolved. If a dispute arises after publication, the journal may request institutional clarification and may issue a correction, expression of concern, or other notice where appropriate.

Artificial Intelligence and Authorship

Artificial intelligence tools, chatbots, large language models, or any non-human systems cannot be listed as authors or co-authors.

Authorship requires human responsibility, accountability, approval of the final manuscript, and the ability to respond to questions about the work. Since AI tools cannot meet these requirements, they cannot qualify for authorship.

Any substantial use of AI tools must be disclosed in accordance with the journal’s Artificial Intelligence Use Policy.

Authorship Statement

Authors may be required to submit a signed authorship statement confirming that all listed authors meet the authorship criteria, approve the manuscript, and accept responsibility for the integrity of the work.

By submitting a manuscript to ASJ, the authors confirm that the authorship and contributorship information is accurate, transparent, and consistent with this policy.