Authorship

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Key Criteria

ScienceBank defines an Author to be ‘a person who makes a substantial contribution to the submitted work AND is accountable for the work and its published form.’

Original Works

Submissions must represent the Author(s) **entirely original work; **plagiarised work will not be published. ScienceBank will permit ‘Rigour and Reproducibility research’ where the objective of the Author is to review previous claims and re-analyze them using different methods.

Plagiarism Assessment

ScienceBank utilises Similarity Check by iThenticate to assess every new submission before assigning Editors and Reviewers. We do not follow a specific similarity score threshold; instead, manuscripts are analysed on a case-by-case basis. If there are any suspicions of plagiarism, all Authors will be notified via e-mail of pre-rejection. 

However, even if no clear signs of plagiarism are detected, certain cases may warrant review and correction by authors. In such instances, ScienceBank will share the similarity report with the Editor along with the specific concerns and recommendations. Editors will request Authors to assess and amend the relevant sections of the manuscript during resubmissions.

Authors who incur repeated attempts to submit plagiarised manuscripts will be investigated and may be banned from the platform.

If you do not agree with the decision from the Editor based on our third party Similarity Check, you may email ScienceBank support at admin@sciencebank.com, and our team will analyse your case.

Crediting Authors

ScienceBank follows the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) devised by a collaboration between researchers and representatives at Harvard University, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the Wellcome Trust, and Cell Press.

Each submission must include a description of the role that each Author played in the conduct of the research being reported. Authors can have more than one role.

Contributor Roles Taxonomy (from CRediT website)

  • Conceptualization: Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
  • Data Curation: Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data, and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data) for initial use and later reuse.
  • Formal Analysis: Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyse or synthesise study data.
  • Funding Acquisition: Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
  • Investigation: Conduct the research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.
  • Methodology: Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
  • Project Administration: Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
  • Resources: Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.
  • Software: Programming, software development; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
  • Supervision: Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
  • Validation: Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.
  • Visualisation: Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualisation/data presentation.
  • Writing (Original Draft Preparation): Creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).
  • Writing (Review & Editing): Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary, or revision—including pre- or post-publication stages.

Example of attributing credit:

Estefanía Casal:* Conceptualization, Methodology, Visualization, Writing—Reviewing and Editing*

Rida Benhammane: Software, Data curation, Validation, Writing—Original draft preparation

Jody Smith: Supervision

Acknowledgments

Contributors who do not meet the criteria for Authorship can be mentioned or credited in the Acknowledgments.

Agreements on Contributions

Collaborators must formally agree to every individual’s contribution before starting the submission process. This includes the agreement on the following:

  1. Does an individual meet the criteria of being an Author? In short, have they made a substantial contribution to the work, and have been accountable for the work and its published form?
  2. If yes, what type of contribution did they make based on the Contributor Roles Taxonomy?
  3. If not, do they deserve a mention in the acknowledgments?

Corresponding Author Responsibilities

The corresponding Author will be the point of contact for all communications in a timely and appropriate manner during the pre-publishing and post-publishing stages. They are accountable for, and will speak on behalf of, all Authors. Their full names and email addresses will be visible for editors and reviewers.

Outlined below is a checklist of actions that are recommended to be followed:

  • Does the manuscript meet all relevant ScienceBank Editorial and publishing policies?
  • Have all Authors agreed to their attributed contributions?
  • Have all Authors reviewed the final version of the manuscript that is submitted for peer review?
  • Do all Authors have access to the feedback from the peer-review process, and have they made the appropriate contributions for resubmission where it is applicable?
  • Have all Authors reviewed the final version of the manuscript that is to be published?
  • Have all Authors consented to any requested changes in the manuscript’s Authorship?

Author Identification

All Authors must agree to participate in the submission of a manuscript. ScienceBank requires the email addresses of all Authors to be provided during the submission process. We encourage the inclusion of all authors' ORCID if available. Authors will be notified of new submissions, resubmissions, and any changes or removals in authorship during peer review. If the manuscript is approved for publication, all Authors will need to approve the final layout before publication.

Authorship Changes

Authors are permitted to make changes to the Author list, as long as justification is provided for the changes and warranted. 

Author changes during the peer-review process: ScienceBank will consider Authorship changes post-submission, and while the peer-review process is in progress. Changes can include adding new or removing Authors, as well as changing the order of Authors. Corresponding Authors can make the changes through the submission process. ScienceBank will send emails to all Co-Authors listed in the initial submission to inform them of the changes. No actions are required by Co-Authors. If Co-Authors object to proposed changes, then they must communicate directly with the corresponding Author. ScienceBank will not be an arbitrator in any disputes.

Author changes after an Editorial acceptance: ScienceBank will only consider requests to add or remove Authors between Editorial acceptance and publication of the manuscript in exceptional circumstances that will be decided on a case-by-case basis. ScienceBank will have the final discretion on whether to accept requests. Requests can be made by contacting the ScienceBank administrative team.

Who can request changes? Only the corresponding Author can request changes. They must provide explanations and evidence required for ScienceBank to consider their request.

Disputes between Authors: ScienceBank will not be responsible for resolving disputes between Authors. If the Authors are unable to resolve a dispute amongst themselves, ScienceBank will defer the issue to the Authors’ respective institution(s) following COPE guidelines and will abide by the institutional recommendations.

If Authorship disputes are not resolved in a timely and satisfactory manner, ScienceBank may reject the pre-published submission. ScienceBank may consider a resubmission if the dispute has been resolved. If a dispute arises after a manuscript is published, ScienceBank will reserve the right to hide the publication from access until disputes are resolved.

Attributing Contribution When Using Artificial Intelligence (AI)

ScienceBank supports the responsible use of AI tools, and this is further described in the ‘Ethical Publishing Practice’ section. At present, AI technology including but not limited to Large Language Models (LLMs) cannot be granted Authorship because it does not satisfy the required conditions for Authorship, namely, the technology cannot, by itself, be held accountable for the published work even if the contribution is substantial. This means ScienceBank permits Authors to use AI technologies as long Authors remain accountable for verifying the contribution to be accurate, and can reproduce results, as well as explain how results and conclusions were created.

Authors are required to disclose the use and role of AI technology in the Methods sections. Authors can also use the Acknowledgements section if a Method section is not available in the manuscript. Authors must be transparent in outlining the sections or content where AI was used during the process of work. If proper attribution is not made, ScienceBank reserves the right to reject or withdraw the manuscript from publication.