Authorship and Contributorship Policy
Scholarly Contribution • Transparency • Accountability
Authorship and Contributorship Policy
Medicor : Journal of Health Informatics and Health Policy requires authorship to accurately reflect substantial scholarly contributions to research in health informatics, digital health, electronic health records, health information systems, telemedicine, health data analytics, health technology, health policy, health services, clinical information management, and related fields.
SUBSTANTIAL CONTRIBUTION CRediT TAXONOMY FULL ACCOUNTABILITY
Authorship represents both academic credit and responsibility. A person should be listed as an author only when they have made a meaningful intellectual contribution to the research and accept responsibility for the integrity, accuracy, transparency, ethical conduct, privacy protection, and scholarly quality of the published work.
1. Criteria for Authorship
All listed authors must demonstrate substantial scholarly involvement in the study. Authorship should normally include all of the following:
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Substantial Research Contribution Significant contribution to the research problem, conceptual framework, health-information-system design, health-policy framework, study design, clinical or administrative data collection, dataset preparation, interoperability analysis, digital-health evaluation, methodology, statistical analysis, qualitative analysis, or interpretation of findings. |
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Intellectual Contribution to the Manuscript Active participation in drafting the manuscript or critically revising its health-informatics framework, health-policy argument, methodology, data analysis, system evaluation, health-services interpretation, discussion, or scholarly contribution. |
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Final Approval Review and approval of the final manuscript, including the accuracy of author names, affiliations, health data, system descriptions, health-policy findings, declarations, ethical information, privacy-related statements, and references. |
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Accountability Agreement to take responsibility for the author's contribution and to cooperate in resolving questions concerning health data, software, information systems, policy analysis, privacy, security, research ethics, research integrity, authorship, or other aspects of the published work. |
Activities That Do Not Alone Qualify for Authorship
The following activities, when performed alone, are generally insufficient to justify authorship:
| • Providing research funding only | • Providing access to hospitals, clinics, EHR systems, health databases, or patient records only |
| • General academic, clinical, policy, or administrative supervision | • Holding a hospital, health-service, IT, managerial, governmental, or institutional position |
| • Routine data entry, data extraction, system support, or clerical assistance | • Language editing, proofreading, translation, or formatting only |
| • Providing software, servers, devices, telemedicine platforms, or technical infrastructure only | • General encouragement, mentorship, or administrative facilitation without scholarly contribution |
Individuals providing these forms of assistance may be recognized in the Acknowledgments section, subject to their permission where appropriate.
2. Author Contribution Statement – CRediT
Every accepted manuscript must include an Author Contribution Statement. Authors are encouraged to use the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) to identify each author's contribution transparently.
| Conceptualization Development of research ideas, health-informatics problems, health-policy questions, hypotheses, digital-health models, or conceptual frameworks. |
Methodology Development or design of quantitative, qualitative, mixed, health-services, policy-analysis, system-evaluation, implementation, usability, or data-analytics methods. |
| Formal Analysis Statistical, epidemiological, health-services, policy, health-data, system-performance, qualitative, or other analytical work. |
Investigation Conducting surveys, interviews, usability evaluations, implementation studies, health-system observations, policy investigations, or empirical health-data collection. |
| Data Curation Collecting, cleaning, coding, de-identifying, organizing, documenting, integrating, or maintaining health, clinical, administrative, policy, or health-system datasets. |
Software Programming, development of health-information systems, data-processing pipelines, analytics tools, clinical applications, telemedicine systems, or research software. |
| Validation Verification of analytical results, health-data quality, system functions, algorithms, interoperability, usability measures, policy indicators, or research outputs. |
Visualization Preparation of research tables, figures, health-system diagrams, policy models, dashboards, workflows, or health-data visualizations. |
| Writing – Original Draft Preparation of the initial scholarly manuscript. |
Writing – Review & Editing Critical intellectual review and substantive manuscript revision. |
| Resources Provision of essential health datasets, information-system access, health-policy documents, research instruments, clinical resources, software, or other resources combined with scholarly contribution. |
Supervision Intellectual oversight and scholarly guidance of the research process. |
| Project Administration Coordination and management of research activities. |
Funding Acquisition Acquisition of financial support for the research project. |
Note: Assignment of a CRediT role does not automatically qualify an individual for authorship. The individual must also satisfy the journal's authorship requirements and accept accountability.
3. Example of Author Contribution Statement
Example – Health Informatics / Health Data Research
Author Contributions: A.B.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Writing – Original Draft. C.D.: Data Curation, Software, Validation, Visualization. E.F.: Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing. All authors approved the final manuscript and agreed to be accountable for their contributions.
Example – Health Policy / Health Services Research
Author Contributions: A.B.: Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – Original Draft. C.D.: Investigation, Data Curation, Formal Analysis. E.F.: Validation, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.
4. Author Order
Author order must be determined and agreed upon collectively by the author group before manuscript submission. The journal does not assign or determine author order.
The authorship list and order must be consistent across the submitted manuscript, OJS metadata, Author Contribution Statement, declarations, Data Availability Statement, and final published article.
5. Corresponding Author
One author must be identified as the corresponding author and serve as the primary contact between the journal and all co-authors.
| ✓ Ensures all authors approve manuscript submission | ✓ Verifies author names, affiliations, email, and ORCID information |
| ✓ Coordinates responses to reviewers | ✓ Ensures all authors approve substantive revisions |
| ✓ Verifies funding, ethics, privacy, and Conflict of Interest Statements | ✓ Coordinates Data, Software, or System Availability Statements where applicable |
| ✓ Coordinates final proof approval | ✓ Responds to post-publication inquiries when necessary |
6. Unacceptable Authorship Practices
| ✕ Guest / Honorary Authorship Adding senior academics, clinicians, health-service managers, government officials, IT leaders, institutional leaders, or respected individuals who did not make sufficient scholarly contributions. |
✕ Ghost Authorship Excluding individuals who made substantial contributions to health-data analysis, system development, policy analysis, research design, or manuscript preparation that qualify for authorship. |
| ✕ Gift / Reciprocal Authorship Exchanging or granting authorship without genuine scholarly contribution. |
✕ Purchased Authorship Buying, selling, or transferring authorship positions. |
| ✕ Coercive Authorship Requiring inclusion because of supervisory, clinical, governmental, technical, institutional, managerial, or professional authority. |
✕ Unauthorized Authorship Listing a person without their knowledge and approval. |
7. Changes to Authorship
Addition, removal, or rearrangement of authors after submission must be exceptional and supported by a clear explanation and written consent from all affected authors.
| BEFORE ACCEPTANCE May be considered with full written agreement |
AFTER ACCEPTANCE Exceptional and subject to editorial approval |
AFTER PUBLICATION May require a formal Correction Notice |
8. Authorship Disputes
The Editorial Team may request explanations and documentation when an authorship dispute arises. However, the journal does not normally adjudicate disputes concerning who should or should not qualify as an author. Unresolved disputes may be referred to the authors' institution, research-integrity office, ethics committee, health-service authority, or another appropriate authority. Editorial processing may be suspended until the dispute is resolved.
9. Artificial Intelligence and Authorship
Artificial intelligence tools, large language models, generative AI systems, and clinical or analytical AI systems must not be listed as authors or co-authors. AI cannot accept accountability, approve a manuscript, provide informed consent, declare conflicts of interest, or take responsibility for research integrity. Relevant AI-assisted activities, including AI-supported writing, coding, health-data processing, clinical decision-support analysis, or policy analysis, must instead be disclosed according to the journal's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Usage Policy.
Authorship Checklist Before Submission
| ✓ Every listed author has made a genuine scholarly contribution | ✓ No eligible contributor has been omitted |
| ✓ Author order has been approved by all authors | ✓ All authors approved the submitted manuscript |
| ✓ Author Contribution Statement is complete | ✓ Corresponding author has been identified |
| ✓ OJS metadata matches the manuscript | ✓ Ethics, privacy, confidentiality, consent, and data-protection statements are accurate where applicable |
| ✓ AI-assisted activities have been disclosed where required | ✓ All authors accept responsibility for the published work |
Authorship Principle
In Medicor : Journal of Health Informatics and Health Policy, authorship is based on substantive intellectual contribution and accountability. Academic rank, clinical or governmental authority, institutional position, access to hospitals, electronic health records, health databases, information systems, software, or policy documents, funding alone, supervisory status, or professional seniority does not by itself justify authorship.
