Contributor Roles Taxonomy

The Contributor Roles Taxonomy, commonly known as CRediT, is a controlled vocabulary of types of contributions to a research project. CRediT is commonly used by scientific journals to provide an indication of what each contributor to a project did. The CRediT standard includes machine-readable metadata.^[1]

Overview

The Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) is a list of 14 different ways that people contribute to research projects. For scientific journals and other venues that use CRediT, it provides a way for the researchers associated with a project to indicate their role in the project. ^[2]

CRediT comprises 14 different roles: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, and Writing – review & editing. Conceptualization involves setting objectives, aims, and goals. Data Curation manages the data necessary for research, including its collection, storage, and reuse. Formal Analysis applies statistical or mathematical techniques to study data. Funding Acquisition is the process of obtaining financial support for the project. Investigation involves conducting experiments and collecting data or evidence. Methodology relates to developing the models that underline the research.^[3][4] Project Administration manages the execution of the project. Resources entail supplying the necessary materials, tools, and infrastructure for the research. Software involves designing and programming software necessary for the project. Supervision includes overseeing the research process and providing mentorship. Validation checks the accuracy and reproducibility of the research outputs. Visualization creates visual representations of data. Writing – Original Draft entails drafting the manuscript, and Writing – Review and Editing includes revising and finalizing the manuscript. ^[3][4]

CRediT also provides for indicating the degree of contribution ("lead", "equal", or "supporting") for each contributor. Unlike the 14 contribution categories, the NISO standard describes this as optional for CRediT users to implement."ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, CRediT, Contributor Roles Taxonomy" (Report). NISO. doi:10.3789/ansi.niso.z39.104-2022. ISBN 978-1-950980-18-5. ISSN 1041-5653.

History

Replacing traditional authorship roles with contributorship had been proposed as early as 1997, ^[5] and the practice was being adopted in the 2000s.^[6][7] The Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) was developed to address the limitations of traditional author lists, which often fail to accurately represent the diverse contributions of researchers.^[8][3] It originated from a 2012 workshop hosted by the Wellcome Trust and Harvard University, bringing together researchers, publishers, and funders to improve how individual contributions are documented.^[8][3]

In 2012, a draft taxonomy was created at a workshop held at Harvard involving biomedical scientists, publishers, and research funders.^[9][10]

In 2014, a working group of publishers, funders, and university representatives began a meeting to refine the draft of the CRediT taxonomy, coordinated by the Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI).^[9] A year later, in 2015, CRediT was formally introduced and since then it has been adopted by publishers and research organizations.^[8]

By 2017, PLOS journals and eLife had adopted CRediT,^[11][12] and in 2018 it was endorsed by representatives of the National Academy of Sciences.^[13] Over the next several years, some of the largest publishers of scientific journals began using CRediT.^{[14][15][16][17]}

Interest in CRediT increased in 2020 following grant support from the Wellcome Trust and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which aimed to expand its use and encourage further awareness, advocacy, and standardization.^[8]

In 2022, CRediT became an ANSI/NISO standard,^[18] including metadata for use in the JATS XML version of scholarly articles (ANSI/NISO z39104-2022-credit).^[19]

Limitations

In a study of one psychology research project, independent researchers read detailed descriptions of other researchers' contributions, the results indicated that the independent researchers had low agreement about both the number and type that the contributions should be classified into.^[20]

As the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has pointed out, documenting contributions with CRediT or another scheme "leaves unresolved the question of the quantity and quality of contribution that qualify an individual for authorship", suggesting that authorship guidelines are still necessary, although authorship guidelines also typically fail to specify the quantity of contribution required.^[21]