Authorship and Contribution Policy

1. Purpose

Authorship & Contribution Policy establishes the principles, criteria, responsibilities, declaration requirements, dispute-resolution mechanisms, and ethical safeguards governing authorship in all manuscripts submitted to the Ho Chi Minh City Open University Journal of Science (HCMCOUJS).

This policy aims to:

  • ensure that all listed authors have made substantial scholarly contributions;
  • prevent ghost authorship, gift authorship, guest authorship, honorary authorship and authorship for sale;
  • promote transparent author contribution statements;
  • support the use of the CRediT taxonomy;
  • protect the integrity of the scholarly record;
  • reduce authorship disputes before, during and after publication.

2. Authorship Criteria

Authorship shall be based on substantial scholarly contribution, accountability, transparency and final approval of the manuscript.

A person should be listed as an author only when all of the following conditions are met:

2.1. Substantial scholarly contribution

The individual has made a significant contribution to one or more of the following:

  • conception or design of the study;
  • development of research questions, hypotheses or theoretical framework;
  • methodology or research design;
  • data collection, fieldwork, experiment or investigation;
  • data analysis or interpretation;
  • development of models, algorithms, instruments or tools;
  • scholarly argumentation;
  • drafting or critically revising the manuscript.

2.2. Persons Not Qualifying for Authorship

The following contributions alone do not justify authorship:

  • general supervision;
  • administrative support;
  • technical formatting;
  • routine data entry;
  • mechanical translation;
  • language editing only;
  • funding acquisition only;
  • provision of facilities or equipment only;
  • institutional leadership;
  • permission to access data without scholarly contribution.

Such contributions may be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section, where appropriate.

3. CRediT Author Contribution Taxonomy

HCMCOUJS may require authors to declare individual contributions using the CRediT taxonomy or an equivalent author contribution form.

The recognized CRediT roles include:

  • Conceptualization
  • Methodology
  • Software
  • Validation
  • Formal Analysis
  • Investigation
  • Resources
  • Data Curation
  • Writing – Original Draft
  • Writing – Review & Editing
  • Visualization
  • Supervision
  • Project Administration
  • Funding Acquisition

CRediT declaration does not automatically establish authorship. A person may have a CRediT role but still not qualify as an author if the authorship criteria are not met.

4. Corresponding Author

The corresponding author is the official point of contact between the author group and HCMCOUJS.

The corresponding author shall:

  1. ensure that all authors approve the manuscript submission;
  2. confirm author names, order, affiliations, ORCID, emails and metadata;
  3. submit all required declarations;
  4. coordinate revisions and responses to reviewers;
  5. ensure that all authors approve the final version;
  6. communicate post-publication issues to all authors;
  7. cooperate with HCMCOUJS in case of investigation.

The corresponding author must not add, remove, reorder or modify author information without written consent from all authors and approval from the journal where required.

5. Author Order

Author order should be agreed by all authors before submission.

HCMCOUJS does not determine author order on behalf of the author group, except where an ethical concern, dispute or policy violation requires editorial action.

The author order should reflect:

  1. level of scholarly contribution;
  2. disciplinary conventions;
  3. transparent agreement among authors;
  4. responsibility for the manuscript.

HCMCOUJS requires consistency between:

  • manuscript file;
  • OJS metadata;
  • cover letter;
  • author declaration form;
  • contribution statement;
  • published version.

6. Prohibited Authorship Practices

HCMCOUJS does not accept any form of unethical authorship.

6.1. Ghost authorship

Ghost authorship occurs when a person who made a substantial scholarly contribution is not listed as an author or is not properly disclosed.

6.2. Gift authorship

Gift authorship occurs when a person is listed as an author despite having no substantial scholarly contribution.

6.3. Guest authorship

Guest authorship occurs when a person with reputation, position or influence is added to increase the chance of acceptance.

6.4. Honorary authorship

Honorary authorship occurs when a person is listed due to seniority, institutional position, supervision or administrative authority without qualifying contribution.

6.5. Authorship for sale

Authorship for sale includes buying, selling, exchanging or brokering author positions, including through paper mills, editing mills, publication brokers or unethical third-party services.

These prohibited practices are directly reflected in the current HCMCOUJS ethics draft, which already identifies ghost, guest, gift, honorary authorship and authorship for sale as unacceptable authorship practices.

7. Authorship Changes

HCMCOUJS treats all requests to add, remove, reorder or modify authors after submission as a publication ethics matter.

7.1. General rule

Authorship should be finalized at submission.

Any change must be supported by:

  1. written explanation;
  2. updated contribution statement;
  3. written consent of all existing authors;
  4. written consent of added or removed authors;
  5. revised manuscript and metadata;
  6. additional documents requested by the journal.

7.2. Before peer review

Changes may be considered if properly justified and fully documented.

7.3. After peer review

Changes are exceptional and require strong justification. HCMCOUJS will assess whether the change may affect peer review integrity.

7.4. After acceptance

Authorship changes after acceptance are generally not permitted, except in exceptional cases involving serious authorship error or misconduct.

7.5. After publication

Authorship changes after publication are not processed as routine changes. They shall be handled through correction, editorial note, expression of concern or retraction, where appropriate.

8. Authorship Disputes

HCMCOUJS does not act as a court or institutional tribunal to resolve private authorship disputes. However, the journal has a responsibility to protect the integrity of the editorial process and the scholarly record.

Procedure:

  1. receipt and registration of the dispute;
  2. preliminary assessment;
  3. temporary suspension of processing where necessary;
  4. request for written explanation and evidence;
  5. review of contribution statement and communication records;
  6. referral to institution where necessary;
  7. editorial decision based on available evidence;
  8. post-publication action where applicable.

Possible outcomes:

  • continue processing;
  • request authorship correction;
  • suspend processing;
  • reject manuscript;
  • issue correction;
  • issue expression of concern;
  • retract article;
  • refer to institution.

9. Enforcement

Depending on severity, HCMCOUJS may:

  • request clarification;
  • require corrected declarations;
  • suspend processing;
  • reject the manuscript;
  • notify institutions;
  • issue correction or retraction;
  • impose a temporary submission ban;
  • record the case in internal ethics files.

10. Related Policies

This policy shall be interpreted together with:

Policy Information

Item

Content

Policy Owner

HCMCOUJS Editorial Council

Approved by

Editor-in-Chief and HCMCOUJS Editorial Council

Version

3.0

Effective Date

May 2026

Review Cycle

Annual