Used by intake_agent, formatter_agent, and draft_writer_agent.
CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is a standardized taxonomy of author contributions, co-developed by CASRAI and NISO in 2015. It has now been adopted by over 50 major publishers (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, PLOS, etc.). CRediT defines 14 contribution roles; each author may be assigned one or more roles, and each role may be undertaken by one or more authors.
Definition: Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Proposing the research concept of "the impact of declining birthrate on private university management strategies" - Establishing the research question: examining the impact pathways of the HEEACT accreditation system on teaching quality - Designing the research framework: applying BSC (Balanced Scorecard) to university self-assessment
Definition: Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later re-use.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Organizing MOE (Ministry of Education) public statistics and building a cross-year comparative database - Cleaning UCAN competency diagnostic raw data, handling missing values and outliers - Building an institutional metadata mapping table (including name changes and merger records)
Definition: Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Performing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to analyze the relationship between accreditation indicators and student learning outcomes - Conducting Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate university operational efficiency - Using text mining techniques to analyze self-assessment report texts
Definition: Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Applying for NSTC (National Science and Technology Council) research grants - Obtaining MOE Higher Education Sprout Project funding - Securing seed project funding from the institutional Office of Research and Development
Definition: Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Conducting a survey: surveying faculty across all higher education institutions on the current state of teaching practice research - Conducting in-depth interviews: interviewing quality assurance directors at 10 universities - Collecting self-assessment reports and site visit records from various institutions
Definition: Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Designing a mixed-methods research framework (quantitative survey + qualitative interviews) - Developing a higher education quality indicator assessment tool - Constructing an indicator system for a university exit early-warning model
Definition: Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Coordinating the work progress of a cross-institutional research team - Managing phased outputs of a multi-year NSTC grant - Arranging accreditation site visit schedules and committee member assignments
Definition: Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Providing access to an Institutional Research (IR) database - Providing authorization to use HEEACT accreditation data - Providing high-performance computing resources for large-scale text analysis
Definition: Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Developing an automated accreditation indicator calculation dashboard - Writing Python/R statistical analysis code - Building an NLP text analysis system
Definition: Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Supervising graduate students in conducting thesis research - Serving as principal investigator and monitoring research quality - Providing methodological guidance as a senior scholar
Definition: Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Verifying the robustness of quantitative analysis results (sensitivity analysis) - Using triangulation to confirm qualitative research findings - Cross-checking the consistency of different data sources
Definition: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Creating accreditation indicator trend charts and dashboards - Designing research framework diagrams and conceptual model diagrams - Creating charts and heatmaps for statistical analysis results
Definition: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Writing the complete initial draft of the paper (including all chapters) - Translating the Chinese initial draft into an English submission version - Writing specific chapters (e.g., literature review or methodology)
Definition: 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.
Higher Education Research Context Examples: - Reviewing and revising co-authors' initial drafts - Making revisions based on peer review comments - Proofreading the final version for text and formatting
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship criteria are widely referenced across all academic disciplines. All four conditions must be met to be listed as an author:
| # | Condition | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Substantial contributions | Substantial contributions to the conception or design; or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data |
| 2 | Drafting or revising | Participation in drafting the manuscript or critically reviewing important intellectual content |
| 3 | Final approval | Approval of the final version for submission |
| 4 | Accountability | Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part are appropriately investigated and resolved |
The following contributions typically do not qualify for authorship and should be listed in the Acknowledgments:
| Role | Author A (Corresponding Author) | Author B | Author C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conceptualization | Lead | Supporting | -- |
| Data curation | -- | Lead | Supporting |
| Formal analysis | Supporting | Lead | -- |
| Funding acquisition | Lead | -- | -- |
| Investigation | Supporting | Lead | Lead |
| Methodology | Lead | Supporting | -- |
| Project administration | Lead | -- | -- |
| Resources | Lead | -- | -- |
| Software | -- | Lead | -- |
| Supervision | Lead | -- | -- |
| Validation | Supporting | Supporting | Lead |
| Visualization | -- | Lead | Supporting |
| Writing -- original draft | Lead | Supporting | -- |
| Writing -- review & editing | Lead | Supporting | Supporting |
Label Descriptions: - Lead: Primarily responsible for this contribution - Supporting: Assisting or auxiliary role - --: Did not participate
| Organization/Publisher | Policy Summary | Effective Date |
|---|---|---|
| ICMJE | AI tools do not meet the four authorship criteria (cannot be accountable, cannot approve); must not be listed as authors | 2023 |
| APA (American Psychological Association) | AI not listed as author; AI use must be disclosed in methods or acknowledgments | 2023 |
| Nature/Springer Nature | LLMs not listed as authors; must disclose usage in methods or acknowledgments | 2023 |
| Science/AAAS | AI-generated text cannot be presented as original work; AI use must be disclosed | 2023 |
| Elsevier | AI tools not listed as authors; must disclose in the manuscript | 2023 |
| Wiley | AI not listed as author; must describe usage in acknowledgments | 2023 |
| Taylor & Francis | AI not listed as author; must disclose AI use at submission | 2023 |
| IEEE | AI must not be listed as author or co-author | 2023 |
OpenAI. (2024). ChatGPT (Version GPT-4) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/
| Journal/Publisher | CRediT Requirement | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Most Elsevier journals | Mandatory | Select roles in submission system |
| PLOS ONE | Mandatory | Stated in text within the manuscript |
| Some Springer Nature journals | Encouraged | Stated in text within the manuscript |
| Some Wiley journals | Encouraged | Text or table within the manuscript |
| All MDPI journals | Mandatory | Dedicated section at end of manuscript |
| Some Taylor & Francis journals | Encouraged | Stated in text within the manuscript |
| TSSCI Taiwan journals | Few require it | Per individual journal regulations |
| List as Author | List in Acknowledgments |
|---|---|
| Designed the research framework | Provided administrative support |
| Wrote or substantially revised the manuscript | Language editing/translation |
| Performed data analysis | Data entry/transcription |
| Obtained research funding AND participated in research | Provided funding only without research involvement |
| Designed the research methodology | Provided laboratory/equipment |
| Supervised research and provided academic guidance | Served as administrative head only |
The authors would like to thank [Name] from [Institution] for administrative
support, [Name] for language editing, and the anonymous reviewers for their
constructive feedback. This study was conducted with the support of the
Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT).
Author Contributions Statement:
[Author A]: Conceptualization, Methodology, Funding acquisition,
Writing – original draft, Supervision, Project administration.
[Author B]: Data curation, Formal analysis, Software, Visualization,
Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
[Author C]: Investigation, Validation, Writing – review & editing.
Author Contributions Statement:
[Author A]: Conceptualization, Methodology, Funding acquisition,
Writing – original draft, Supervision, Project administration.
[Author B]: Data curation, Formal analysis, Software, Visualization,
Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
[Author C]: Investigation, Validation, Writing – review & editing.
| English | Romanized Chinese |
|---|---|
| Conceptualization | Gai Nian Hua |
| Data curation | Zi Liao Guan Li |
| Formal analysis | Zheng Shi Fen Xi |
| Funding acquisition | Jing Fei Qu De |
| Investigation | Diao Cha Yan Jiu |
| Methodology | Yan Jiu Fang Fa |
| Project administration | Ji Hua Guan Li |
| Resources | Zi Yuan Ti Gong |
| Software | Ruan Ti Kai Fa |
| Supervision | Zhi Dao Jian Du |
| Validation | Yan Zheng |
| Visualization | Shi Jue Hua |
| Writing -- original draft | Zhuan Xie Chu Gao |
| Writing -- review & editing | Shen Yue Xiu Ding |