Guidelines
The purpose of this guidance is to facilitate increased transparency in the determination of authorship to ensure that collegial and ethical interactions are professionally initiated, maintained, documented, and resolved.
The School of Public Health recommends the use of the McNutt, et al. criteria which have arisen from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (McNutt, et al., 2018). These criteria allow for authorship parameters that are more inclusive than other established models and are conducive to the collaborative environment of public health research.
Expectations and Criteria for Authorship
According to the criteria, individuals should be considered authors if they meet the following criteria of a, b, and c:
a. Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it;
and
b. to have approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author's contribution to the study);
and
c. to have agreed both to be personally accountable for the author's own contributions and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature.
McNutt, M et al. (2018) Transparency in author’s contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
spacing of original document has been altered
Although the model presented here most closely aligns with the values of the School of Public Health, principal investigators should be aware that certain funders, such as NIH, or collaborators at other schools (i.e. School of Medicine), institutions, or certain journals may use a different model, namely, the ICMJE model or their own model. Therefore, it is required that discussions regarding who constitutes an author, the order of authorship, and division of responsibilities occur on an ongoing basis. Following best practices, it is also expected that the details of authorship discussions will be agreed upon by the parties involved and documented. It is the principal investigator's responsibility to initiate this conversation and maintain documentation. Often the conversation should originate with a publishable unit's first and last authors jointly. Pitt Public Health's Authorship Discussion Form is available to aid in the documentation process, however, this specific form is not required.
Tools for Documentation
To assist with this discussion and the related documentation we provide two tools:
- Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) - allows for the clear identification of roles within production and publication of research output. CRediT is recognized by leading research organizations and is required to be used by others. Principal investigators are encouraged in their discussion to anticipate potential journals and review the journal’s authorship requirement as early in the process as possible.
- Authorship Discussion Form
Processes for Mediation
Despite these guidelines, should concerns arise regarding inclusion or exclusion of authors any time prior to publication, individuals may bring their concern to the attention of Pitt Health Sciences Ombuds Office via email, the School of Public Health associate dean for research, or any of the seven departmental vice chairs for research to assist in resolution of the concern.
For disputes that involve a journal (i.e., after a publication is submitted to a journal), individuals should inform the associate dean for research and vice dean about the status and concern. However, resolution of the issue will typically be dictated by a journal’s policy.
Reference
McNutt, M. K., Bradford, M., Drazen, J. M., Hanson, B., Howard, B., Jamieson, K. H., Kiermer, V., Marcus, E., Pope, B. K., Schekman, R., Swaminathan, S., Stang, P. J., & Verma, I. M. (2018). Transparency in authors' contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(11), 2557–2560. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1715374115
Guideline Author and Reviewers
Authored by Cindy McCarthy, director, Bioethics Certificate
Reviewed and commented by Department chairs, vice chairs for research, Pitt Public Health Council, associate dean for research, vice dean
August 2025