Authorship and Contributorship Policy

AUTHORSHIP & CONTRIBUTION POLICY
Authorship and Contribution Policy
 
1. General Principles

The Da Nang Journal of Medicine and Pharmacy (DJMP) requires authorship to accurately reflect individuals who have made substantive intellectual and scientific contributions to the work and who are prepared to take responsibility for the published content.

Authorship represents not only recognition of contribution but also responsibility and accountability for the accuracy, integrity, and reliability of the work.

2. Authorship Criteria

DJMP applies the four authorship criteria of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). An individual should be listed as an author only when all four criteria are met:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data;
2. Drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
3. Final approval of the version to be published;
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work and to ensure that questions relating to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All individuals listed as authors must meet all four criteria, and all individuals who meet all four criteria should be identified as authors.

3. Contributions That Do Not Qualify for Authorship

Contributions such as the following, when provided alone, do not automatically qualify an individual for authorship:

• Providing funding only;
• General supervision of the research group;
• Administrative support;
• Data collection alone;
• Technical support;
• Language editing;
• Proofreading;
• Writing assistance.

Individuals who contribute to the work but do not meet the full authorship criteria should be appropriately acknowledged in the Acknowledgements or in a relevant contribution statement.

4. Corresponding Author

Each manuscript must identify at least one corresponding author.

• Manuscript submission;
• Peer review;
• Revision;
• Editorial processing;
• Publication;
• Post-publication communication when necessary.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that required administrative information and documentation, including authorship information, conflict-of-interest disclosures, ethics approval, clinical trial registration where applicable, and related documents, are provided in full.

5. Author Order

The order of authors should be agreed upon by the author group before manuscript submission.

DJMP does not determine author order on behalf of the research group and does not intervene in internal agreements concerning author order unless a publication-integrity concern arises.

Responsibility for determining who qualifies for authorship and the order of authors lies with the author group, not the Editorial Board.

6. Changes to Authorship After Submission

Requests made after manuscript submission to:

• Add an author;
• Remove an author;
• Change the author order;
• Change the corresponding author.

Such requests must be submitted to DJMP in writing with a clear explanation. The Journal may require:

• Written confirmation from all current authors;
• Confirmation from the author being added or removed;
• An updated contribution statement;
• Additional supporting documentation where necessary.

DJMP does not accept authorship changes made solely to increase prestige, satisfy administrative requirements, or for reasons that do not accurately reflect actual contributions.

7. Authorship Disputes

DJMP does not adjudicate authorship disputes between individuals or institutions.

Where a dispute cannot be resolved by the authors, the Journal may suspend manuscript processing and request that the authors seek resolution through the institution or organization where the research was conducted.

8. Honorary, Guest, and Ghost Authorship
Honorary/Gift Authorship: Listing an individual who does not meet the required authorship criteria;
Guest Authorship: Adding an individual primarily to increase prestige or the likelihood of acceptance;
Ghost Authorship: Failing to list an individual who has made contributions sufficient to qualify for authorship.

Where there is evidence or reasonable suspicion of these practices, DJMP may request an explanation and take action in accordance with its publication ethics and research/publication misconduct policies.

9. Author Contribution Statement

Depending on the article type, DJMP encourages or may require an Author Contributions Statement describing the specific role of each author.

The CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) may be used, including roles such as:

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

A contribution statement improves transparency but does not replace the authorship criteria.

10. Multicenter Studies and Group Authorship

For multicenter studies or large research groups, a group name may be used where appropriate.

The corresponding author must clearly identify:

• Which individuals qualify as authors;
• Which individuals are collaborators;
• The roles and contributions of each individual or group;
• Who takes responsibility for the manuscript.

Members identified as authors within a large group must still meet the applicable authorship criteria.

11. Artificial Intelligence and Authorship

Artificial intelligence tools, large language models, chatbots, or other AI systems must not be listed as authors of an article.

AI cannot:

• Take responsibility for manuscript content;
• Approve the final version;
• Accept accountability;
• Confirm originality;
• Manage conflicts of interest.

If AI is used in manuscript preparation, authors must disclose its use in accordance with DJMP’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy.

12. Author Confirmation at Submission

When submitting a manuscript to DJMP, the corresponding author confirms on behalf of the author group that:

• All authors have read and approved the manuscript;
• The author list accurately identifies individuals who meet authorship criteria;
• All authors agree to submission to DJMP;
• The manuscript accurately represents the research work;
• All required declarations have been provided.