Status: Published
Version: 1.2
License: this recommendation document is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 UK

Provenance

Version 1.2 updated based on feedback comments. This was then reviewed by the JATS4R Steering Committee.

Change history

Version 1.1 can be found here here.

• URLs updated to secure protocols (https)

Context

<contrib-group>, <contrib>, <role>

JATS 1.1 Attributes: @content-type

JATS 1.2 Attributes: @vocab, @vocab-identifier, @vocab-term, @vocab-term-identifier

Description

The CreDiT taxonomy provides a way to encode contribution information inside article XML files. The taxonomy identifies the specific nature of an individual’s contribution with respect to the research material at hand. The purpose of CRediT is to provide transparency in contributions to scholarly published work, to enable improved systems of attribution, credit, and accountability. The objective of this recommendation is to promote transparency of contribution information in article XML and to ensure that contribution types are encoded in a manner that is machine readable and optimized for reuse.

As of the publication of this recommendation, there are 14 types of contributions that can be applied to an individual contributor:

Table 1: CRediT terms and URLs

Term	URI
Conceptualization	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/conceptualization/
Data curation	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/data-curation/
Formal analysis	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/formal-analysis/
Funding acquisition	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/funding-acquisition/
Investigation	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/investigation/
Methodology	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/methodology/
Project administration	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/project-administration/
Resources	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/resources/
Software	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/software/
Supervision	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/supervision/
Validation	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/validation/
Visualization	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/visualization/
Writing – original draft	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/writing-original-draft/
Writing – review & editing	https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/writing-review-editing/

Multiple terms can be applied to a single contributor. For more information about the CreDiT taxonomy as well as the individual terms, please see: https://credit.niso.org/.

The <role> element may include information unrelated to CRediT, such as an individual’s position at work or job title. In such cases the decision of how to include that information should be left to individual organizations, however, care should be taken to ensure that no potential conflicts exist between the use of <role> for carrying CRediT information and its use otherwise (see XML example 5). Finally, it should be noted that this recommendation is specific to capturing CRediT information through the use of the <role> element. For guidance on capturing information about authors and their affiliations in article metadata, please refer to the JATS4R Authors and Affiliations recommendation. Also note that this recommendation does not address all possible uses of <role>, which will be addressed in a separate recommendation if warranted by sufficient interest. If you would be interested in participating in a subgroup dedicated to the use of <role> please email info@jats4r.niso.org.

Additional reading

• NISO JATS 1.1 library
• NISO JATS 1.2d1 library
• NISO JATS Standing Committee recommended changes between NISO/JATS 1.1 and JATS 1.2d1
• ANSI/NISO Standard Z39.96-2015:
• CReDiT contributor roles
• Samples document (Google drive)

Recommendation

It is recommended that when including CrediT information in JATS XML, the JATS 1.2 DTD be used as it provides a more robust way of supporting the taxonomy, as demonstrated in the following recommendations. However, it is JATS4R’s mandate to be as inclusive as possible in order to accommodate the constraints of DTD versioning. Therefore, this recommendation defines two ways of tagging CRediT taxonomy in article XML, one using the JATS 1.1 DTD and the second using the JATS 1.2 DTD. 

There may be a difference between the term inside the <role> element content, which is intended for display, and the term as it appears inside @vocab-term (JATS 1.2) or @content-type (JATS 1.1) and related attributes. In such cases JATS4R does not take a position on what is in the human readable display, as long as the taxonomy usage in the attribute(s) is correct as per the above recommendations.

1. <role>. Each CRediT term must be included inside the <role> element, and each <role> element must only include one term.  In cases where more than one CRediT term needs to be applied, the <role> element should be repeated. The <role> element must carry attributes as described below
   
   JATS 1.2 and above
2. @vocab on <role> must always carry the value “credit”.
   
   [[Validator tool result: if a @vocab-term or @vocab-term-identifier has a CRediT value (as specified above) and there is no @vocab= “credit” ERROR]]
   
   [[Validator tool result: if role element has none of the required attributes, but its value is one of the CRediT terms WARNING]]
3. @vocab-identifier on <role> must point to the URL for the general CRediT taxonomy
   
   [[Validator tool result: if role with @vocab=”credit” does not have a @vocab-identifier=”https://credit.niso.org/” ERROR]]
4. @vocab-term on <role> must identify the particular CRediT term.
   
   [[Validator tool result: if @vocab=”credit” and @vocab-term value is not one of the CRediT terms specified above ERROR]]
5. @vocab-term-identifier on <role> must point to the URL of the specific CRediT term.
   
   [[Validator tool result: if @vocab=”credit” and @vocab-term-identifer value is not one of the CRediT URIs specified above ERROR]]
   
   [[Validator tool result: if @vocab=”credit” and @vocab-term-identifer value does not correspond to the @vocab-term value ERROR]]
   
   1.2 DTD and below:
6. @content-type must point to the URL of the specific CRediT term.
   
   [[Validator tool result: if @content-type value containing “credit.niso.org” does not match one of the CRediT term URIs specified above ERROR]]
   
   [[Validator tool result: if no @content-type and role element value is one of the CRediT taxonomy terms WARNING]]

Examples

Example 1: Value of the <role> element is identical to the value of the @vocab_term attribute (JATS 1.2 DTD and above)

<contrib-group><contrib><string-name><given-names>Dan</given-names><surname>Green</surname></string-name><role vocab="credit" vocab-identifier="https://credit.niso.org/" vocab-term="Conceptualization" vocab-term-identifier="https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/conceptualization/" > Conceptualization</role></contrib><contrib><string-name><surname>Valanciunas</surname><given-names>Jonas</given-names></string-name><role vocab="credit" vocab-identifier="https://credit.niso.org/" vocab-term="Writing - Original Draft" vocab-term-identifier="https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/writing-original-draft/" >Writing - Original Draft</role></contrib></contrib-group>

Example 2: Value of the <role> element different from value of the @vocab_term attribute (JATS 1.2 DTD and above)

<contrib-group><contrib><string-name><given-names>Patrick</given-names><surname>McCaw</surname></string-name><role vocab="credit" vocab-identifier="https://credit.niso.org/" vocab-term="Investigation" vocab-term-identifier="https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/investigation/" >Data Collection</role></contrib><contrib><string-name><given-names>Fred</given-names><surname>Vanvleet</surname></string-name><role vocab="credit" vocab-identifier="https://credit.niso.org/" vocab-term="Investigation" vocab-term-identifier="https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/investigation/" >Data Collection</role></contrib></contrib-group>

Example 3: Value of the <role> element when same value of the @content-type attribute (JATS 1.1 DTD and below)

<contrib-group><contrib><string-name><surname>Leonard</surname><given-names>Kawhi</given-names></string-name><role content-type="https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/conceptualization/" >Conceptualization</role><role content-type="https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/data-curation/" >Data curation</role><role content-type="https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/formal-analysis/" >Formal analysis</role><role content-type="https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/investigation/" >Investigation</role><role content-type=" https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/writing-original-draft/">Writing - original draft</role></contrib></contrib-group>

Example 4: Value of the <role> element different from value of the @vocab_term attribute (JATS 1.1 DTD and below)

<contrib-group><contrib><string-name><surname>Boucher</surname><given-names>Chris</given-names></string-name><role content-type="https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/conceptualization/">Study Designer</role></contrib></contrib-group>

Example 5:  Use of <role> for non-CRediT term

<contrib-group><contrib><string-name><given-names>Green</given-names><surname>Dan</surname></string-name><role vocab="credit" vocab-identifier="https://credit.niso.org/" vocab-term="Conceptualization" vocab-term-identifier="https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles/conceptualization/"> Conceptualization</role><role>Section Editor</role></contrib></contrib-group>

History

Committee working: September 2020

Published: September 13, 2021