Learn more about ACS Publications' pilot program with CRediT—a taxonomy standard designed to support open science and transparency in scientific publishing—and view our current participating journals.
This article was originally published on June 14, 2022. Updated with additional resources and information on August 24, 2023.
-------------
In 2022, ACS Publications embarked on a pilot of the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) program in 18 of our research journals. CRediT is a high-level taxonomy used to identify and acknowledge the roles played by contributors to scientific scholarly output. As of February 2022, the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) formalized CRediT as an ANSI/NISO standard.
CRediT encourages open science and promotes increased transparency in our published content. It assists researchers in easy identification of potential collaborators, it assists funders in identifying who played what part in specific research outputs, and in tracking the various outputs from grantees, and it assists editors and funders in finding specific peer reviewers for articles or grants.
Read on to find out more about the ACS Publications pilot with CRediT:
When will the CRediT pilot run?
The pilot began in 2022 and will continue to run for the foreseeable future.
What journals have the option for CRediT?
- Accounts of Chemical Research
- ACS Bio & Med Chem Au
- ACS Chemical Health & Safety
- ACS Engineering Au
- ACS Environmental Au
- ACS ES&T Engineering
- ACS ES&T Water
- ACS Materials Au
- ACS Materials Letters
- ACS Macro Letters
- ACS Measurement Science Au
- ACS Nanoscience Au
- ACS Organic & Inorganic Au
- ACS Physical Chemistry Au
- ACS Polymers Au
- Chemical Research in Toxicology
- Chemical Reviews
- JACS Au
Will CRediT be mandatory to enter upon submission to these journals?
CRediT is optional for authors upon original submission and revision to these 18 journals.
Who is responsible for providing CRediT information?
The submitting author is responsible for providing CRediT information for all authors. CRediT information can also be updated post-acceptance through ACS’s authorship/CRediT change process, prior to web publication.
If I utilize ACS Manuscript Transfer, will CRediT information transfer?
CRediT information will transfer if the manuscript is transferred to a pilot journal.
How many contributor roles are there?
CRediT includes the 14 roles listed here:
- Conceptualization
- Data Curation
- Formal Analysis
- Funding Acquisition
- Investigation
- Methodology
- Project Administration
- Resources
- Software
- Supervision
- Validation
- Visualization
- Writing – original draft
- Writing – review & editing.
A full description of each role is available here.
Where do submitting authors provide CRediT information?
Submitting authors can provide CRediT information when submitting an original or a revised manuscript to a pilot journal via ACS Paragon Plus.
Where will CRediT be displayed on the published article?
It is displayed at the end of the article in the “Author Contributions” section of both the HTML and PDF versions of the article.
What happens to contribution notes that are included in the manuscript file?
Contribution notes included by the authors in the manuscript file will be published in the “Author Contributions” section before official CRediT information.
What if I’m interested in CRediT but the journal I submitted to is not part of the pilot?
Authors still have the ability to include their own contribution note in the manuscript file at the time of original submission or revision. At this time, the contribution note will not be officially counted as part of the CRediT pilot but will be published as provided by the authors.
Please read more about CRediT in this Scholarly Kitchen interview with the three Co-Chairs of the NISO Contributor Roles Taxonomy Working Group, Liz Allen, Simon Kerridge, and Alison McGonagle-O’Connell: Next Steps for CRediT – An Interview with the Co-Chairs.