Publication Guidelines

GUIDELINES FOR PUBLICATIONS AND AUTHORSHIP FOR MEMBERS OF THE CANADIAN IBD RESEARCH CONSORTIUM (CIRC)

Version February 27, 2017

This is meant as a guideline and will be discussed on a case-by-case basis by the Director of Research and the Publication Committee.

1. All work carried out by the Consortium, and only these, must indicate “and Canadian IBD Research Consortium” after the last author’s name has been stated. When CIRC has been asked to participate in a study conducted by an outside laboratory or team, the name CIRC should not appear in the authorship credits.
 
2. The team that initiated the study (team A) is responsible for (a) the writing and presentation of the abstract, and (b) writing and finalizing the article publication. If this contract is fulfilled, team A has the right to the first author. If the work has been entrusted to a young investigator and led by a senior investigator of team A, the young investigator has the right to first author and the senior investigator has the right to the last author. If the work has not involved a young person, the senior member of team A has the right to first author, and the last signature belongs to the member of the CIRC with the most significant and frequent contributions to the study, as jointly decided by the senior member of team A and the director of research for the Consortium.
 
3. Teams that have included patients (teams B, C, D, E etc.) occupy the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. authorship positions. Rank of authorship is based on the number of patients contributed towards the study, and if equality of number, according to the date of inclusion of the 1st patient included. A team can only be granted authorship if they have included a minimum number of patients (> 4% of the total included).
 
4. If 2 teams have initiated the study (teams A and B) in a joint way, these 2 teams have respectively the 1st and the last authorship. In this case, each team will only contribute one member towards authorship.
 
5. In the event that multiple investigators from one team contributed patients, a younger investigator will have priority for authorship.
 
6. More than one investigator from a centre can be an author if their contribution to the success of the study is significant beyond patient recruitment. This decision will be made by the Director of Research and will be explained to the Board of Directors.
 
7. If possible, the total number of top authors is approximately 20; In exceptional circumstances this could be reviewed by the Director of Research and Publications Committee. The teams that have included a small number of patients (less than 4%, teams H, I, J, K, etc.) may have a authorship position after the other teams and outside collaborations, up to a limit of 20 authors. In order to ensure that all active teams of the Consortium are given authorship credit, it is proposed for these teams which have included 1 to 4% of the patients to sign on a rolling basis from one publication to another within the limit of available places. In any given publication, for any additional authors beyond 20, teams that have included one or more patients appear as part of a group authorship. This rule may not be applied in the case of collaborative work with another specialty and a large number of stakeholders.
 
8. If external collaboration is used (e.g. expert respiratory therapist for respiratory manifestations associated with IBD, expert radiologist for MRI work, expert statistician outside the Consortium), placement depends on his/her degree of involvement in the study: (a) strong involvement (e.g. reviewed all imagery and directed the manuscript in depth): Expert Z is placed at second to last authorship; (b) Average involvement (has done limited but time-intensive work): Expert Y is placed in before second last place; (c) weak involvement (advice, intervention in the course of normal activity): acknowledgments at the bottom of the page. Parallel publication in the journal of the specialty (e.g. a Journal of Respirology) is strongly encouraged if the expert judges that his participation is not sufficiently recognized, and it is then he or she who decides the order of authors.
 
9. In the case of multiple external collaborations belonging to different specialties (e.g. respirologist + statistician), external experts may occupy only 2 authorship positions located at third and second from the last authorship as discussed with the Director of Research and Publications Committee. Any additional collaborators will be given acknowledgements in the manuscript.
 
10. In general, there is one author per team, with the exception of the young or senior author from the team with the first and last authorship. However, if another team has included more than 20% of the total number of patients included, it may have an additional authorship position that is placed according to the number of patients included by the team divided by 2.
 
11. In case of the young investigator is no longer actively participating in the study and a reasonable period has been exhausted, the young person may be demoted beyond the 4th signature, the Senior is placed according to the number of patients included (Rule 3), and the last place belongs to the CIRC member who takes over the drafting or, failing that, to the Director of Research.
 
12. The Consortium statistician occupies an authorship position, which will be at the choice of the Director of Research. In case of strong involvement (original methodology, particularly important investment, index development, etc.), or very strong (meta-analysis, original secondary statistical exploitation, etc.), the statistician can have authorship as judged by contribution.
 
13. There is the possibility for the 1st / 2nd and second last / last authors to indicate “equal contributors”, but this wording must be used in an exceptional and justified way.
 
14. The authorship of abstracts are subject to the same rules. However, as far as possible, the number of authors must be limited, with a system of rotation being preferred if several abstracts on the same work are presented. For the articles, the number, the rank and the content of the authors are re-evaluated at the final drafting of the article in conformity with the previous rules (n ° 1 to 11): the acceptance of an abstract does not imply the same authors and in the same order in the article.
 
15. The signature rules also apply for internal ancillary studies based on data collected as part of a Consortium study, with the team conducting the ancillary study becoming team A (or teams A and B if equivalent collaboration), with the other teams then being demoted by 1 or 2 places, respectively.
 
16. All decisions regarding authorship will be made by the Director of Research.
 
17. In case of dispute with authorship, the final decision is voted on by the Board of Directors of the Consortium.