Authorship publications should reflect a substantial, direct contribution to the work presented in each paper. We aim to use the Vancouver Guidelines as a base and expand on them to reflect nontraditional research contributions. Nontraditional research contributions are activities that contribute in a direct way to the creation of the publication, such as improving data quality, developing software, or improving analysis code.
When you create the project proposal (as in Chapter 4), you should have an approximate idea of who the authors are and their order in the list. As the project continues, though, this could naturally change. Anyone who has contributed meaningfully or substantially to research project should be given the chance to become coauthor.
All potential coauthors should be involved early in the research project, ideally at the project proposal stage. In addition to the named authors, all papers need to include the group authorship of ‘on behalf of the DP-Next investigators’, linking to the current list of DP-Next investigators
Keep in mind that author lists and orders aren’t fixed at the start and can be amended after project approval by consensus among the authors or by the Steering Committee if the factual contributions differ from those foreseen initially. Ultimately, the Steering Committee has the final authority to decide on and determine the author list of any given paper. If disagreements about authorship cannot be resolved by consensus within the author group, the Steering Committee will make the final decision.
Regardless of named authors, you should make sure to include a detailed contributors list along with their described contributions as per the CRediT roles. At the least, the contributors and CRediT roles should be kept updated in the dp-next.yaml file and ideally be mentioned somewhere in the paper or in the supplemental material. The Steering Committee will ensure that such a document is publicly accessible and up to date.
Make sure to also include an acknowledgement to external parties such as funders, institutions, participants, and service providers in papers and other material you present or disseminate elsewhere. The Steering Committee will maintain an updated acknowledgement statement for the DP-Next project in the template-project.