Categories
Updates

Translating CRediT into non-English languages

By Alex O. Holcombe1, Malgorzata Lagisz2 & Eli Thoré3

The use of CRediT enriches the information available about the people associated with published research projects. CRediT became an ANSI NISO standard in 2022, which has facilitated its worldwide adoption. However, NISO standards are officially provided only in English which can impede their adoption where English is not a first language, and particularly among regional publishers. Having versions of CRediT available in more of the languages in which science is published can help to support adoption and enable more researchers to receive visibility for their important contributions.

As part of the Contributorship Collaboration we and others initiated a project to translate CRediT from English into other languages. So far, we have completed translations for thirteen languages, and more are on their way.

The translation process typically begins with a researcher fluent in the target language translating the fourteen CRediT roles and associated descriptions. A second person fluent in the language but not overly familiar with CRediT and blind to the original CRediT descriptions will then translate the text back into English. Differences between the back-translation and the original English version highlight phrases and words to be discussed by the translators before agreeing on a final translation. Alternatively, a second translator cross-checks and edits the draft translation without back-translating it to English. To ensure transparency and quality assurance, the translators’ names and the ‘Translation Procedure’ are included.

Why do we bother creating these translations manually when nowadays commonly-available AI tools can provide good translations on the fly? The availability of quality-certified translations may instill confidence of journal editors or publishers to proceed with adopting CRediT for a given language. Indeed, we know that some governments and organisations will not use a translation without clearly associated quality assurance processes. Having a single standard translation – as opposed to describing the same thing in various ways – can also foster clarity and reduce potential confusion.

We also are working to connect journal editors and/or publishers interested in using CRediT with translators or other language experts who have experience with CRediT. Such connections can foster appropriate international adoption of CRediT. 

In the absence of dedicated ongoing resources for translations of standards, it is important that research communities can come together to develop and coalesce on a single version for a given language; we hope that the Contributorship Collaboration helps to serve this purpose. If you would like to help us create translations in more languages, please join us!

Blog post author affiliations:

1. Alex O. Holcombe:

2. Malgorzata Lagisz:

3. Eli Thoré:

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, Sweden
  • Laboratory of Adaptive Biodynamics, Research Unit of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Life, Earth and Environment, University of Namur, Namur, Belgium
  • TRANSfarm – Science, Engineering, & Technology Group, KU Leuven, Lovenjoel, Belgium
  • https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0029-8404
Categories
Updates

Crossref’s metadata schema to include CRediT

Following a survey of their stakeholder community in Spring 2023, Crossref recently announced their priorities for metadata development for the coming year and beyond.

Among the priorities include:

  1. Ability to include multiple publication types in citations and statements;

2. Expanded support for pre-prints – including support for versions and status;

3. Expanded support for contributor roles, including CRediT.

To find out more and provide feedback see: Expanding support for Contributor Roles for comment

Categories
Publisher Adopters Updates

Frontiers Adopts CRediT

Frontiers chief executive editor Dr. Frederick Fenter says, “We are committed to continuous improvement and fostering a culture of openness within the scholarly community. By integrating CRediT, we aim to further enhance the quality and reliability of published research, while also recognizing and celebrating the collective efforts of researchers worldwide.”

The full press release can be found here: https://blog.frontiersin.org/2023/07/20/frontiers-adopts-credit-to-enhance-clarity-in-research-authorship/

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Publisher Adopters Updates

Scholastica adds CRediT

Scholastica say “We’re excited to announce the ability to add CRediT Taxonomy fields to Scholastica’s peer review system submission form and machine-readable metadata exports, as well as the option to include CRediT details in the body and metadata of articles typeset or published via Scholastica.“

See the full press release here: Announcing CRediT Taxonomy support for all Scholastica products (scholasticahq.com)

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Publisher Adopters Updates

American Chemical Society adopts CRediT

The American Chemical Society recently announced the adoption of the Contributor Roles Taxonomy across 18 journals.

Within the pilot adoption running from June – September, these 18 journals will request but not require CRediT roles at submission from all contributors named on a manuscript. They will also optionally disclose ‘degrees of contribution’ for each role ‘claimed’ per contributor. Degrees demystify the ‘lead, equal, or supporting’ amounts of CRediT to be associated with contributions.

Within the framework of the pilot, CRediT information can also be updated post-acceptance within participating journals through ACS’s authorship/CRediT change process, prior to web publication.

Following the pilot, stakeholder feedback will be used to determine next steps toward potential wider roll out across the broader ACS portfolio.

Categories
Updates

Spreading the word: Upcoming Talks

Team CRediT will share updates at upcoming in person and virtual meetings. We are also working to generate more awareness of opportunities to adopt and participate. While you don’t need to wait for a conference to chat to us, please do let us know if you want to talk about contributor recognition with us at one of these upcoming meetings where we are scheduled to present:

  • SSP Annual Meeting – June 2 | 3:30 p.m. Central Time (Chicago)
    Community Standards and Recommendations Supporting Open Scholarship: A Host of Benefits for All
  • Japan Open Science Summit – July 6 | 10 a.m. (Virtual)
    Information Standards and the Global Research Infrastructure 

We’re excited about the next steps for CRediT, as we have a mandate to engage with the community. If you want to discuss these opportunities or get on our list, please contact us.

Categories
Press Releases Updates

CRediT formalized as an ANSI/NISO Standard

Baltimore, MD – February 08, 2022 – 

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) today announces its publication of the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) as an ANSI/NISO standard, Z39.104-2022. The taxonomy, which was originally developed in 2014, describes 14 roles that represent the typical range of contributors to scientific scholarly outputs, and that can be used to enable recognition and facilitate transparency to the myriad contributions to research in our increasingly networked scholarly ecosystem. CRediT is already in use by more than 50 organizations, a majority of which are scholarly publishers, collectively representing thousands of journals.

The process of formal standardization with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) included the convening of a NISO Working Group for CRediT that ensured clarity in the existing taxonomy language and the implementation instructions for academics and publishers. The updated taxonomy was approved by NISO Voting Members in 2021, and ANSI has now approved it for publication as a standard. Simultaneous with the standardization process, the CRediT website at http://159.203.176.220 was launched, to provide a stable home for the identifiers and a central resource for interested parties.

NISO now plans to establish a Standing Committee to support CRediT. This Committee will continue current education and outreach efforts and work with the community to determine how to keep the taxonomy up-to-date and relevant; for example, ensuring continued roll out and adoption among publishers, and exploring how to expand its value to all research disciplinary areas. A Community of Interest Group will also be established, to enable participation of a broad and diverse range of community perspectives and interests, and to inform any future developments of the taxonomy. 

“We are pleased and grateful to have had such support from the NISO community in making CRediT an ANSI/NISO standard,” commented Liz Allen, Director of Strategic Initiatives at F1000 and co-chair of the CRediT Working Group. “Voting members provided many thoughtful and valuable comments along with their votes approving the draft standard. These practical suggestions represent early feedback for the new Standing Committee to consider, and will help us steward future work to maximize CRediT’s adoption by all members of the scholarly community.”

“Many thanks and kudos to the members of the CRediT Working Group for their work to formalize the Contributor Roles Taxonomy as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022,” commented Todd Carpenter, Executive Director of NISO. “Improved momentum for adoption of the CRediT taxonomy will, in turn, enable more widespread, appropriate, and transparent acknowledgement of contributions. NISO looks forward to supporting the Standing Committee, once it is formed, to ensure the further development of CRediT to effectively support priorities in our community.”

The Contributor Roles Taxonomy is freely available at: https://www.niso.org/standards-committees/credit

About NISO

Based in Baltimore, MD, NISO’s mission is to build knowledge, foster discussion, and advance authoritative standards development through collaboration among the cultural, scholarly, scientific, and professional communities. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages with libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire lifecycle of information standards. NISO is a non-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). For more information, visit the NISO website (https://niso.org) or contact us at nisohq@niso.org. 

About CRediT

CRediT (the Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to scientific scholarly output. The roles describe each contributor’s specific contribution to the scholarly output. For more information, visit the CRediT website (http://159.203.176.220).

Stay in touch with what’s happening with NISO and in the broader information community.

Categories
Thought Leadership Videos

Identity in Peer Review: An Interview with Simon Kerridge

As part of our CRediT Peer Review Week contributions, NISO Associate Executive Director Nettie Lagace interviewed CRediT Co-Chair Simon Kerridge on Identity in Peer Review. Please watch and enjoy their discussion, and stay tuned as we will release a discussion of this topic by key metascience scholars later this week.

Categories
Thought Leadership Videos

Peer Review week 2021: identity theme

It is Peer Review Week 2021, and this year’s theme is Identity in Peer Review. We are excited to participate by sharing some videos across the week. Stay tuned to hear contribution community thought leaders sharing their insights on this interesting subject.

Here is a peek at what’s ahead later this week. Keep checking back, and also check in with the PRW website and YouTube channel to keep up with all of the ideas and perspectives around Identity in Peer Review.

Categories
Press Releases Publisher Adopters

CRediT springs forward

In 2021, CRediT achieved a number of important milestones, including:

  1. CRediT awarded the Council for Science Editors’ Meritorious Award – we are honored to be recognized with the CSE’s Meritorious Achievement Award for 2021. The presentation took  place at this year’s Annual Meeting, and past awardees include some important initiatives and distinguished company.

2. CRediT + ORCID: Together, at last!

CRediT is now officially supported in the ORCID API 3.0, with the ‘launch’ of the Contributor Roles Taxonomy alongside existing contributor roles.  

With the addition of these 14 contributor roles, research contributors—who may play multiple roles in a single published work—can now have all facets of their work recognized. ORCID members can now add this data, enabling the information to be filtered to other systems that read ORCID data via the API or the public data file, thus creating greater transparency and recognition. 

CRediT roles will be visible in the UI in the same way existing roles are, based on the user’s visibility preferences. As part of our ongoing work, we are continuing to look at ways we can allow users to include co-author and contributor data when adding research outputs to their ORCID record manually.

The ORCID API 3.0 now supports our existing list of contributor roles and CRediT roles, meaning that members can start using CRediT without having to upgrade to a newer API version. However, you will need to update your existing integration to begin leveraging CRediT. 

3. Publishers can use Rescognito to manage CRediT outside of traditional publishing workflow

Rescognito allows researchers to claim CRediT using the DOI for their manuscript (just add the DOI to the end of the Rescognito URL. e.g., https://rescognito.com/10.5281/zenodo.3899865… ). Following ORCID’s announcement of the addition of CRediT to records, Rescognito will implement functionality to push these CRediT recognitions to ORCID with the user’s permission. This is an option in addition to existing integrations with several Manuscript Submission and Peer Review systems, allowing for the management of CRediT upstream in publishing workflow. Stay tuned for more details as they develop!

4. More new adopters!

ASHA: American Speech-Language Hearing Association recently announced their adoption of CRediT in a community blog post, which also spotlighted other Literatum journals and publishers who are capturing and displaying contributor roles.