Authorship should be given upon meeting all 4 of the following criteria proposed (verbatim) by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE; http://www.icmje.org/):
(1) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
(2) Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
(3) Final approval of the version to be published; AND
(4) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Xia & He Publishing Inc. implements the further following standards for authorship and related, durable responsibilities:
(1) All authors are responsible for identifying which co-authors take greater responsibility for specific parts of the work, such as statistical analyses, specific methods/tools for which they hold unique expertise, etc.
(2) All authors should have confidence in the integrity of their co-authors’ work, as they are accepting collective responsibility of such.
(3) All authors listed in the first submission of the manuscript should remain as authors throughout the peer-review and publication processes. If revisions of the manuscript, during the course of these processes, are modified to the extent that an original author no longer fits all 4 ICMJE criteria, the authors must provide Xia & He Publishing Inc. with a detailed, written explanation in a formal statement. This formal Authorship Change Agreement statement must be signed by all original and new authors, including the author(s) removed and/or added.
4) The specified Corresponding Author takes responsibility for monitoring and responding to all correspondence with the journal, in a timely manner, throughout the entire peer-review and publication process, from submission through post-publication (e.g., addressing related Letters to the Editor, etc.). These activities include the Corresponding Author ensuring that all of the journal’s administrative processes are addressed to completion, such as providing documentation related to ethics committee review/approval, patient/participant consent, clinical trial registration, etc. The Corresponding Author should carry out all of these activities while keeping in mind that their replies, such as to editorial/reviewer queries/critiques, can be made publicly available at the discretion of the journal after final publication.
Non-Author Contributors
All persons/agencies who contributed to the study or manuscript but who do not fulfill all 4 of the ICMJE authorship criteria should be acknowledged under the “Acknowledgments” section of the manuscript. These persons/agencies should provide written permission for their inclusion in the Acknowledgements section, and examples of such include anyone/group who contributed through funding, general supervision of a research group or general administrative support, writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, proofreading, advising, supplying materials, critical review, and so forth.