The following policies apply to all journals published in Insights Publisher, unless otherwise noted.
Everyone listed as an author should meet our criteria for authorship. Everyone who meets our criteria for authorship must be listed as an author.
We expect that all authors will take public responsibility for the content of the manuscript submitted to Insights Publisher. The contributions of all authors must be described.
All authors will be contacted by email at submission to ensure that they are aware of and approve the submission of the manuscript, its content, and its authorship.
Qualifying for Authorship
Authorship criteria are based on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.
The ICMJE lists four conditions for authorship credit. Authors must meet all four conditions in order to be listed.
Group Authorship
The ICMJE recommends that group authorship adhere to the following guidelines:
When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship / contributorship defined above, and editors will ask these individuals to complete journal-specific author and conflict-of-interest disclosure forms. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship.
When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation in the manuscript title page and identify all individual authors as well as the group name. Journals generally list other members of the group in the Acknowledgments.
Acknowledgments
Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be mentioned in the Acknowledgments. It is expected that those being acknowledged have given their permission to be named.
Corresponding Author Responsibilities
The corresponding author takes responsibility for and speaks on behalf of all authors.
Pre-publication:
Post-publication:
Authorship Changes
Journals published by Insights Publisher follow the COPE guidelines for changes in authorship.
Changing the author list after submission requires agreement from all authors. This includes additions, deletions, and changes in ordering. Requests must come from the corresponding author along with an explanation for the change. If the change is deemed to be appropriate, the corresponding author must receive and provide to PLOS the consent to the change from all the authors, including any being added, deleted, or reordered.
Authorship issues identified after publication may result in a correction. In the case of an authorship dispute, the journal will not arbitrate. If the authors are unable to resolve the dispute themselves, we will raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its guidelines.
Author Identification
Insights Publisher endorses ORCID and requires that all corresponding authors provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. We encourage coauthors to register and use their ORCID as well.
We publish the corresponding author’s ORCID iD as well as any ORCIDs provided by coauthors if the manuscript is accepted.
Editor and Reviewer Requirements
Editors should be aware of the author list and author affiliations when they invite reviewers to review a manuscript in order to reduce the likelihood of inviting individuals with potentially competing interests that would disqualify them from participating in the peer review process.
Editors and reviewers should contact the journal with any concerns about the author list or if they identify any potentially competing interests that should be declared or that mean they should reuse themselves from the process.