Authorship Criteria

Journal of Informatics, Information System, Software Engineering and Applications (INISTA)

1. General Principles

The Journal of Informatics, Information System, Software Engineering and Applications (INISTA) is committed to promoting transparency, accountability, and integrity in scholarly authorship.

INISTA adopts authorship principles consistent with the ethical publishing guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

Authorship must accurately reflect the substantial intellectual contributions of individuals involved in the research and preparation of a manuscript. All individuals who meet the authorship criteria must be appropriately credited, while those who do not qualify for authorship should be acknowledged when appropriate.

2. Criteria for Authorship

An individual must fulfill all four criteria to qualify as an author of a manuscript submitted to INISTA:

  1. Substantial Intellectual Contribution: The individual has made a significant contribution to the conception or design of the research; development of research methods, algorithms, models, or software; experimental design or implementation; or acquisition, analysis, validation, or interpretation of research data.

  2. Manuscript Preparation: The individual has contributed to drafting the manuscript or critically reviewing and revising it for important intellectual content.

  3. Final Approval: The individual has reviewed and approved the final manuscript submitted for publication, including any substantial revisions and the final accepted version.

  4. Accountability: The individual agrees to take responsibility for their own contributions and to cooperate in investigating and resolving questions concerning the accuracy, originality, or integrity of any part of the research.

Individuals who do not fulfill all four criteria should not be listed as authors.

Authorship eligibility must be determined by actual intellectual contributions rather than academic qualifications, professional position, institutional affiliation, or seniority.

3. Author Contributions

INISTA requires a clear statement describing the contribution of each author to promote transparency and accountability.

Authors should use the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), which identifies the following 14 contribution categories:

  1. Conceptualization

  2. Methodology

  3. Software

  4. Validation

  5. Formal Analysis

  6. Investigation

  7. Resources

  8. Data Curation

  9. Writing – Original Draft

  10. Writing – Review & Editing

  11. Visualization

  12. Supervision

  13. Project Administration

  14. Funding Acquisition

An author may contribute to multiple roles, and more than one author may share the same role.

Assignment of a CRediT role does not automatically qualify an individual for authorship. Every author must independently satisfy the authorship criteria stated in Section 2.

Example of an Author Contributions Statement:

Author A: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, and Writing – Original Draft. Author B: Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Validation, and Visualization. Author C: Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing, and Project Administration. All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

The author contribution statement must be submitted during the manuscript submission process and confirmed by all authors. To preserve the journal's double-blind review process, identifying contribution information should be provided separately from the anonymized manuscript when necessary.

4. Author Order and Corresponding Author

The order of authors must be determined collectively by the authors based on their respective contributions and agreed upon before manuscript submission.

The first author is generally the individual who has made the primary contribution to conducting the research and preparing the manuscript.

When two or more authors have contributed equally, an equal-contribution statement may be included with the agreement of all authors.

The corresponding author is responsible for:

  • Ensuring that all listed authors meet the authorship criteria and that no eligible contributor has been omitted.

  • Obtaining the agreement of all authors regarding the manuscript content, author order, and submission.

  • Providing accurate author names, institutional affiliations, email addresses, and other required metadata.

  • Managing communication between the editorial office and all co-authors throughout submission, review, revision, and publication.

  • Communicating editorial decisions and coordinating manuscript revisions with all authors.

  • Ensuring that author contribution statements, funding information, conflicts of interest, and other required declarations are complete and accurate.

  • Coordinating responses to questions or corrections after publication.

The corresponding author does not automatically need to be the first author.

5. Contributors and Acknowledgments

Individuals who contributed to the research but do not meet all authorship criteria should be recognized in the Acknowledgments section, where appropriate.

Examples include individuals whose contributions are limited to:

  • Providing administrative or logistical assistance.

  • Securing research funding without additional qualifying intellectual contributions.

  • Providing general supervision without substantive involvement in the research or manuscript.

  • Offering routine technical support, proofreading, or language editing.

  • Providing access to research facilities, equipment, or computational resources without additional qualifying contributions.

Acknowledged contributors should be informed and their permission obtained before their names are included.

6. Unacceptable Authorship Practices

INISTA does not permit unethical authorship practices, including:

Gift Authorship: Including an individual as an author solely because of personal relationships, professional courtesy, or institutional expectations.

Guest Authorship: Including a prominent researcher, supervisor, or institutional leader who has not made a qualifying contribution.

Ghost Authorship: Omitting an individual who satisfies the authorship criteria or deliberately concealing substantial contributions to the manuscript.

Purchased Authorship: Offering, selling, or purchasing authorship positions without legitimate qualifying contributions.

All authors are responsible for preventing inappropriate authorship practices. Academic supervision, financial support, or administrative authority alone does not justify authorship.

7. Changes in Authorship

Any request to add, remove, or rearrange authors after manuscript submission must be submitted in writing to the editorial office.

The request must include:

  1. A clear explanation of the proposed change.

  2. The reason why the change is necessary.

  3. Written agreement from all existing authors and any individuals being added or removed.

  4. An updated author contribution statement, where applicable.

Changes requested during peer review will be evaluated by the editorial team. Approval is not automatic and may require supporting documentation.

Authorship changes after acceptance are ordinarily not permitted. Exceptional cases involving verified errors or ethical concerns will be assessed under the journal's applicable publication agreements and correction procedures.

Requests involving already published articles will be evaluated according to the journal's correction and retraction policies and relevant COPE guidance.

8. Use of Artificial Intelligence in Authorship

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, including large language models and automated content-generation tools, cannot be listed as authors because they cannot satisfy the requirements for authorship, provide valid approval, or assume responsibility for research integrity.

Human authors remain fully accountable for the accuracy, originality, validity, and ethical compliance of their manuscripts.

The use of AI tools that materially contribute to research design, data generation, data analysis, software development, experiments, or research findings must be appropriately described in the Methods section.

The use of AI-generated text, figures, tables, or other substantive manuscript content must be disclosed in the Acknowledgments section or another appropriate declaration. The disclosure should identify the tool and describe its purpose and extent of use.

Routine spelling, grammar, or language editing assistance does not require disclosure, although voluntary acknowledgment is encouraged.

Authors must verify AI-assisted content, references, and results, and must not disclose confidential, personal, or otherwise protected research information to AI systems without appropriate authorization.

9. Authorship Declaration

By submitting a manuscript to INISTA, the corresponding author confirms, on behalf of all co-authors, that:

  1. All listed authors fulfill the authorship criteria established by the journal.

  2. All individuals who qualify for authorship have been appropriately included.

  3. All authors have reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript and agreed to its submission to INISTA.

  4. The authorship order and individual contributions have been agreed upon.

  5. All authors accept responsibility for their respective contributions and agree to cooperate in resolving research integrity concerns.

  6. The manuscript is original and complies with the journal's policies on plagiarism, duplicate publication, conflicts of interest, and publication ethics.

  7. Any relevant use of generative AI has been disclosed in accordance with the journal's requirements.

The editorial office may request additional authorship declarations or supporting documentation when necessary.

10. Authorship Disputes and Ethical Violations

INISTA follows the principles and guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) when handling authorship disputes or suspected unethical authorship practices.

When an authorship dispute arises, the editorial team may request explanations and supporting documentation from the corresponding author and other contributors.

The editorial team may suspend manuscript evaluation or publication until the issue has been appropriately resolved.

Where the parties cannot reach agreement, the dispute may be referred to the relevant institutions for investigation or determination. The editorial team is not responsible for independently adjudicating competing claims of intellectual contribution.

Confirmed authorship misconduct may result in manuscript rejection or, when applicable, publication of a correction or retraction in accordance with the journal's established policies.

INISTA reserves the right to take appropriate editorial action to protect the integrity and reliability of its published scholarly record.

References and Ethical Standards

This policy is informed by the following international publication ethics standards: