Authorship and Contributorship Policy

1. Purpose and Scope

The International Journal of Multidisciplinary Inquiry (IJMI) is committed to promoting transparency, accountability, and fairness in the attribution of scholarly authorship and research contributions.

Authorship represents both recognition of an individual's intellectual contribution to scholarly work and responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and reliability of the published research.

This policy establishes the journal's requirements concerning authorship eligibility, author responsibilities, contributorship declarations, authorship order, corresponding authorship, acknowledgements, and the management of authorship disputes.

The policy applies to all manuscripts submitted to IJMI, including Original Research Articles and Review Articles, across the journal's multidisciplinary scope.

IJMI recognizes that authorship practices may vary across academic disciplines. Nevertheless, all listed authors must have made genuine scholarly contributions and must accept appropriate responsibility for the work submitted for publication.

2. Criteria for Authorship

Individuals listed as authors must have made substantial intellectual or scholarly contributions to the manuscript.

Qualifying contributions may include developing the research concept or design, collecting or generating research evidence, conducting data analysis, interpreting findings, developing scholarly arguments, or making substantial intellectual contributions to manuscript preparation and revision.

In addition to making a qualifying contribution, each author must participate meaningfully in reviewing or approving the manuscript and must agree to accept appropriate responsibility for the integrity of their contribution.

All listed authors must approve the final version of the manuscript submitted for publication and agree to its submission to IJMI.

Authors are expected to cooperate in addressing questions concerning the accuracy, originality, ethical conduct, or integrity of the research.

Authorship must not be granted solely on the basis of academic seniority, institutional position, administrative authority, financial support, general supervision, or personal relationships.

The inclusion of an individual as an author must reflect a genuine scholarly contribution and must be agreed upon by the authors concerned.

3. Authorship Responsibilities and Accountability

All authors share responsibility for ensuring that the manuscript represents legitimate scholarly work and complies with IJMI's publication requirements.

Each author must ensure that their own contribution is accurately represented and that they have sufficient familiarity with the overall manuscript to support its submission and publication.

Authors must disclose relevant conflicts of interest, funding arrangements, ethical considerations, and other information required by the journal.

All authors must participate in resolving substantive questions relating to their contributions and cooperate with reasonable editorial inquiries.

Where concerns arise about a particular aspect of the research, the relevant authors are expected to provide appropriate clarification and supporting information.

The designation of individual contributions does not remove the collective responsibility of authors to ensure that the published work meets accepted standards of scholarly integrity.

4. Author Contributions and Transparency

IJMI encourages transparent identification of the contributions made by individuals listed as authors.

Where requested by the journal, authors should provide a contributorship statement describing their respective roles in the research and manuscript preparation.

Contributions may include conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data collection, formal analysis, interpretation, writing of the original draft, critical review and editing, supervision, project administration, or other relevant scholarly activities.

The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) may be used where appropriate to describe individual contributions consistently.

Authors should ensure that contribution statements accurately reflect the work undertaken and do not exaggerate or misrepresent individual involvement.

A contribution statement is intended to clarify scholarly responsibilities and does not, by itself, determine whether an individual qualifies for authorship.

IJMI may request clarification where a contribution statement raises reasonable questions about authorship eligibility or accountability.

5. Authorship Order and Corresponding Author

The order in which authors are listed must be determined through agreement among the authors, taking account of relevant disciplinary conventions and the nature of their contributions.

IJMI does not determine authorship order on behalf of research teams and does not automatically recognize institutional seniority or supervisory status as grounds for priority authorship.

The corresponding author serves as the principal point of communication between the authors and the journal throughout submission, peer review, revision, acceptance, and publication.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript, agreed to the authorship arrangement, and received relevant information concerning editorial decisions and publication requirements.

The corresponding author must also ensure that required declarations, supporting documents, and publication-related communications are provided accurately and within the applicable deadlines.

Designation as corresponding author does not automatically establish greater intellectual contribution or priority over other authors.

6. Changes to Authorship

The author list and authorship order should be finalized before manuscript submission.

Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors after submission must be supported by a clear explanation and the agreement of all affected authors.

IJMI may require written confirmation from the existing authors and any individual proposed for addition or removal.

Authorship changes requested after acceptance will be subject to closer editorial scrutiny because the manuscript has already completed substantive editorial evaluation.

Following publication, changes to authorship will ordinarily require a formal correction or another appropriate editorial action, supported by adequate documentation and agreement among the relevant parties.

The journal reserves the right to suspend consideration or publication of a manuscript where an unresolved authorship dispute raises substantial concerns about the legitimacy of the author list.

IJMI will not make authorship changes solely on the instruction of one author where the change affects other authors and the necessary agreement has not been established.

7. Acknowledgements and Non-Author Contributions

Individuals who have assisted with a manuscript but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be recognized through an acknowledgement where appropriate.

Such contributions may include general academic guidance, administrative assistance, technical support, language editing, proofreading, or other assistance that does not constitute a substantial scholarly contribution sufficient for authorship.

Acknowledgements must accurately describe the assistance received and must not imply that an acknowledged individual endorses the manuscript without their knowledge or consent.

Authors should obtain permission from individuals named in acknowledgements where appropriate.

Financial support, institutional assistance, and other relevant forms of support should be disclosed in accordance with IJMI's funding and conflict of interest requirements.

Acknowledgements must not be used to conceal contributions that would properly qualify an individual for authorship.

8. Honorary, Gift, and Ghost Authorship

IJMI does not permit honorary, gift, guest, or ghost authorship.

Honorary or gift authorship occurs when an individual is included as an author despite not having made a qualifying scholarly contribution.

Ghost authorship occurs when an individual who has made a substantial contribution warranting authorship is improperly omitted from the author list.

The inclusion of academic supervisors, department heads, institutional administrators, senior researchers, or other individuals solely because of their professional position is inconsistent with the journal's authorship requirements.

Similarly, individuals who have made qualifying scholarly contributions must not be excluded for reasons unrelated to legitimate authorship criteria.

Where credible concerns about inappropriate authorship arise, IJMI may request contribution statements, relevant correspondence, or other supporting information.

Substantiated authorship irregularities may result in requests for correction, suspension of manuscript processing, rejection, or appropriate post-publication action.

9. Generative Artificial Intelligence and Authorship

Generative artificial intelligence systems, including large language models and other automated content-generation tools, cannot be listed as authors or co-authors of manuscripts submitted to IJMI.

Authorship requires intellectual accountability, approval of the final manuscript, responsibility for scholarly claims, and the capacity to respond to editorial and ethical concerns. Artificial intelligence systems cannot independently fulfil these responsibilities.

Human authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and appropriate attribution of all manuscript content, including material developed or revised with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools.

Where generative artificial intelligence has been used in manuscript preparation, authors must provide an appropriate declaration in accordance with IJMI's Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use and Disclosure Policy.

The use of artificial intelligence tools does not replace the requirement for genuine human scholarly contribution or justify the inclusion or exclusion of individuals from the author list.

Authors must not attribute research activities, data collection, analysis, or scholarly contributions to individuals who did not actually perform them.

10. Authorship Disputes and Editorial Procedures

Disagreements concerning authorship eligibility, contribution recognition, or authorship order should ordinarily be resolved among the authors and, where necessary, through their affiliated institutions.

IJMI does not act as the primary authority for determining the relative contributions of individuals involved in a research project.

Where an authorship dispute is brought to the journal's attention, the editorial team may request explanations, written confirmation of authorship arrangements, contribution statements, or other relevant documentation.

If the dispute cannot be resolved through reasonable clarification, IJMI may suspend manuscript processing until the relevant authors or institutions provide an appropriate resolution.

Where a dispute concerns an already published article, the journal may consider whether a correction, expression of concern, or other editorial action is necessary.

Allegations involving deliberate authorship misrepresentation, unauthorized submission, or other serious publication integrity concerns will be addressed in accordance with the journal's publication ethics procedures.

11. Institutional Affiliations and Author Identification

Authors must provide accurate names, institutional affiliations, and relevant contact information during manuscript submission.

Institutional affiliations should reflect the author's legitimate association with the institution in relation to the research or manuscript, in accordance with applicable institutional and disciplinary practices.

Authors must not claim affiliations, academic qualifications, professional positions, or institutional endorsements that they do not legitimately hold.

Where appropriate, authors are encouraged to provide an ORCID identifier to support accurate scholarly identification and attribution.

The corresponding author is responsible for communicating any necessary corrections to author information before publication.

IJMI may request clarification or verification where substantial inconsistencies arise concerning author identity or institutional affiliation.

12. Policy Administration and Compliance

The editorial team is responsible for applying this policy consistently throughout manuscript submission, peer review, acceptance, and publication.

IJMI may request authorship declarations, contribution statements, written confirmations, or other relevant information where necessary to establish compliance with the journal's requirements.

Failure to provide accurate authorship information or to resolve substantial authorship concerns may result in suspension of manuscript processing, rejection, or appropriate post-publication action.

This policy should be read alongside IJMI's Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement, Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use and Disclosure Policy, Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure Policy, and Corrections, Retractions and Complaints Policy.

IJMI may review and update its authorship requirements periodically to reflect developments in scholarly publishing practices, research integrity guidance, and disciplinary standards.