Beyond Authorship: Exploring the Use of Contributor Roles Taxonomies in LIS Journals

Traditional author attribution often inadequately represents researchers’ varied contributions, potentially causing dissatisfaction among collaborators. Contributor Role Ontologies and Taxonomies (CROTs) address this by specifying researcher roles and offering a clearer framework for recognizing diverse contributions, including innovative methodologies. As Library and Information Science (LIS) research becomes more complex and interdisciplinary with diverse participant roles, clearly delineating these roles in LIS journals is crucial. To explore the current landscape of the LIS field, this study collected and examined 82 journals indexed in the 2023 Journal Citation Reports. The analysis of these journals revealed that only nine of them have actively adopted CROTs, within which a total of 749 instances of reported contributor roles were analyzed. While the use of CROTs in collaborative papers within these nine journals varied, not all collaborative research followed this practice, with the lowest adoption rate observed being 46%. Moreover, while most CROTs offered a precise and comprehensive presentation of participants’ roles, several listed roles more generically, implying equal contributions from all authors. Furthermore, CRediT, a widely used CROTs model, may not fully capture the specific nuances of LIS research, especially in areas like literature reviews. To encourage broader and more equitable adoption, a tailored model that reflects the characteristics of LIS research and seamlessly integrates with online submission systems is essential. These efforts will ultimately foster fairer recognition of contributions and strengthen the collaborative research and publishing culture within the LIS community.