Authorship and Contributorship

USRATY: Journal of Islamic Family Law is committed to maintaining transparent, fair, responsible, and accountable authorship and contributorship practices. Authorship should reflect substantial intellectual contributions to the research and manuscript, while all authors are expected to take responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and accountability of the published work.

In developing and implementing this policy, USRATY: Journal of Islamic Family Law is guided by internationally recognized publication ethics principles, particularly the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, especially the recommendations on defining the role of authors and contributors, as well as the COPE Discussion Document: Authorship (Version 2, September 2019) issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The ICMJE recognizes that authorship confers academic credit while also carrying responsibility and accountability for published work, and establishes four criteria that should all be satisfied for authorship. COPE likewise emphasizes that authorship carries significant privileges, responsibilities, and accountability and provides guidance for addressing common authorship issues and disputes.

To promote transparency regarding individual contributions, USRATY requires authors to provide a CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) statement during the manuscript submission process. This policy establishes the criteria for authorship, the responsibilities of the corresponding author, procedures concerning changes in authorship, the recognition of non-author contributors, the disclosure of artificial intelligence-assisted technologies, and the CRediT roles applicable to contributors.

All authors are expected to read, understand, and comply with this policy before submitting a manuscript to USRATY.

1. Authorship and Responsibility

USRATY: Journal of Islamic Family Law recognizes authorship as an important form of academic credit that also carries responsibility and accountability for the integrity of published work. In accordance with the principles outlined by COPE, authorship carries significant academic privileges and responsibilities, and authors are expected to be accountable for the work as presented. At a minimum, authors should have participated meaningfully in creating the work and should respect the rights and contributions of other authors.

Authorship should therefore be limited to individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the research and who are willing to take responsibility for the content of the manuscript.

USRATY encourages fair and transparent authorship practices, including appropriate recognition of researchers and collaborators who make substantial contributions to research conducted in particular local, national, or regional contexts. Authors are expected to determine authorship collectively at an early stage of the research process and make adjustments when necessary as the research develops.

To promote transparency, USRATY requires authors to disclose the specific contributions made by each author through CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) during the manuscript submission process. The CRediT statement will be published with the article, where applicable, to clarify individual contributions and responsibilities.

2. Authorship Criteria

USRATY follows the authorship principles recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). An individual should be identified as an author only when they meet all four of the following criteria:

  1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;

  2. Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content;

  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.

All individuals who meet these four criteria should be identified as authors. Individuals who do not meet all four criteria should not be listed as authors but may be appropriately acknowledged.

Authorship should not be used to exclude individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the research. All individuals who meet the first criterion should be given an appropriate opportunity to participate in drafting, critical revision, and final approval of the manuscript.

3. Corresponding Author

The corresponding author is responsible for communication with USRATY throughout the manuscript submission, peer-review, revision, and publication processes.

The corresponding author is expected to:

  • ensure that all authorship information is accurate and complete;

  • confirm that all listed authors meet the authorship criteria;

  • obtain approval from all authors for the submitted manuscript;

  • coordinate communication between the journal and the author group;

  • respond promptly to editorial and peer-review queries;

  • coordinate revisions and final approval of the manuscript; and

  • remain available after publication to respond to questions concerning the article and, where necessary, provide additional information or clarification.

Although the corresponding author has primary responsibility for communication with the journal, all authors remain collectively responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and accountability of the published work.

4. Changes in Authorship

Requests to add, remove, or change the order of authors after manuscript submission must be justified and approved by all listed authors, including any author being added or removed.

USRATY may request a written statement explaining the reason for the proposed change and confirmation of agreement from all affected authors. Authorship disputes are primarily the responsibility of the authors and their affiliated institutions. Consistent with COPE principles, the journal may suspend editorial processing until an authorship dispute has been appropriately resolved.

5. Non-Author Contributors

Individuals who contribute to a manuscript but do not meet all four authorship criteria should not be listed as authors. Where appropriate, their contributions may be recognized in the Acknowledgment section.

Examples of activities that, when performed alone, generally do not qualify for authorship include:

  • acquisition of funding;

  • general supervision or administrative support;

  • technical assistance;

  • language editing or proofreading;

  • general research assistance without substantial intellectual contribution; and

  • other contributions that do not satisfy all four authorship criteria.

Authors should obtain permission from individuals before including them in the Acknowledgment section, particularly because acknowledgment may imply endorsement of the study.

6. Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Technologies

USRATY requires authors to disclose the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies, including large language models, chatbots, generative AI systems, or AI-based image-generation tools, when such technologies have been used in the preparation or production of a submitted manuscript.

AI-assisted technologies cannot be listed as authors or co-authors because they cannot assume responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, originality, and accountability required of authors.

When AI is used for writing assistance, its use should be disclosed in the Acknowledgment section and, where appropriate, in the cover letter. When AI is used for activities such as data collection, data analysis, programming, visualization, or figure generation, its use should be transparently described in the Methods or another appropriate section of the manuscript.

Authors remain fully responsible for all content generated or assisted by AI. Authors must carefully review AI-assisted content to ensure its accuracy, completeness, potential bias, originality, absence of plagiarism, and appropriate attribution. The use of AI does not transfer responsibility for the manuscript from the authors to the AI system.

7. CRediT Contributor Roles

USRATY requires a CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) statement to identify the specific contributions of each author. The CRediT statement should be provided during the submission process and will appear above the Acknowledgment section of the published article, where applicable.

Authors should select only the CRediT roles that accurately reflect their actual contributions. The following CRediT roles and definitions are used by USRATY:

Conceptualization: Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.

Methodology: Development or design of methodology; creation of models.

Software: Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.

Validation: Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.

Formal Analysis: Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.

Investigation: Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.

Resources: Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.

Data Curation: Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse.

Writing – Original Draft: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).

Writing – Review & Editing: Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision – including pre- or post-publication stages.

Visualization: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.

Supervision: Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.

Project Administration: Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.

Funding Acquisition: Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the CRediT statement accurately represents the contributions of all authors and has been reviewed and approved by all authors.

8. Authorship Accountability

All authors are jointly responsible for ensuring the accuracy and integrity of the manuscript. Each author should be able to identify their own contribution and have confidence in the integrity of the contributions made by the other authors.

By submitting a manuscript to USRATY: Journal of Islamic Family Law, the authors confirm that the authorship information and CRediT statement accurately reflect the contributions of all individuals involved in the research and preparation of the manuscript.