1. General Principles

Sentralisasi is committed to ensuring that authorship reflects genuine scholarly contributions, appropriate credit, transparency, and accountability. All authors are expected to comply with ethical standards for authorship and contributorship. The journal's policy is informed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) discussion document on Authorship and COPE's Core Practices.

Authorship must be based on meaningful intellectual or scholarly contributions to the work. An author's academic position, institutional rank, seniority, supervisory role, or ability to provide funding does not, by itself, justify authorship. COPE advises journals to establish and communicate clear authorship criteria and to distinguish authorship from contributions that should instead be acknowledged. See the official COPE Authorship Discussion Document.

 

Individuals listed as authors should have made substantial and identifiable contributions to the research, analysis, interpretation, development, or intellectual preparation of the manuscript. Their contributions must be accurately represented, and they must agree to be identified as authors and accept appropriate responsibility for their contributions. These principles follow COPE's guidance on transparent authorship and contributorship declarations in its Authorship Discussion Document.

As a practical requirement, Sentralisasi expects every listed author to:

1. Have made a substantial intellectual, scholarly, analytical, methodological, empirical, or writing contribution to the reported work.

2. Participate in drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content.

3. Review and approve the final version submitted for publication.

4. Agree to be named as an author, accurately disclose their contribution, and cooperate in addressing questions concerning the integrity or accuracy of the work.

These operational requirements are intended to establish clear and accountable authorship expectations. The four-part formulation above is a journal policy informed by established authorship guidance, including the criteria published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE); it should not be interpreted as a verbatim four-criterion rule issued by COPE.

 

To improve transparency, authors may be required to provide a contribution statement identifying the role of each contributor. Sentralisasi encourages the use of the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), an ANSI/NISO standard that provides 14 standardized contributor roles for describing work associated with scholarly outputs.

The CRediT taxonomy supports transparent reporting of contributions but does not, on its own, determine whether a person qualifies for authorship. Authorship eligibility must be assessed separately under this journal's authorship policy. See the official CRediT role descriptions.

The 14 CRediT contributor roles are:

1. Conceptualization: Development of the overarching research ideas, objectives, and aims.

2. Data Curation: Organizing, documenting, cleaning, and maintaining research data for initial and subsequent use.

3. Formal Analysis: Applying statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize data.

4. Funding Acquisition: Obtaining financial support for the research or project.

5. Investigation: Conducting research activities, experiments, fieldwork, or data and evidence collection.

6. Methodology: Developing or designing research methods, procedures, or models.

7. Project Administration: Coordinating and managing the planning and execution of the research.

8. Resources: Providing research materials, equipment, samples, instruments, computing resources, or other essential resources.

9. Software: Developing, implementing, testing, or maintaining software and computational code relevant to the research.

10. Supervision: Providing research oversight, leadership, or mentorship.

11. Validation: Verifying the reproducibility or replicability of research results, experiments, or outputs.

12. Visualization: Creating or presenting figures, graphical representations, or other visual presentations of research data and findings.

13. Writing – Original Draft: Preparing the initial manuscript, including substantive translation where applicable.

14. Writing – Review & Editing: Critically reviewing, commenting on, and revising the manuscript.

The role descriptions above are concise adaptations of the official CRediT role descriptors. A contributor may perform more than one role, and the same role may be assigned to multiple contributors.

 

Individuals who have contributed to a manuscript but do not meet the journal's authorship requirements should be acknowledged appropriately rather than listed as authors. Such contributions may include routine technical assistance, administrative support, general supervision, proofreading, language editing, or other limited assistance that does not constitute a substantial scholarly contribution. The appropriateness of acknowledgement depends on the actual contribution and the relevant disciplinary context. See the COPE Authorship Discussion Document.

Permission should be obtained from individuals before identifying them in the acknowledgements, and the description of their contribution must be accurate. Acknowledgement must not be used to imply authorship or endorsement where neither is appropriate.

 

Sentralisasi does not accept ghost authorship, guest authorship, or gift authorship. Ghost authorship occurs when a person who has made a contribution warranting authorship is omitted from the author list. Guest or gift authorship occurs when a person is included without an adequate contribution to justify authorship. These practices are addressed in COPE's official flowchart on Ghost, Guest, or Gift Authorship in a Submitted Manuscript.

Authors must not include individuals solely because of their seniority, supervisory position, institutional authority, funding role, personal relationship, or honorary status. Similarly, contributors must not be omitted to manipulate credit or conceal their involvement in the research. The author list and contribution statements must accurately represent the work performed, in accordance with COPE's authorship guidance.

 

The corresponding author is responsible for communicating with the journal during submission, peer review, production, and post-publication correspondence. The corresponding author must ensure that all listed authors have reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript, that the author order and affiliations are accurate, that contribution statements are complete, and that relevant disclosures have been provided.

The corresponding author must also ensure that all authors are informed of significant editorial communications and proposed changes to the manuscript or author list. COPE recommends clear authorship declarations and written agreement when authorship changes are requested; see the official COPE Authorship Discussion Document and its flowchart for adding an author before publication.

The corresponding author serves as the primary point of contact but does not replace the individual responsibilities of the other authors. Every author is expected to cooperate in clarifying their contribution and addressing legitimate questions about the manuscript.

 

The order of authors should be agreed upon by the contributors before submission and should reflect their agreed assessment of the contributions and the conventions of their discipline. The journal does not assume that a particular position in the author list automatically proves a specific level of contribution. COPE's authorship guidance emphasizes transparent and fair attribution of scholarly credit.

Where two or more authors have made equal contributions, the authors may include a clear equal-contribution statement in the manuscript, provided that the statement accurately reflects their agreement and the journal's production system can accommodate it.

 

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be submitted in writing to the editorial office with a clear explanation and confirmation from all affected authors. The journal may request updated authorship declarations and contributor statements before deciding whether the change is justified.

Where the authors do not agree on a proposed change, the journal may suspend peer review, acceptance, or publication processing until the dispute is resolved. This procedure follows the recommendations in COPE's official flowchart on adding an author before publication and the COPE authorship flowcharts.

If a disagreement cannot be resolved through communication among the authors, the journal may request that the relevant institution or research organization investigate the matter. The journal will not independently determine disputed contributions when it lacks sufficient evidence or authority to do so. COPE's Authorship Discussion Document provides guidance on handling authorship disputes.

 

At submission, the journal may require authors to provide an authorship declaration confirming that the author list is complete, each named author has approved the manuscript, contributions are described accurately, and no eligible contributor has been improperly omitted. COPE recommends that journals make authorship policies clear and consider written declarations to help prevent authorship problems. See the COPE Authorship Discussion Document.

If the journal identifies a potential authorship problem, it may request further information, pause editorial processing, contact the authors, and follow the relevant COPE flowchart. See COPE's flowchart on suspected ghost, guest, or gift authorship.

 

AI tools cannot take responsibility for a manuscript, approve its final version, or respond to editorial questions as a human author would. Therefore, AI tools must not be listed as authors. Human authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and proper disclosure of the content they submit. Authors should follow the journal's applicable AI-use and disclosure requirements.

This provision is a journal-level accountability requirement and should not be presented as a quotation from the COPE authorship document. Authors should also consult the journal's relevant publication ethics policies and any applicable publisher or institutional guidance.

 

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for applying this policy consistently and may request further documentation where authorship or contributorship is unclear. The journal may decline to proceed with a submission when serious authorship concerns remain unresolved and may take appropriate post-publication action if a problem is identified after publication. Such action will be based on the available evidence and relevant publication ethics procedures, with reference to COPE's Core Practices and the COPE Authorship Discussion Document.