Authorship and Contributorship

Eligibility for authorship

JOHE applies the four ICMJE authorship criteria. Every author must: (1) make a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data; (2) draft the work or critically revise it for important intellectual content; (3) approve the version to be published; and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work, including addressing questions about accuracy or integrity. All four criteria must be met.

Funding acquisition, general supervision, administrative support, language editing or payment alone does not establish authorship. Contributors who do not meet all criteria should be acknowledged, with permission. Describe each author's contributions; CRediT roles may supplement, but do not replace, the authorship criteria. Generative AI systems cannot be authors.

Author responsibilities and changes

The corresponding author must provide accurate details for all authors, obtain their agreement to submission and communicate editorial decisions. Gift, guest, ghost and purchased authorship are unacceptable. Requests to add, remove or reorder authors must explain the reason and include written agreement from all affected authors, including those added or removed. The editor must approve changes; post-publication changes require an appropriate correction.

The journal may pause processing while disputes are resolved. Institutions are responsible for adjudicating unresolved contribution disputes; editors do not determine authorship solely from competing assertions.