Ethics for Authors

Maintaining Research Results

The results of research should be recorded and maintained in a form that allows analysis and review, both by collaborators before publication and by other scientists for a reasonable period after publication. Exceptions may be appropriate in certain circumstances to preserve privacy, to assure patent protection, or for similar reasons.

Fabrication of data is an egregious departure from the expected norms of scientific conduct, as is the selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive, as well as the theft of data or research results from others.

Publication and Authorship

The authors’ central obligation is to present a concise, accurate account of the research performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to public sources of information to permit others to repeat the work.

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others used in a research project must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, should not be used or reported without explicit permission from the investigator with whom the information originated. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, cannot be used without permission of the author of the work being used.

Authors must obtain permission for use of any previously published materials from the original publisher. Proof of permission must be provided before manuscripts containing previously published material can be published. Proper credit lines for all previously published material must be included in the manuscript.

Guidelines for requesting permission for reuse of published materials

Re-use of Material from Conference Proceedings

AIP Publishing allows authors to make fair and reasonable re-use of material from their conference proceedings article. Such re-use must keep with the standards and ethics of scientific publishing. As a rule, conference proceedings must be viewed in the same way as any other publication, and re-use of such materials must follow the standard ethical principles that apply to duplicate publication. Whether the new submission meets a journal’s standards will depend on the degree of overlap with the prior publication and the nature of the new material. The editors of the journals will decide whether an author has applied “fair and reasonable” re-use standards or whether an article derived from a conference proceeding has enough additional material to warrant a new publication. Authors who derive a journal article from their proceedings paper must obtain copyright permission from the original publisher if figures or tables are reused and should include a citation to their proceedings paper.

Author List and Coauthor Notification

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution, or interpretation of the research study. All those who have made significant contributions should be offered the opportunity to be listed as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the study should be acknowledged, but not identified as authors. The sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

All collaborators share some degree of responsibility for any paper they coauthor and are responsible for verifying the content in the manuscript and that the manuscript adheres to ethical and plagiarism guidelines.

Only persons who have significantly contributed to the research should be listed as authors. The author who submits the paper for publication should ensure that all appropriate coauthors and no inappropriate coauthors are included on the paper, and that all coauthors have seen the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. ChatGPT and similar AI-based large language models should not be listed as an author. As with other instrumentation and software, the use of AI-based large language models such as ChatGPT should be disclosed to editors and reviewers, particularly if they are used to generate significant amounts of text in the manuscript. Authors should provide this information in the appropriate section of their manuscript and to the editor with their submission.

Some coauthors have responsibility for the entire paper as an accurate, verifiable report of the research. These include, for example, coauthors who are accountable for the integrity of the critical data reported in the paper, carry out the analysis, write the manuscript, present major findings at conferences, or provide scientific leadership for junior colleagues. Other coauthors may have responsibility mainly for specific, limited contributions to a paper.

Every coauthor should have the opportunity to review the manuscript before it is submitted for publication. All coauthors have an obligation to provide prompt retractions or correction of errors in published works. Any individual unwilling or unable to accept appropriate responsibility for a paper should not be a coauthor.

Author Obligations

The corresponding author must have the approval of all other listed authors for the submission and publication of all versions of the manuscript.
Anyone who has made independent contributions to the manuscript should be invited to become a coauthor.
The submitted manuscript must contain unpublished original work and not be under consideration for publication by any other journal, other than in oral, poster or abstract formats. Duplicate publications are never acceptable.
The authors’ central obligation is to present a concise, accurate account of the research and an objective discussion of its significance. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to public sources of information to permit others to repeat the work.
Plagiarism or self-plagiarism constitutes unethical scientific behavior and is never acceptable.
Any part of the submitted manuscript that derives from prior published work, including work by the same authors, must be properly cited.
Fragmentation of research papers is not acceptable. Publications should be organized so that each paper gives a complete account of a particular aspect of the research.
Criticism of a paper in either a Comment or article must be professional, substantive, and free of polemics.
If any of the preceding guidelines ceases to be true, the authors have a duty to notify the Editor as soon as possible so that corrective action can be taken.

CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy)

CRediT was introduced with the intention of recognizing individual author contributions, reducing authorship disputes and facilitating collaboration. It offers authors the opportunity to share an accurate and detailed description of their diverse contributions to the published work.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the descriptions are accurate and agreed by all authors.
The role(s) of all authors should be listed, using the relevant categories.
Authors may have contributed in multiple roles.
CRediT in no way changes the journal’s criteria to qualify for authorship.

CRediT statements should be provided during the submission process and will appear below the title in the full text view and under the Author Contribution section in the PDF/VOR.

The submitting author is responsible for ensuring that contributions of all authors are correct. It is expected that all authors will have reviewed, discussed and agreed to their individual contributions as shared by the submitting author. The authors’ contribution statement will be published with the final article and should accurately reflect contributions to the work.

CRediT Classification:

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

An example of an Authors’ Contribution statement using CRediT with degree of contribution:

Amanda Green: review and editing (equal). Kerry Jones: Conceptualization (lead); writing – original draft (lead); formal analysis (lead); writing – review and editing (equal). Roberto Solis: Software (lead); writing – review and editing (equal). Hao Wang: Methodology (lead); writing – review and editing (equal). Jenny Wu: Conceptualization (supporting); Writing – original draft (supporting); Writing – review and editing (equal).

For more information, please see the taxonomy website.