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Updated: Jun 3, 2026
04:42
Micro-scale Engineering for Cell Biology
Published on: October 1, 2007
Improving acknowledgments sections to better credit research contributors.
Alex O Holcombe1, Rasmus Pedersen2, Malgorzata Lagisz3
1School of Psychology, University of Sydney Sydney, Australia.
Accountability in Research
|June 2, 2026
Summary
Formal recognition of research contributions is often overlooked in acknowledgments. This study proposes enhancing acknowledgments with ORCID and CRediT information to improve visibility for non-author contributors.
Area of Science:
- Scholarly communication
- Bibliometrics
- Research integrity
Background:
- Formal recognition is crucial for research careers and funding.
- Contributions in acknowledgments are often unindexed, leading to underrecognition.
- Contributorship models aim to recognize specific roles beyond authorship.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose methods for enhancing the recognition of non-author research contributors.
- To leverage existing infrastructure for improved indexing of acknowledgment information.
- To increase the visibility of individuals like technicians and library professionals.
Main Methods:
- Authors to include ORCID identifiers and CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) information in acknowledgments.
- Publishers to solicit acknowledgee identities via submission portals.
- Publishers to incorporate acknowledgee metadata into JATS-XML files.
Main Results:
- Proposed methods aim to encourage scholarly databases to index non-author contributors.
- Increased visibility for individuals performing essential research tasks.
- Potential for greater formal recognition of diverse research roles.
Conclusions:
- Enhancing acknowledgments with structured data (ORCID, CRediT) can improve contributor recognition.
- Publisher and database integration is key to indexing non-author contributions.
- This approach complements existing contributorship models and promotes research equity.
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