Form 1: Submission Details
This section of the form requests the key identifying manuscript and corresponding author information for the manuscript
Form 2: Author Contributions
This section of the form is based on the CREDiT Contributor Roles Taxonomy to clearly state the contributions of each author listed in the paper.
By signing the form, the authors agree to publication of their paper in the journal and certify that the paper is not considered for publication elsewhere.
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has useful guidance on what constitutes authorship of a paper:
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
- Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
- Final approval of the version to be published;
- 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 resolve
As research can be highly collaborative including teams of researchers with varied contributions to a paper, this form adopts the 14 roles of the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) to better recognise the different types of individual contributions, reduce authorship disputes and facilitate collaboration. Details of each category are provided below
Explanation of Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT)
| Role |
Details of contribution |
| 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 |
Form 3: Competing Interests
Authors should also declare any competing interests they may have, that may influence details of the paper or interpretation of it. Details of competing interests are provided based on the categories of the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest Statement.
Declaring conflicting interests is intended to enhance transparency, and does not necessarily imply any bias in the work. If you are in doubt as to whether a relationship constitutes a competing interest, it is preferable to declare it.
Examples of competing interests to declare
Details of all support provided during the planning and preparation of the present manuscript (e.g., funding, provision of study materials, medical writing, article processing charges, etc.)
Details of relationships or activity over the past 36 months:
- Grants or contracts from any entity
- Royalties or licenses
- Consulting fees
- Payment or honoraria for lectures, presentations, speakers bureaus, manuscript writing or educational events
- Payment for expert testimony
- Support for attending meetings and/or travel
- Patents planned, issued or pending
- Participation on a Data Safety Monitoring Board or Advisory Board
- Leadership or fiduciary role in other board, society, committee or advocacy group, paid or unpaid
- Stock or stock options
- Receipt of equipment, materials, drugs, medical writing, gifts or other services
- Other financial or non-financial interests
Form 4. Ethics Checklist
The Ethics section of the form enables authors to make formal declarations of the ethical integrity of the research, and provide information on any issues which must be declared to editorial offices.
The form includes details for:
- Originality of publication
- Authorship and generative AI declarations
- Ethical experimentation and implementation
- Funding sources
- Conflicts of interest
- Acknowledgments
