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CReDIT-fAIR

Ground Works has moved to a contributorship model. For this, we have developed the Contributor Roles Taxonomy for Arts Integrative Research ^* (CRediT fAIR.)
CRediT-fAIR is an open resource created by Ground Works, adapted from the NISO's CRediT.

^{* Here research is understood to include creative practice and artistic production, i.e., arts research, as well as collaboration at the intersection of the arts and other disciplines, i.e., arts-integrated research.}

Why Use Contributorship?

Most academic publications use an authorship model where those who actively produce a written manuscript are those who are acknowledged when the work is published. This creates a tension particularly for arts-integrative and publicly engaged research as authorship is only one element of getting this scholarly work into the world.

An alternative approach is contributorship. Contributorship is more inclusive and recognizes the broader forms of contribution needed to realize research and its publication as scholarship. Contributorship allows all aspects of the research process—including artistic production, project management, analysis, and outreach—to count and be valued as integral to the work presented.

Ground Works has moved to a contributorship model. Employing a Contributorship model will help Ground Works:

• Ensure that attribution includes everyone playing significant roles in arts-integrative research.
• Describe each listed person’s contribution to the research presented.
• Provide the broader community of practice around arts-integrative research insight into the ways that research in the arts unfolds through collaborative effort.

Please note that adoption of a Contributorship model does not remove authorial credit but rather augments it. Published projects still have authors but:

• Those authors’ specific contributions are made explicit.
• Other contributors are also recognized.

Contributor Roles Taxonomy for Arts-Integrated Research

Ground Works has adapted the NISO (National Information Standards Organization) Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT). CRediT has gained traction in scholarly publishing as one way of acknowledging non-author contributions to research. However, we find that while this taxonomy speaks clearly to natural and social sciences, its roles and terms do not always apply well to arts and arts-integrated research.

In our adaptation—the Contributor Roles Taxonomy for Arts Integrative Research (CRediT FAIR)—“research” is understood to include creative practice and artistic production, i.e., arts research, as well as collaboration at the intersection of the arts and other disciplines, i.e., arts-integrated research.

The chart displayed at the bottom of this document shows the name of each role in the taxonomy, the description of the role in CRediT-FAIR, and the original description of the role in CRediT (if that role existed).

Instructions to authors

When preparing your submission to Ground Works, you can use this spreadsheet template to plan and coordinate with your team. This template guides you as you identify the people whose contributorship you want to acknowledge. For a full description of each of the possible roles, hover over the roles in Row 1 of the spreadsheet or refer to the chart below.

The names you have designated as authors have been pre-populated in Rows x-y. Please:

• Ensure that their order listed in publication (Column A) is correct.
• Ensure that a box is checked for them in Column B.
• Ensure that all authors have at least one contributor role identified by checking the box in the appropriate column. Authors may contribute in multiple roles.
• List authors’ email addresses and affiliations in columns Y, Z, and AA. It is particularly important that all authors have an email address.

Then, please identify any individuals whose significant contribution to the research should be credited by adding their names to Columns D, E, and F, and checking the box for their role. An individual may be credited in multiple roles. Please be sure to include community-based public partners and the roles they play within arts-integrative research.

You can also complete this process through the Ground Works web interface.

Note: Contributing authors with a checkmark in Column B will be listed in the by-line of the article. All contributors—both contributing authors and others—will appear with the individuals’ names and roles in the Metadata section of your published entry on Ground Works.

Your CRediT-FAIR list should accurately reflect contributions to the work. The submitting author is responsible for completing this information at submission, and we expect that all contributors will have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to their individual contributions ahead of this time.

Ground Works may contact authors by email at submission to confirm contributorship.

CRediT-fAIR Taxonomy

Version 1, Revised September 2024

Role	CRediT-fAIR Description
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 re-use.
Formal Analysis	Application of computational or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize project outcomes.
Funding acquisition	Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
Investigation and inquiry	Conducting a research and investigation process, including performing experiments, collecting data, building evidence, and performing research through/with/for art and design*.
Methodology	Development or design of research methodology; creation of models, plans, or frames for research and inquiry.
Production - Technical	Programming, software development; hardware development, schematic design, designing computer programs or systems; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components and other technical approaches.
Production - Creative	Artistic, creative, or design production (performance, exhibit design, choreography, curation, design drawings, scripts, scores etc.) that support research taking place or for research knowledge to be delivered in expressive, artistic or design-based forms.
Production - Social	Action in community-based settings (situated inquiry, education, outreach, co-design); stewarding of communities, events, activities, and/or outreach. Community or stakeholder participation. Mobilization of community-specific knowledge and expertise.
Project administration	Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
Reflective Analysis	Application of reflective, artistic or critical judgments to analyze or synthesize project outcomes; developing implications for the arts, society, or culture.
Relationship Development and Outreach	Bringing together stakeholders and resources to enable collaborative research. Building, coordinating, or managing community-based, academic, or industrial partnerships based on collectively identified goals and outcomes.
Resources	Provision of study materials, participants, samples, instruments/instrumentation, computing resources, or other tools for research and analysis.
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, including visualization and 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.