Authorship Criteria

KOMUNITAS: Jurnal Ilmu Sosiologi (COMMUNITY: Journal of Sociology) recognizes authorship as both an academic credit and a responsibility for the integrity, originality, and reliability of published scholarly work. Authorship must reflect substantial intellectual contributions to the research and manuscript, rather than institutional position, academic rank, seniority, or financial support alone.

The journal is committed to ensuring fair, transparent, and responsible attribution of authorship in accordance with internationally recognized publication ethics standards. These criteria apply to all manuscripts submitted to the journal, including empirical research articles, conceptual papers, theoretical studies, literature reviews, and other scholarly contributions within the scope of sociology and related social sciences.

1. Eligibility for Authorship

To qualify as an author of a manuscript submitted to KOMUNITAS: Jurnal Ilmu Sosiologi, an individual must satisfy all four of the following criteria:

Substantial scholarly contribution. The individual must have made a substantial contribution to at least one of the following: the conception or design of the study; the development of its theoretical or conceptual framework; the formulation of research questions; the acquisition of research data; the development of research methods; the analysis or interpretation of data; or the critical synthesis and interpretation of relevant scholarly literature.
Drafting or critical revision. The individual must have participated in drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for significant intellectual content. Routine proofreading, language editing, and formatting alone do not qualify.
Final approval. The individual must review and approve the final version of the manuscript before submission for publication, including substantive revisions made during editorial processing and peer review.
Accountability and integrity. The individual must agree to be accountable for their own contributions and cooperate in addressing questions concerning the accuracy, validity, or integrity of any part of the work. Each author should be able to identify the contributions of their co-authors and have confidence in the integrity of the work as a whole.

All four criteria must be fulfilled for an individual to be listed as an author. Individuals who have made substantial contributions to the research should be given a reasonable opportunity to participate in drafting or critically revising the manuscript and approving its final version.

2. Contributions That Do Not Independently Qualify for Authorship

The following contributions do not independently justify authorship:

Securing research funding without substantial intellectual involvement in the study.
Providing general supervision, institutional leadership, or administrative support.
Holding a position as department head, program coordinator, senior academic, research supervisor, or principal investigator without meeting the authorship criteria.
Providing access to research sites, participants, institutional facilities, or datasets without a qualifying intellectual contribution.
Conducting routine data collection, transcription, data entry, or fieldwork assistance without meeting all four authorship criteria.
Providing technical assistance, formatting, proofreading, or language editing alone.

Individuals whose contributions do not meet the authorship criteria may be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section, provided that their contributions are accurately described and their permission has been obtained.

In qualitative, ethnographic, participatory, and community-based sociological research, contributions involving contextual knowledge, interpretation, translation, fieldwork, and engagement with research participants should be assessed carefully. Such contributions may qualify for authorship when they constitute substantial intellectual contributions and the individual also satisfies the remaining authorship criteria.

3. Author Order and Corresponding Author

3.1. Order of Authors

The order of authors must be determined collectively by all authors based on their relative intellectual and scholarly contributions. The journal does not impose a universal author-order convention, recognizing that practices may differ across research traditions and collaborative arrangements.

The first author is generally the individual who has made the principal contribution to the research and manuscript. The last-author position, where used, may reflect a substantial contribution to research leadership or supervision, provided that the individual meets all authorship criteria. These conventions are descriptive rather than mandatory.

Any designation of equal contribution, co-first authorship, or shared senior authorship must be explicitly stated in the manuscript, supported by actual contributions, and agreed upon by all authors. Academic rank, institutional hierarchy, funding responsibility, or supervisory authority must not be used as the sole basis for determining author order.

3.2. Corresponding Author

The corresponding author serves as the primary contact between the authors and the journal throughout submission, peer review, revision, publication, and post-publication communication. The corresponding author is responsible for:

Ensuring that all listed authors meet the journal's authorship criteria.
Confirming that all authors have reviewed and approved the manuscript and agreed to its submission.
Providing accurate author names, institutional affiliations, email addresses, and ORCID identifiers where available.
Ensuring that the manuscript is original, has not been published previously, and is not under consideration by another journal.
Coordinating responses to editorial and reviewer comments and informing all authors of substantive revisions.
Submitting required declarations concerning research ethics, conflicts of interest, funding, data availability, and AI use, where applicable.
Ensuring that proposed changes to the authorship list are disclosed, justified, and agreed upon by all affected authors.
Responding to post-publication inquiries and cooperating with the journal in investigating concerns about the manuscript.

The corresponding author does not automatically become the first author and is not entitled to authorship solely by coordinating the submission process. All co-authors share responsibility for the integrity of their contributions and must cooperate in resolving questions concerning the work.

4. Author Contributions and the CRediT Taxonomy

KOMUNITAS: Jurnal Ilmu Sosiologi encourages authors to provide a transparent statement describing each author's contribution. The journal adopts the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) as a framework for reporting contributions, where applicable.

The contribution statement may include the following roles:

Conceptualization: Formulation of research ideas, objectives, and overarching questions.
Methodology: Development or design of research methods and analytical approaches.
Investigation: Conducting research activities, including fieldwork, interviews, observations, surveys, and other forms of data collection.
Data Curation: Organizing, documenting, managing, and preparing research data.
Formal Analysis: Applying analytical procedures to examine data or synthesize evidence.
Validation: Checking the accuracy, consistency, and reliability of research findings.
Visualization: Preparing figures, tables, diagrams, maps, and other visual representations.
Writing – Original Draft: Preparing the initial manuscript.
Writing – Review & Editing: Critically reviewing, revising, and improving the manuscript's intellectual content.
Supervision: Providing substantive scholarly oversight and guidance.
Project Administration: Coordinating the planning and implementation of research activities.
Funding Acquisition: Securing financial support for the research.
Resources: Providing essential research materials, datasets, or other resources.
Software: Developing, implementing, or using software and computational tools integral to the research.

Authors should report only roles that accurately reflect their actual contributions. Not every author is expected to perform every role. A CRediT statement does not, by itself, establish eligibility for authorship; every listed author must still satisfy all four authorship criteria.

5. Multiple Authors and Collaborative Research

For manuscripts involving two or more authors, the author group should discuss and establish authorship eligibility, author order, and individual responsibilities as early as practicable in the research process.

Before submission, all authors must:

Agree on the final list and order of authors.
Confirm the accuracy of their individual contribution statements.
Approve the final manuscript.
Agree to submit the manuscript exclusively to KOMUNITAS: Jurnal Ilmu Sosiologi while it is under consideration.
Accept accountability for their respective contributions and cooperate in addressing concerns about the work.

For interdisciplinary, collaborative, or multi-institutional research, the journal encourages transparent recognition of contributions from researchers, field collaborators, and local scholars who have made substantive intellectual contributions.

In research conducted in local communities, access to a research site, community membership, or participation as a research informant does not automatically confer authorship. However, substantive intellectual contributions must not be excluded merely because a contributor lacks a formal academic position or institutional affiliation.

6. Guest, Gift, and Ghost Authorship

KOMUNITAS: Jurnal Ilmu Sosiologi does not permit inappropriate attribution of authorship, including guest authorship, gift authorship, and ghost authorship.

Guest authorship: Listing an individual as an author despite the absence of a qualifying contribution, often because of their reputation, seniority, or institutional position.
Gift authorship: Including an individual as an author as a courtesy, personal favor, reciprocal arrangement, or obligation without meeting the authorship criteria.
Ghost authorship: Omitting an individual who has made a substantial qualifying contribution without appropriate recognition.

All authorship information must accurately reflect actual contributions. No individual may be added as an author without their knowledge and consent, and no eligible contributor should be deliberately excluded to manipulate academic credit.

The journal may request additional explanations, contribution statements, or written declarations when authorship concerns arise. Where there is a reasonable concern about inappropriate authorship, the journal may suspend editorial processing while seeking clarification and, where necessary, refer the matter to the relevant institution or research organization.

7. Changes to Authorship After Submission

Any request to add, remove, or reorder authors after manuscript submission must be submitted to the editor-in-chief with a clear written explanation.

The request must include:

The reason for the proposed change.
An updated statement of the contributions of all authors, where applicable.
Written agreement from all existing authors concerning the proposed change.
Written agreement from any individual being added or removed, as applicable.

The journal will assess whether the proposed change is justified and consistent with its authorship criteria and publication ethics policies. Changes will not be processed solely on the basis of a request from the corresponding author without appropriate consultation with the other affected authors.

After publication, any proposed authorship change will be considered under the journal's correction and publication ethics procedures. Where a dispute cannot be resolved among the authors, the journal may request an investigation by the relevant institution and take appropriate editorial action based on the findings.

8. Acknowledgments and Non-Author Contributions

Individuals who have contributed to the research but do not meet all four authorship criteria may be recognized in the Acknowledgments section. Their contributions should be accurately described, for example, research assistance, fieldwork support, technical assistance, language editing, or administrative support.

Authors must obtain permission from individuals before acknowledging them by name. Acknowledgments must not be used to circumvent the authorship criteria or imply endorsement of findings without consent.

Relevant financial support, institutional assistance, and other material contributions must be disclosed in the appropriate sections of the manuscript.

9. Use of Artificial Intelligence in Authorship

Artificial intelligence tools, including generative AI systems, chatbots, and AI-assisted writing applications, cannot be listed as authors or co-authors of manuscripts submitted to KOMUNITAS: Jurnal Ilmu Sosiologi.

Human authors remain fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, validity, integrity, and ethical acceptability of the submitted work, including material produced or modified using AI tools.

If AI tools have been used in preparing a manuscript, authors must disclose the use in accordance with the journal's AI policy and explain the nature and purpose of the assistance. Depending on the application, the disclosure should be placed in the appropriate section, such as Acknowledgments or Methodology.

Authors are responsible for verifying AI-assisted content, including factual claims, citations, references, translations, interpretations, data analysis, and generated figures. AI tools must not be used to fabricate data, invent references, misrepresent research findings, or reproduce protected material without appropriate authorization and attribution.

The use of AI tools does not replace the intellectual contribution required for authorship and does not relieve any author of accountability for the manuscript.

10. Editorial Assessment and Resolution of Authorship Concerns

The editorial team may assess authorship declarations and contribution statements at any stage of the editorial process, including after publication, when questions arise regarding the accuracy or legitimacy of the author list.

The journal may request supporting information, written declarations, clarification from individual authors, or relevant documentation to establish whether the authorship criteria have been satisfied.

Where a credible authorship concern cannot be resolved through clarification, the journal may suspend review or publication while the matter is examined. If necessary, the editor-in-chief may refer the matter to the authors' affiliated institutions or relevant research bodies for further investigation.

Depending on the outcome, appropriate measures may include correction of the author list, correction of contribution statements, publication of a correction notice, rejection of the manuscript, or other editorial action consistent with the seriousness of the concern.

The journal does not act as the sole adjudicator of institutional employment disputes or unresolved interpersonal disagreements. Where appropriate, it will seek an independent institutional assessment before making a final editorial determination.

11. Author Declaration

By submitting a manuscript to KOMUNITAS: Jurnal Ilmu Sosiologi, the corresponding author confirms, on behalf of all co-authors, that:

All listed authors meet the journal's authorship criteria.
All individuals who meet the criteria have been appropriately included as authors.
All authors have reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript and agreed to its submission.
The author order and individual contribution statements have been agreed upon by all authors.
The manuscript is original and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Relevant research ethics approvals, funding sources, conflicts of interest, data availability information, and AI-assisted activities have been disclosed where applicable.
All authors accept responsibility for the integrity of their contributions and agree to cooperate with the journal in resolving questions concerning the manuscript.

The journal reserves the right to request further documentation or clarification to verify compliance with this policy.

12. References and Ethical Framework

This policy is informed by internationally recognized publication ethics and authorship transparency principles, including:

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors.
CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy). Contributor Roles Taxonomy.
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Publication Ethics Resources.

Policy Statement: KOMUNITAS: Jurnal Ilmu Sosiologi is committed to fair attribution of scholarly contributions, transparency in authorship, and accountability for the integrity of published research. All authors and contributors are expected to comply with these principles throughout the submission, review, publication, and post-publication processes.