Authorship Criteria

Mitra Teras: Jurnal Terapan Pengabdian Masyarakat follows the authorship guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), adapted for community engagement work.

Who Can Be an Author?

A person can be listed as an author only if they meet all four of these criteria:

  1. They made a real contribution to the program or the manuscript, such as planning the program, carrying it out, collecting data, or analyzing and interpreting the results.
  2. They helped write the manuscript or revised it critically for important content.
  3. They approved the final version of the manuscript before submission.
  4. They agree to be responsible for the work and to answer questions about its accuracy and integrity.

Community Partners as Authors

Community engagement is carried out together with community partners. Members of the partner community (for example, village leaders, teachers, health workers, or business owners) who meet the four criteria above should be listed as co-authors. Partners who contributed but do not meet all criteria should be thanked in the Acknowledgments.

Contributors Who Are Not Authors

People who helped in other ways, such as giving technical help, providing facilities, helping with logistics, or giving general support, do not qualify as authors. Their contribution should be described in the Acknowledgments section, with their permission.

Unacceptable Authorship

The journal does not accept:

  • Ghost authorship: leaving out a person who meets the authorship criteria.
  • Gift or guest authorship: adding a person who does not meet the criteria, for example because of their position or reputation.
  • AI tools as authors: AI tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the work.

Author Contributions Statement

Every manuscript must include a short Author Contributions statement that explains what each author did. Authors are encouraged to use the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy), for example: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, and Supervision.

Corresponding Author

The corresponding author communicates with the journal on behalf of all authors. The corresponding author must make sure that:

  • all authors meet the authorship criteria;
  • all authors have read and approved the manuscript and agree to its submission;
  • all authors are informed about the review process and editorial decisions.

Order of Authors

The order of authors should be decided together by all authors before submission.

Changes to Authorship

Changes to the author list (adding, removing, or reordering authors) are allowed only before the manuscript is accepted. The corresponding author must send a written request to the editor that explains the reason for the change, with written agreement from all authors, including any author who is added or removed. After acceptance, changes to authorship are not allowed except in special cases approved by the editor.

Authorship disputes are handled according to the COPE flowcharts. The journal does not decide disputes between authors. If the authors cannot agree, the matter may be referred to their institutions.

See also our Author Guidelines and Publication Ethics.