Authorship Criteria

Authorship provides credit for a researcher's contributions to a study and carries accountability. The present text is a Guide for Authors, who are expected to fulfil the criteria below:

Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data;

AND to have agreed both to be personally accountable for the author's own contributions and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the final results documented in the literature.

Contributors who do not meet all criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements section at the end of the article to be published.

Maarif Research Journal (MRJ) reserves the right not to consider non-primary research manuscripts for publication. Writing assistance, if obtained, should be acknowledged in the manuscripts of all articles.

The corresponding author is responsible for having ensured that this agreement has been reached that all authors have agreed to be so listed in the order given in the manuscript, and have approved the manuscript submission to the journal, and for managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors, before, during and after publication. The corresponding author is also responsible for submitting a statement of competing or conflicting interests on behalf of all authors of the paper.

It is expected that the corresponding author (and for multi-group collaborations, at least one member of each collaborating group, usually the most senior member of each submitting group or team, who accepts responsibility for the contributions to the manuscript from that team) will be responsible for the following with respect to data, code and materials:

• ensuring that data, materials, and code comply with transparency and reproducibility standards of the field and journal;
• ensuring that original data/materials/code upon which the submission is based are preserved following best practices in the field so that they are retrievable for reanalysis;
• confirming that data/materials/code presentation accurately reflects the original;
• foreseeing and minimizing obstacles to the sharing of data/materials/code described in the work
• ensuring that all authors (or the group leader) have certified the author list and author contributions

At submission, the corresponding author must include written permission from the authors of the work concerned for mention of any unpublished material cited in the manuscript (for example, others' data, in press manuscripts, personal communications or work in preparation).

The corresponding author also must clearly identify at submission any material within the manuscript that has been published previously elsewhere [except for fully referenced quotations and limited material] and provide written permission from authors of the prior work and/or publishers, as appropriate, for the re-use of such material.

After acceptance, the corresponding author is responsible for the accuracy of all content in the proofs, including the names of coauthors, addresses and affiliations.

After publication, the corresponding author is the point of contact for queries about the published paper. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to inform all co-authors of any matters arising in relation to the published paper and to ensure such matters are dealt with promptly. Authors of published material have a responsibility to inform the journal immediately if they become aware of any aspects that require correction.

Any changes to the author list after submission, such as a change in the order of the authors or the deletion or addition of authors, must be approved by every author, and officially communicated by email or letter to MRJ. The editor is not in a position to investigate or adjudicate authorship disputes before or after publication. Such disagreements, if they cannot be resolved amongst the authors, should be directed to the relevant institutional authority.

The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work that forms the subject of their paper was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may also be stated. MRJ remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.