When writing a scientific manuscript, each author and researcher may have different roles and responsibilities. Every journal or preprint also has different rules for who can publish with them and how each author needs to be involved. Make sure you read and understand eiRxiv’s full author eligibility information below before you begin your manuscript.
Because we are a preprint for students, eiRxiv expects students to take the lead in developing the question, doing the research, and writing the manuscript.
To comply with laws to protect minors online, such as Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the United States, we require an adult (the “Coordinating Adult”) to submit the manuscript on behalf of the student authors. The coordinating adult will:
All eiRxiv manuscripts must have at least one adult author listed, even if the student did all of the work themselves. eiRxiv does not allow students to submit on their own, nor do we post manuscripts with a single author.
Per ICMJE guidelines, additional student and adult authors should also be listed if they helped significantly with:
All individuals who meet these conditions must be listed as authors on the manuscript. All authors must also approve of the final manuscript, give consent for it to be posted, and take responsibility for resolving any issues related to the accuracy or integrity of the research.
On the other hand, contributors who don’t meet these conditions should not be listed as authors. You can instead list them in the acknowledgements.
If any individual who meets these requirements does not want to be an author, they must document this in writing. Our editors may ask for this documentation.
