NISOThe Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) is a standardized vocabulary of fourteen roles that represent the distinct types of contributions individuals typically make to scholarly research outputs. By providing a structured, machine-readable way to describe who did what on a research project, CRediT moves beyond the simple author byline to offer a more transparent and granular picture of the collaborative effort behind published science.
Background
Traditional academic authorship conventions evolved to serve a system where papers had one or two authors, but modern research is increasingly collaborative, with large teams spanning multiple disciplines and institutions. The order of names on a byline became an unreliable proxy for contribution type and magnitude, creating problems for credit allocation, research assessment, and accountability.
In response, a group of researchers and scholarly communication professionals developed CRediT through a series of workshops beginning around 2012. The taxonomy was first described in a 2015 paper by Amy Brand, Liz Allen, Micah Altman, Marjorie Hlava, and Jo Scott. The fourteen roles were designed to be broad enough to apply across disciplines yet specific enough to be meaningful. In 2022, CRediT was approved as an American National Standard, ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, formalizing its status within the information standards ecosystem.
Purpose and Scope
CRediT is designed to complement, not replace, traditional authorship. Each contributor to a research output can be assigned one or more of the fourteen roles, optionally with a degree of contribution (lead, equal, supporting). The taxonomy applies primarily to journal articles but has potential applications in datasets, software, and other research outputs.
The Fourteen Contributor Roles
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Conceptualization | Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals |
| Data curation | Management activities for research data |
| Formal analysis | Application of statistical, mathematical, or computational techniques |
| Funding acquisition | Acquisition of the financial support for the project |
| Investigation | Conducting the research and investigation process |
| Methodology | Development or design of methodology |
| Project administration | Management and coordination responsibility |
| Resources | Provision of study materials, reagents, instrumentation, etc. |
| Software | Programming, software development, implementation |
| Supervision | Oversight and leadership responsibility |
| Validation | Verification of the overall replication/reproducibility |
| Visualization | Preparation and presentation of the published work, specifically data visualization |
| Writing -- original draft | Preparation of the initial draft |
| Writing -- review & editing | Critical review, commentary, or revision of the draft |
Governance and Maintenance
CRediT is maintained by NISO (National Information Standards Organization) as ANSI/NISO Z39.104. The taxonomy is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, enabling broad reuse and integration. The official website at credit.niso.org serves as the authoritative reference and includes translations into multiple languages. NISO manages the standard through its usual committee process, with community input on proposed changes.
Notable Implementations
CRediT has been widely adopted by scholarly publishers. Major publishers including Elsevier, PLOS, Springer Nature, Wiley, and many others collect CRediT role information during the manuscript submission process and display it in published articles. The JATS (Journal Article Tag Suite) XML standard includes elements for encoding CRediT data. ORCID supports CRediT roles in researcher profiles. The Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI), which originally hosted CRediT, helped establish its early adoption infrastructure.
Related Standards
- ORCID provides persistent researcher identifiers that can be linked to CRediT role assertions.
- JATS includes XML markup for encoding CRediT contributor role information in journal articles.
- DataCite Metadata Schema has incorporated contributor role types influenced by CRediT.