A systematic scoping review of the ethics of contributor role ontologies and taxonomies

Abstract

AbstractContributor Role Ontologies and Taxonomies (CROTs) provide a standard list of roles to specify individual contributions to publications. Due to the recent uptake of CROTs – the CRediT taxonomy in particular– researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds have anticipated a positive impact on ethical issues related to the attribution of credit and responsibilities. Yet, they have also voiced concerns about CROTs shortcomings and ways in which they could be misunderstood or misused and have provided suggestions to improve them. These discussions have never been collated and consolidated. To fill this gap, the current scoping review collates and explores published viewpoints about the ethics of CROTs. Ovid Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were searched. In total, 30 papers met the inclusion criteria and were subsequently analyzed using an inductive approach. We identified eight themes and 20 specific issues related to the ethics of CROTs and provided four recommendations for CROT developers: 1) Compile comprehensive instructions that explain how CROTs should be used and that note common pitfalls of employing them in practice; 2) Improve the coherence of used terms, 3) Provide translations of roles in languages other than English, and 4) Communicate a clear vision about future development plans.