Cardiff University’s commitment to DORA and equitable authorship

A recent post on the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) website highlights the growing interactions between DORA and the open scholarship movement, including a shared goal of equitable authorship. Here is an update on the University’s activities as a DORA signatory from Karen Desborough, Responsible Research Assessment Officer:

“In April 2021, the University Council approved a Statement on Responsible Research Assessment. The Policy Statement, created in consultation with research staff, the DORA Working Group and University Library Service, provides a set of principles on the appropriate use of quantitative research metrics in research assessment. The Policy Statement builds upon our commitment to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which we signed in November 2019, and demonstrates our alignment with other prominent initiatives in this area, including the Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics and The Metric Tide report, commissioned by HEFCE (now Research England).

As a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), we are developing and adopting processes and initiatives around equitable authorship, such as the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy). CRediT is a taxonomy, including 14 roles, that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to a scholarly output. It allows for greater transparency and recognition of researchers’ contributions as contributors can indicate what part of the process they took part in and get the appropriate credit for the work they did. “