Authorship Criteria

AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA

Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ) is committed to maintaining academic integrity, transparency, and ethical standards in scholarly health sciences publishing. Authorship must be based on substantial intellectual and scholarly contributions to the research and manuscript. The journal strictly does not recognize honorary, guest, or gift authorship.

1. Eligibility for Authorship

To qualify as an author of a manuscript submitted to Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ), an individual must have made a significant contribution to one or more of the following aspects:

Research conception and design: Contributing substantially to the formulation of the health research idea, clinical/public health objectives, research hypotheses, theoretical framework, or methodological protocol.
Data collection and analysis: Participating meaningfully in clinical or field data acquisition, laboratory analysis, statistical/epidemiological processing, qualitative health inquiry, or the critical interpretation of findings.
Manuscript preparation: Drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual, clinical, and scientific content.
Final approval and accountability: Reviewing and approving the final version of the manuscript before submission and accepting full responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and ethical conduct of the work.

Individuals listed as authors should have made a meaningful scholarly contribution and be able to explain and defend their respective contributions to the research.

2. Responsibilities of Authors

All authors are expected to:

Ensure that the submitted manuscript represents original work and that all relevant literature and sources are properly cited.
Ensure compliance with biomedical and health research ethics (including ethical approvals/clearances and informed consent where human or animal subjects are involved).
Approve the final version of the manuscript before submission.
Agree to the submission of the manuscript to Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ).
Ensure that the author list accurately reflects the contributions of all eligible authors.
Cooperate with the editorial team in addressing questions concerning research integrity, data verification, or publication ethics.
Disclose all financial support, grants, and any potential conflicts of interest.
Notify the editor promptly if significant errors or inaccuracies are identified after publication and cooperate fully in issuing corrections, errata, or retractions when necessary.

3. Corresponding Author

The corresponding author is responsible for managing communication between the authors and the editorial office throughout the submission, peer-review, revision, and publication processes.

The corresponding author must:

Provide accurate and complete information about all co-authors, including their full names, institutional affiliations, and official email addresses.
Confirm that all listed authors have reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript.
Ensure that all co-authors agree to the author order and the submission of the manuscript.
Communicate editorial decisions, reviewer comments, and revision requests to all co-authors in a timely manner.
Ensure that any changes to authorship during the editorial process are disclosed to the editor and supported by the formal agreement of all affected authors.

4. Author Order

The order of authors should reflect the relative contributions agreed upon by the research team. All authors should discuss and approve the author order prior to submission.

Any request to add, remove, or rearrange authors after submission must be communicated to the editor with a clear explanation and the written agreement of all affected authors. The journal reserves the right to suspend the editorial process while such requests are evaluated.

5. Contributors Who Do Not Qualify as Authors

Individuals who provide limited assistance but do not meet the full authorship criteria should not be listed as authors. Such contributions may include general administrative support, routine laboratory assistance, simple data collection without interpretation, language proofreading, medical editing, or general department supervision without substantial intellectual involvement.

These contributions may be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section, provided that the individuals concerned have given their explicit permission to be acknowledged.

6. Prohibition of Improper Authorship

Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ) strictly prohibits the following authorship practices:

Gift or honorary authorship: Including an individual as an author who has not made a substantial scholarly contribution.
Ghost authorship: Omitting an individual who has made a substantial scientific contribution and should be credited as an author.
Misrepresentation of contributions: Providing inaccurate information regarding the actual role or contribution of any author.
Unauthorized authorship changes: Adding, removing, or changing the order of authors without the required agreement and formal notification to the editor.

Suspected authorship violations will be handled in accordance with the journal's publication ethics policies (guided by COPE standards) and may result in immediate rejection, suspension of review, formal correction, or retraction.

7. Authorship Disputes

All authors are encouraged to resolve authorship disagreements through constructive discussion before submitting a manuscript. If an authorship dispute arises during the editorial or publication process, the journal may request a written explanation and supporting documentation from all parties involved.

The journal may suspend consideration or publication of the manuscript until the dispute has been formally resolved. Where necessary, the journal may refer the matter to the authors' affiliated institutions for further investigation.

8. Ethical Commitment

By submitting a manuscript to Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ), the corresponding author confirms that the author list is accurate, that all listed authors have approved the final manuscript and agreed to its submission, and that the contributions of all authors have been represented honestly.

All authors share collective responsibility for upholding the principles of academic integrity, scientific transparency, and responsible scholarly publishing.