CRediT-fAIR
Contributor Roles Taxonomy for Arts Integrative Research
Ground Works has adapted the NISO (National Information Standards Organization) Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT). CRediT has gained traction in scholarly publishing as one way of acknowledging non-author contributions to research. However, we find that while this taxonomy speaks clearly to natural and social sciences, its roles and terms do not always apply well to arts and arts-integrated research.
In our adaptation — the Contributor Roles Taxonomy for Arts Integrative Research (CRediT-fAIR) — “research” is understood to include creative practice and artistic production, i.e., arts research, as well as collaboration at the intersection of the arts and other disciplines, i.e., arts-integrated research.
The 18 roles
See the full roles index for a single-column view, or mapping to NISO CRediT for a crosswalk.
What’s changed from CRediT
Recognizing the value of a brief, well-scoped taxonomy, we worked intentionally to avoid broad expansion and instead adjusted, where possible, the descriptions of existing roles so that they became inclusive of arts- and design-based methods, practices, and processes for research. We only added new roles where it was absolutely necessary. The result refines the fourteen original CRediT roles and adds four new ones, for a total of eighteen.
Revisions. In some instances, CRediT’s language emphasized its origins in the sciences and in STEM culture. We broadened this language to be inclusive of the arts. For example, we expanded “Investigation” to include “inquiry” in both the name and description — acknowledging inquiry as a form of investigation important to arts-integrative work — and we broadened the definition to include research through-, with-, and for- arts and design. Our revised description of “Formal analysis” removes the specific terms “statistical” and “mathematical” and moves from analysis of study data to analysis of project outcomes, allowing a broader set of formal methods to be recognized. Not all roles were edited: for example, “Conceptualization” and “Funding acquisition” are identical to CRediT, to honor the careful work of the original developers.
Additions. We added “Reflective Analysis” as a counterpart to “Formal analysis,” recognizing how reflective practices are central to how artists, designers, and creative practitioners critically interrogate their work and produce knowledge. We renamed “Software” to “Production - Technical” and added “Production - Creative” and “Production - Social” to reflect the fact that arts-based research spans the technical, the creative, and the social. Finally, we added “Relationship Development and Outreach” to account for the sustained effort of building community relationships and partnerships that arts-integrative work depends on.
Citing CRediT-fAIR
See the CITATION.cff in the repo. The standard is released under CC-BY 4.0.
Acknowledgments
CRediT-fAIR is adapted from the NISO CRediT taxonomy. We are grateful to NISO and the original CRediT contributors for the foundation this work builds on.