Preserve Consortium Names in Author Metadata

Read the credited byline before counting contributors

A research consortium may appear as a named group in the byline, with individual investigators listed separately in an appendix. Capture the byline in order, preserving the group name as a single organization-valued contributor. In legacy JATS files, group authors can appear in the collab element. The version 1.4 reference marks that element deprecated, and recommends collab-name for the group name and collab-wrap when grouping the name and contributors. Check both generations of markup when importing an archive.

Keep membership information in a linked table with its own evidence and role. Membership alone does not determine how the publisher credited an individual in the article. Check whether a group is named as author, investigator group, or acknowledgement before assigning a role.

Check a hypothetical author count

A paper's byline contains four named people and one consortium. The appendix lists 20 consortium members, including two of those four named people. There are five byline entries. Across the two lists there are 22 distinct named individuals, assuming the other names are unique. These totals answer different questions, and adding 4 + 20 without resolving overlap would give the wrong person count.

Export a test citation and inspect the displayed group name for accidental splitting into given and family names. Preserve the group designation and original sequence so readers can trace the imported citation back to the publisher's attribution.

JATS group author guidance for legacy collab markup

Related worksheet: Contributor role confirmation worksheet.

Source checked on 5 November 2026.