Alternative Policies for Collaborative Publishing in Natural Resource Journals

Authorship of academic articles remains contentious, especially in the context of reporting from community-based participatory research. Policies and guidelines exist to help decide when authorship is warranted, but there are gaps in process and practice for inclusion of community-based groups as authors. We synthesize the experience of a collaborative group in submitting a manuscript derived from blending Traditional Knowledge and science-based approaches into the larger practice of the institution of peer-reviewed publications. We then provide survey results from 11 journal editors across natural resource and policy journals on their policies for authorship and copyright signatories for community-based groups. We create a spectrum of empowerment for publishing with community-based groups, and map our sample to that spectrum. Implications for journal editors, community-based participatory researchers, and community members are discussed.