(See How to change (add/drop) authors after peer-review but before publication for changes in authorship before the paper is published).
If an author needs to be added after publication, a corrigendum needs to be submitted by the authors. Unfortunately, we cannot change a scientific record on the basis of a simple email. For details see We published a paper in JMIR and have a correction. What is the process of publishing a corrigendum?
Additional steps are required for authorship corrigenda (as opposed to a normal corrigendum), as per COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) procedures on change in authorship (see the COPE flow diagram).
As per COPE requirements, please upload a letter as a supplementary file (What are the guidelines for supplementary files (figures, Multimedia Appendix, additional material for reviewers/editors only)?) explaining 1) why the author was omitted in the first place and 2) containing signatures of all coauthors declaring that they agree with the addition and the new order of authors.
The same applies when an author needs to be removed.
Note that all authors, including the one to be added, must fulfill the ICMJE Authorship Criteria.
The title of the corrigendum must be "Authorship Correction: (old title)". In the corrigendum text to be published, describe which author has been added and at which position (after/before which author), and briefly the reason ("was inadvertently omitted"). Also mention whether or not the Acknowledgments or Conflicts of Interest section need to be changed due to the additional author, or how the addition affects any potential "equal contribution" footnotes.
The corrigendum needs to be submitted as new submission with all new authors in the correct order and with ORCIDs/affiliations as in the original submission, with the new authors added (or author removed).
Unless the inadvertent omission or addition of the author was the responsibility of the editorial office (which is unlikely, because authors must enter all authors in the submission/metadata form upon submission), there is a charge of $190 for publishing an authorship correction and updating the relevant databases such as Pubmed. We therefore urge authors to carefully proofread the galleys for errors including omissions of authors before publication.
Related:
- We published a paper in JMIR and have a correction. What is the process of publishing a corrigendum?
- What are the guidelines for supplementary files (figures, Multimedia Appendix, additional material for reviewers/editors only)?
- What is an ORCID?
- How to change (add/drop) authors after peer-review but before publication