Display Co-Author Role for Scholarly Contributions on Vitas
For Scholarly Contributions like books, chapters, and journal publications, selecting the correct role (author or editor) from the dropdown ensures accurate citation formatting and enables the ‘Show Coauthor Role Summary’ option in vita templates. This selection displays contributor role counts (e.g., “Number of Editors”). When roles are properly selected, the vita template will display either the editor notation or a count of contributors by role. For example, if the citation format includes an editor designation, that information will be pulled directly from the Role column. Contributor role counts will not display in the vita if roles are missing or permissions are incorrectly configured. To activate this feature, the ‘Role’ classification must be institutionally enabled, roles must be assigned to each contributor, and permissions must allow access to the vita template.
To add this field functionality to Faculty Activity Reporting (FAR, Faculty180), please have your institutional administrator submit a ticket to Interfolio-support@elsevier.com.
Currently, there is no report that lists the number of users in this Role type specific to an activity or as a whole.
Add the Role field to the Co-Authors Section
- Navigate to the Setup page and select Legacy Vitas under the ‘Configuration’ section.
- Click the hyperlinked number for the desired unit to navigate to the ‘Form Configuration’ page.
- Click the Edit (pencil) icon next to the form to be edited, then scroll down to the Content section and click the Edit (pencil) icon next to the ‘Scholarly Contributions’ section.
Note that this section name may vary based on the institution's settings. Rather than ‘Scholarly Contributions' this section may appear as ‘Publications’ or another similar name.
- Check the box next to the Show Coauthor Role Summary field under the 'Section Details' section.
- This option appears only if role classification is active at the institution level and has been enabled by the Interfolio Administrator.
When multiple contributors are listed, the order reflects authorship priority. This order is visible in the vita and affects how roles are summarized. User roles must be manually selected for each contributor. If left blank, the system will not display role summaries in the vita.
- An example of this can be seen in the image below. The Coauthor Role Summary is shown under number six where it says Author: 1.
If your institution has renamed the 'Role' label (e.g., to "Coauthor Classification"), you must temporarily rename it back to 'Role' for the system to recognize and activate the summary feature. This change will not affect existing data or dropdown options, but is necessary because the system looks specifically for a classification named "Role" to activate the summary feature. When properly configured, the vita will either display editor notations directly from the Role column or show a count of contributors by role. If roles or permissions are not set up correctly, role summaries will not appear.