Tutorial:Authored versus anonymous article

This tutorial clarifies when an author name may be mentioned on top of a Statistics Explained article and when it is better not to do so. In general, articles presenting in-depth statistical analysis or background information of relatively high added value by one or more identifiable authors may mention the authors name(s); while articles which are collective, purely descriptive, part of an online publication presenting a theme or policy overview or used for regularly releasing data should rather remain anonymous. Some special cases deviate slightly from these general rules. All authored articles can be found together in a special category.

At this moment, many articles (especially background articles) without an author name nevertheless seem to meet the criteria for mentioning it. Authors are invited to consider this possibility for their new articles!

Authored articles

These specific types of article may display the author name(s):

Statistical articles presenting a statistical analysis which is not merely descriptive or translating tables in words, but showing patterns or trends in a multitude of data, pointing out links between phenomena, telling a particular statistical 'story'; example: Global value chains - international sourcing to China and India.
Background articles not just presenting a survey, nomenclature or indicator set in a general way, but focusing on a specific issue, exploring a question in some detail, describing a specific update or revision or situation; example: Update of the SNA 1993 and revision of ESA95.

Often these more analytical articles have been written in collaboration with or even wholly by experts who are not Eurostat staff but from other European Commission DG's, international organisations or academia. In those cases, the external author's name(s) can be mentioned, with the other DG or institution the author belongs to (for Eurostat staff, 'Eurostat' and the unit can but need not be added). If the article has been paid for by Eurostat, however, it becomes the property of Eurostat and does not mention the contractor's name (nor the name of the Eurostat official who underwrote the contract, obviously); in this case it remains non-authored even if it is analytical and specialised.

It is expected that authors mentioned have really and actually contributed to the article's content, completely or partially (and not, for instance, just ordered it from an external contractor).

Anonymous articles

The other articles remain anonymous if they do not meet the criteria listed above and are rather:

purely descriptive (latest figure is .., up or down ..., country x highest = tables translated to words);
part of a collective online publication like the Eurostat regional yearbook, The EU in the world or statistical books covering a theme or policy area (e.g. Sustainable development in the European Union) - 'some contributions to the Regional yearbook ('Focus on ...')or to methodological online publications, however, may be original, once-only, in-depth and hence a candidate for mentioning author names!
releasing and/or reporting data which are regularly updated (e.g. two-weekly Inflation in the euro area, monthly Unemployment statistics and many quarterly, semi-annual or annual statistical article updates across all statistical themes;
commissioned from an external contractor and paid for by Eurostat, even if analytical and specialised.

Procedure for new articles

The possibility to mention author names is an advantage for authors, as a form of recognition and possible addition to CV or publications list, but also for Eurostat's publishing activity when it provides an additional incentive to write original and high-quality articles. Consequently this option is to be advertised and stimulated, without however extending to the cases mentioned above where articles should rather remain anonymous.

As part of the validation process of a new or fundamentally revised article (which is not a Statistics in focus article, always with author name), the following procedure for adding the author name(s) is foreseen:

any authors or group of authors who considers that a new article meets the criteria mentioned above, can add his/her name(s) on top of the article, in italic just below the title and, if any, subtitle (see examples in the list of authored articles).
by Tutorial:How to create an article - validation the hierarchy (team leader, head of unit and finally director who does the actual sighting) mark their approval of adding the author name(s);
the dissemination unit checks if the article indeed meets the criteria and does not fall in the group of articles which rather should be anonymous, and publishes it by validating.