Crossauthoring

Crossauthoring is the collaborative production of a work by multiple authors who contribute across disciplines, roles, or platforms, with shared ownership of the final product. It encompasses coordinated writing, editing, and review processes that align perspectives, expertise, and audience needs.

In academia and publishing, crossauthoring often refers to co-authored papers or books where researchers from different specialties contribute sections, data, or analyses. In technical writing and multimedia, crossauthoring brings together subject-matter experts, editors, designers, and translators to produce unified content for books, manuals, or websites.

Workflow and governance involve clear contributor roles, attribution, and agreements on licensing and rights. Teams commonly use version control, collaborative editors, and project management tools to track changes, resolve conflicts, and preserve a consistent voice and style. Agreements may specify equal or weighted contributions and the order of authors, along with licensing terms such as Creative Commons or publisher rights.

Benefits include broader expertise, improved accuracy and coverage, resilience against individual unavailability, and faster production through parallel work. Challenges include coordinating schedules, maintaining consistent style and terminology, ensuring fair attribution, and navigating copyright, license compatibility, and potential disputes.

Crossauthoring is widely used in open science, software documentation, and online publishing, where transparency and traceability of contributions are valued. See also co-authorship and collaborative writing.