Editorial policies
Competing Interests
As a founding member of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, CMAJ endorses the "Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals" and the "ICMJE uniform disclosure form for potential conflicts of interest". CMAJ also has its own competing interest policy.
Undisclosed competing interests
CMAJ follows The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)'s guidance on deliberate failure to disclose competing interests. This is considered academic misconduct, requiring initiation of appropriate procedures, which may include notification of the author’s institution and funders. On discovering an undisclosed competing interest, CMAJ will initiate a cascade of procedures such as those outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics. Depending on the situation, these may include publication of an expression of concern, investigation by the author’s institution and retraction of the article. (Full undisclosed CI policy)
Competing interests in guidelines
CMAJ is implementing the principles developed by the Guidelines International Network (GIN) regarding disclosure of competing interests and their management in clinical practice guidelines. To aid in managing competing interests, GIN recommends that an oversight committee be struck that is responsible for developing and implementing the definition and rules related to competing interests.
In selecting guidelines, CMAJ looks for a strong methodology with a robust assessment of evidence using a tool like Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE; www.gradeworkinggroup.org), alignment with best practices such as those outlined in the updated version of the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation instrument (AGREE II; www.agreetrust.org) and, as of 2020, adherence to the GIN principles for declaring and managing competing interests. (Full guideline CI policy)
Copyright Policy
Before publication of an accepted manuscript, the authors must sign the licence to publish form and return it to CMAJ. The default content license used by the journal is CC BY-NC-ND; however, a CC BY license is available upon request. See our Copyright page for more information.
Corrections policy
CMAJ publishes corrections for important errors related to scientific content. Factual errors, important errors in the author byline or affiliations, incorrect peer review statements, errors that cause ambiguity or change meaning in the article, missing or incorrect competing interests or funding statements, and missing or wrong references are corrected. Spelling mistakes, incorrect author degrees or contributor statements, missing or misspelled names in the acknowledgements, and errors in references are not corrected.
Data sharing
For any research study submitted to the journal, authors must supply a data-sharing statement, and those using shared data will need to acknowledge the source of the data. Additionally, all reports of clinical trials submitted to CMAJ that begin enrolling participants on or after Jan. 1, 2019, must include a data-sharing statement in the registration of the trial.
The following information should appear in the data-sharing statement: which data will be shared; whether individual anonymized participant data will be shared; whether associated documents, such as the statistical analysis plan or study protocol, will be available; when the data will become available and for how long; and the specific requirements for accessing the data (e.g., who is eligible, for what types of analyses, and how the data will be made available). Examples of data-sharing statements that fulfill ICMJE requirements are available at icmje.org. (Full data sharing policy)
Preprint Policy
CMAJ will consider for publication papers that have previously been deposited in a preprint server and for which the authors retain copyright. Authors should inform the journal on submission whether a preprint version exists and provide a link to the preprint version. Neither revised versions of the manuscript created during the journal review process nor the published version should replace the draft version on the preprint site.
CMAJ prefers nonprofit, community-based and open access preprint servers that provide preliminary screening for expected standards of research integrity and have policies for handling preprints that violate those standards. Posted preprints should be marked clearly as preliminary, non-peer-reviewed work. To facilitate future publication, the author must retain copyright for the preprint. (Full preprint policy)
Plagiarism Policy
CMAJ uses iThenticate plagiarism detection software. All manuscripts which undergo peer review are checked for plagiarism. Reports for manuscripts with substantial content duplicated from other sources are reviewed to determine whether the duplication constitutes plagiarism.
Reporting race and ethnicity
Manuscripts that describe and analyze the race and ethnicity of research participants should follow CMAJ's guidance on the reporting of race and ethnicity in research articles.
