Author Forms

As per the announcement made by the journal’s owner, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), CMAJ Open will no longer be accepting submissions. Read more…

Upon acceptance, you will be asked to submit the following forms:

Please note that all required forms must be received prior to publication. Where applicable, you may also be asked to submit these forms:

If you acknowledge anyone in your manuscript for a contribution that goes beyond administrative assistance, you must obtain written permission from that person to publish his or her name.

If you wish to cite a personal communication in your article, you must obtain written permission from the person in question to publish his or her name. Please include the person's affiliation and the year in which the information was communicated.

  •  Permission to reproduce material from other sources

If your article contains a previously published table or figure, you must obtain written permission from the copyright holder (usually the publisher) to reproduce the material in CMAJ Open. In most cases, you must do this even if the article, table or figure is your own work. Please also send us photocopies of the tables or figures from the book, journal or online source in which they were first published. You will need to obtain permission for commercial use, in perpetuity, and for online and print publication. For more information, see FAQs below.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How do I know if I need permission to reproduce material from another source?

  • Review the publisher's policy (look for: Terms of Use, Copyright and Permissions, Policies).
  • Compare the previously published, original material to that in the manuscript you are submitting to CMAJ Open. If the material in your manuscript is the same as or is a modified version of the source material, you need to obtain permission. If you are modifying the material, the permission you obtain from the publisher and/or copyright holder must specify that you are allowed to modify it. 
  • If you have consulted other sources to create an original table or figure, you do not need permission but those sources should be referenced.

2. How do I determine who needs to give permission?

  • Find the original source online; there is usually a link to request permission.
  • If you are the author of the original article and hold copyright, please ensure that you have commercial permission to reproduce.

3. The material to be reproduced is open access; do I still need permission?

  • Open access allows one to read the information, not to reuse the information. Please consult the publisher's policy.

4. My funder requires that I publish under a CC BY license. Is this possible?

The default content license used by the journal is CC BY-NC-ND; however, a CC BY license available upon request. See our Copyright page for more information.

For questions or to submit forms:

CMAJ Open
1410 Blair Towers Place
Suite 500
Ottawa ON K1J 9B9
Tel 866-971-9171

Email: [email protected]