About the Journal

FOCUS AND SCOPE

The Canadian Medical Education Journal (CMEJ) is an online open-access peer-reviewed journal exploring new developments and perspectives in medical and health professions education that may influence institutional, regional, and national policy and/or practices. First published in 2010, the journal examines prominent issues relating to health care professionals' formation, education, and training before and after licensure in Canada and internationally. The target audience includes clinician teachers, medical education researchers, practitioners and professionals, administrators, decision-makers, medical schools, universities, and their trainees.

PEER REVIEW PROCESS

The editors will be responsible for directing the manuscripts to the appropriate reviewers with knowledge and/or expertise in the requisite fields. The CMEJ uses a single blind review process, meaning that authors may be known to the reviewer, but the reviewer remains anonymous unless they choose to sign their review.  Each manuscript will be accepted (sometimes on a conditional basis pending suggested revisions) or declined based on the reviewers' comments. In the case of a controversial groundbreaking article that could have a far-reaching impact on the field, further reviews may be sought. The decision ultimately rests with the Editor-in-Chief and section editors.

All comments received from the reviewers will be passed on to the authors within 4-6 weeks. Regardless of whether or not the submission is accepted for publication, it is essential that appropriate feedback be provided to the contributors. Click here for a sample You Should Try This! review form.

Manuscripts and reviews submitted to the Canadian Medical Education Journal may be used for teaching and research purposes. 

Supervised/Group Reviews have the potential to provide high-quality review/feedback.  Those supervising or mentoring trainees in medical education may consider involving trainees in the review process. Completing a review, especially in a collaborative setting with feedback and mutual critique, can be a powerful learning experience. The additional attention paid to the manuscript also helps the author(s) and the CMEJ. If you decide to lead a multi-reviewer review, please notify the Section Editor so we may assign the others as reviews.  While there will be consultation and thus similarities among the reviews, each reviewer (trainee or supervisor/mentor) should submit their own review to the CMEJ. We expect that the usual degree of confidentiality will be observed except among collaborating reviewers.  All reviewers are expected to maintain the confidentiality of the submitted work outside of the collaborative review setting.

EDITORS AND EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS AS AUTHORS

If a member of the editorial team is an author or has any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, the submission will be handled by one or more other members of the editorial team who are not in conflict of interest.  Manuscript submissions by the Editor-in-Chief (as an author) are handled by another member of the editorial team in consultation with the Senior Consulting Editor, who acts as Editor-in-Chief for these manuscripts. Submissions by members of the editorial team, including the Editor-in-Chief, are subject to the same peer-review process as any other manuscript; editorial team status has no bearing on editorial consideration.  The author/editor will not be involved or have any knowledge of who reviewed the paper. This maintains the integrity of our single-blind peer review process. All authors who are also editors with the CMEJ must disclose this relationship in the Conflicts of Interest statement and indicate that they have adhered to the CMEJ policy regarding authorship.

PREPRINT POLICY

The CMEJ Editorial Advisory Board has had extensive discussions about whether to consider submissions of preprint articles.  There is a range of opinions.  At this time, CMEJ policy is to trial preprint submissions and consider them on their merits like any other.  This policy is subject to change as we evaluate the initiative.

PUBLICATION FREQUENCY

The Canadian Medical Education Journal has grown to publish six issues per year. There are no submission deadlines.  The review process is variable in length and dependent on many factors.  Prospective authors can view the average review times (from submission to first decision) in our Journal Statistics.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

ARCHIVING

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries. It permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. 

The Canadian Medical Education Journal is archived in PubMed Central® (PMC), a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM).

The Canadian Medical Education Journal is indexed by Érudit, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and Ulrichsweb.

COPYRIGHT

Submission of an original manuscript to the Journal will be taken to mean that it represents original work not previously published and that it is not being considered elsewhere for publication. If accepted for publication, it will be published online, and it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, for commercial purposes, in any language, without the consent of the publisher.

Publication of scholarly research is meant to disseminate knowledge and, in a not-for-profit regime, benefits neither publisher nor the author financially.

Authors who publish in the Canadian Medical Education Journal agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 Canada Licence. This license allows anyone to copy and distribute the article for non-commercial purposes, provided that appropriate attribution is given. For details of the rights an author grants users of their work, please see the license summary and the full license.

PUBLICATION FEES

The CMEJ does not charge any article submission or processing charges nor any publication-related fees.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

Authors must state explicitly whether any conflicts of interest exist due to financial and personal relationships that could potentially bias their work.  On a separate page immediately following the title page, identify the source(s) of funding, or specify that there was no funding.

Reviewers should disclose to the editor any conflicts of interest that may exist and should not review specific manuscripts if, after consultation, they determine that there is reasonable potential for errors in judgment.

RESEARCH ETHICS AND INFORMED CONSENT

Manuscripts that report data from human participants will not be considered for publication unless the study was approved by the authors’ Research Ethics Board (REB) or Institutional Review Board (IRB). A statement concerning REB/IRB approval and consent procedures must appear in the Methods section of the manuscript. We require written informed consent. If the REB/IRB waived the requirement for consent, this needs to be stated explicitly, along with the reason. Authors must provide a copy of the REB/IRB approval form.

DATA SHARING POLICY

The Canadian Medical Education Journal encourages authors to share their data and other artifacts supporting the results in their papers. If authors have archived their data in a public repository, the CMEJ will publish the link. Authors should include a data accessibility statement in the Results section of their manuscript, including a DOI link and the name of the repository they have used. We recognize that not all data should/can be made available. Authors are advised to use their discretion. 

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE

The Canadian Medical Education Journal is committed to the COPE Code of Conduct, and publication malpractice will not be tolerated.  Authors should familiarize themselves with the COPE Code of Conduct.  Complaints may be directed to cmej.editor@usask.ca.

PROCESS FOR HANDLING CASES REQUIRING CORRECTIONS, RETRACTIONS, AND EDITORIAL EXPRESSIONS OF CONCERN

The CMEJ follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) 

When it is recognized that a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement, or distorted report has been published, it must be corrected promptly and with due prominence. If, after an appropriate investigation, an item proves to be fraudulent, it will be retracted. The retraction will be clearly identifiable to readers and indexing systems.

Corrections

Errors in published papers may be identified in the form of a corrigendum or erratum when the Editor-in-Chief considers it appropriate to inform the journal readership about a previous error and makes a correction to the error in the published article. The corrigendum or erratum will appear as a new article in the journal and will cite the original published article.

Retractions

The CMEJ follows the COPE Retraction guidelines. Retractions are considered and published when there is substantial evidence that the findings are unreliable due either to falsification or a major error. Retractions are also made in cases where there is evidence of publication malpractice, such as plagiarism, duplicate publication, or unethical research.

In accordance with COPE guidelines, the CMEJ implements the following procedures for retraction:

1.     A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.

2.     The retraction will list the reason(s) for retraction and link to the original article.

3.     The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself.

4.     The original article is retained unchanged save for a watermark on the HTML and PDF indicating on each page that it has been “retracted.”

EDITORIAL EXPRESSIONS OF CONCERN

Where substantial doubt arises as to the integrity of a published article, CMEJ editors may issue an expression of concern. However, expressions of concern will only be issued if an investigation into the problems relating to the article has proven inconclusive and if there remain strong indicators that the concerns are valid. In rare cases, an editorial expression of concern may also be issued when an investigation is underway, but a judgment will not be available for a considerable time. The expression of concern will be linked back to the published article it relates to.

JOURNAL SPONSORSHIP

Publisher

• Canadian Medical Education Journal

Sources of Support

The CMEJ acknowledges the following sources of financial and in-kind support:

• The CAME Foundation
• University of Saskatchewan
• Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada
• The Medical Council of Canada
• The College of Family Physicians of Canada
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada 

and thanks the following for their past support:

• University of Calgary
• The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada

ADVERTISING

The CMEJ will consider publishing advertisements related to Career and/or Conference postings.  Contact the Journal Manager for pricing.

CONSENT FOR REGISTRATION AND CONTRIBUTOR DATA COLLECTION

I consent to the following use of my data:

The data collected from registered and non-registered users of this journal falls within the scope of the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals. It includes information that makes communication possible for the editorial process; it is used to inform readers about the authorship and editing of content; it enables collecting aggregated data on readership behaviours, as well as tracking geopolitical and social elements of scholarly communication.

This journal’s editorial team uses this data to guide its work in publishing and improving this journal. Data that will assist in developing this publishing platform may be shared with its developer Public Knowledge Project in an anonymized and aggregated form, with appropriate exceptions such as article metrics. The data will not be sold by this journal or PKP, nor will it be used for purposes other than those stated here. The authors published in this journal are responsible for the human subject data that figures in the research reported here.

Those involved in editing this journal seek to be compliant with industry standards for data privacy, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for "data subject rights" that include (a) breach notification; (b) right of access; (c) the right to be forgotten; (d) data portability; and (e) privacy by design. The GDPR also allows for the recognition of "the public interest in the availability of the data," which has a particular saliency for those involved in maintaining, with the greatest integrity possible, the public record of scholarly publishing.

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