Canadian Journal of Communication

Section Policies

The Canadian Journal of Communication (CJC) has outlined its manuscript requirements in the Submission Guidelines, with "Manuscript Types" outlining the peer review and submission process for each type of manuscript submitted to the journal.

Peer Review Process

Each submitted manuscript is evaluated on the following basis:

the originality of its contribution to the field of communication;
the soundness of its theory and methodology given the topic;
the coherence of its analysis;
its ability to communicate to readers (grammar and style).

Normal turn-around time for evaluation of manuscripts is four to six months from the date of receipt.

Subscription and Access Policies

The first purpose of the CJC is to place the best research relevant to the mandate of the journal on the official record of research of communication inquiry. Its second purpose is to disseminate that information to all possible beneficiaries while maintaining sufficient operating revenue to conduct its affairs professionally and to lead the way in publishing innovation.

Beginning in 1994, the CJC embraced online publishing and open access to back issues under the implicit understanding that is now formalized by the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Licence. This licence, which the CJC embraces, allows readers to download an article and share it with others as long as authorship is acknowledged and a link is made (in electronic media) to the original article. The article can be quoted but not changed and presented differently.

The CJC sells online access to both individuals and institutions at different rates. Individual subscribers may access the journal at any time by logging into the journal website. Members of institutions may also access the journal at no surcharge beyond the institutional subscription. By accessing the journal through the institution’s website, access is unencumbered.

The CJC is a subscription-based journal. Its aim is to contribute to maintaining an active community of researchers focused on Canadian communication. It employs a subscription-based model augmented by a grant from SSHRC so that it can sustain an operation capable of attracting the best research and continue to play a leading role in disseminating that research by taking advantage of ever-developing digital technology. On the content/editorial side, CJC articles are attracting a growing readership in over 200 countries and the launch of both our Policy Portal and Playlists has expanded the journal's purview. On the publishing/technology side, in recent years annual online article views have reached 850,000.

While the CJC would like nothing better than to open access to its articles completely — currently all articles are OA after 12 months — without the subscription funds CJC is able to attract, a healthy percentage of which is provided by researchers, the journals excellence and development would be undermined.

Institutional Subscriptions

At this time, the CJC has not found it necessary to implement differential institutional subscription fees based on the number of potential and/or likely users.

The purchase of a single institutional subscription allows an institution to make the journal available to its members. Purchase does not include the right to make the journal available to other institutions such as those that may join the subscribing institution in a consortium.

Policy for Multi-Campus Universities (Online Subscriptions)

Multi-campus universities, under a single administration and within the same national boundary, may purchase a single CJC online subscription for all campuses. Multi-campus universities, with a single administration, but where some campuses are located outside of the national boundary of the administering campus, must purchase more than one online subscription. However, these universities will be offered a discount for the campuses outside of the national boundary of the administering campus.

Policy for Inter-Library Loan (ILL)

Authorized subscribing libraries may engage in ILL of embargoed CJC content by providing a hard copy to an end user for non-commercial research or private study with a non-commercial purpose. There is no permission granted for onward transmission or distribution beyond this individual end user. The CJC database may be used in this way by authorized subscribing libraries to print out and post, or fax, hard copy text, or to scan and transmit an article by secure electronic transmission to an individual end user. The downloaded electronic file must be deleted immediately after printing or transmitting. The CJC website (cjc.utpjournals.press) provides open access for non-commercial use to all non-embargoed issues.

Policy for Course Packs

Multiple copies of both embargoed and non-embargoed CJC articles may be made for instructional use by obtaining permission through Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, and making payment to this agency for this content use (www.accesscopyright.ca; email [email protected]).

Corporations and Professional Offices

The purchase of a single subscription allows multi-office organizations integrated into a single administration to provide access to all its members. Organizations with offices in more than one country must purchase multiple subscriptions. Please contact the CJC subscriptions manager at [email protected] to discuss your particular circumstances and the available options.

Board of Directors

See our Board of Directors page for the current board of directors.

Editorial Board Members and Editors Emeriti

See our Editorial Team page for a list of current Editorial Board members and Editors Emeriti.

Publication Ethics

The following are the operational guidelines of the CJC with respect to publication ethics.

Publication and authorship: All articles will contain a complete list of references in citation style of the journal; financial support that the author(s) has received will be noted; there will be no plagiarism of the work of others or the work of the author(s); no data will be included that is fraudulent in any way; the research reported will not have been reported in, nor will it have been submitted during its time of consideration to, any other journal.
Author’s(s’) responsibilities: All submitted articles to the journal, including articles-in-brief and commentaries, will be peer reviewed. All researchers or students who have contributed significantly to the research and no others will be included in the list of authors. In submitting research for evaluation to the journal, the author(s) attest that the data reported are real and authentic. All author(s) must be willing to provide retraction statements to the journal should the journal request such a statement. Any such request will be based on clear evidence of transgression of normal research reporting and the policies of the journal.
Peer review responsibilities: It is the responsibility of peer reviewers, along with the CJC, to make and ensure judgments that are fair and “objective.” Peer reviewers ideally will have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders. If a peer reviewer has what he or she considers a perceived or actual conflict of interest they will make that known to the editor and the editor will decide whether the reviewer should decline or accept the request to review. Peer reviewers should make known to the author and the editor relevant published work that is not cited. Reviewed articles will be treated as confidential by the journal and its peer reviewers until they are published.
Editorial responsibilities: The editor of the CJC has complete responsibility and authority to accept or reject an article. The editor will only accept papers for the journal when he or she is reasonably certain that it qualifies to be published in the journal and reflects the policies within the journal’s ethical guidelines. The editor should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they accept or reject. If they do have a conflict of interest, the editor will turn over the administration of the peer review process, including the final decision to publish (or not) to a member of the journal’s editorial board who does not have a conflict of interest. If an article must be retracted or corrected, the editor will promote the publication of correction or retraction. The editor and staff of the CJC will work to preserve the anonymity of reviewers as long as it is using a blind peer review process, which it currently does.
Publishing ethics issues: Within the framework of publication ethics, it is the purpose of the CJC to contribute to and maintain the integrity of the knowledge record in the defined areas in which the journal publishes. Please see “Focus and Scope” with “Editorial Policies” on this site. The editorial office of the CJC monitors all submissions. This includes identifying and preventing the publication of papers where research misconduct inclusive of fraud and errors has occurred. Research misconduct also comprises, but is not limited to falsification and fabrication of data, including, by selection, giving a false impression, plagiarism, false attribution of authorship, lack of ethical approval where required, undeclared conflicts of interest, and the submission and representation of content that has previously been published as original. In no case does it condone misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that CJC’s publisher or editor(s) are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct, the publisher or editor shall deal with allegations appropriately including investigating the matter, treating the investigation confidentially, contacting and corresponding with the relevant author(s), followed by a published retraction, correction, clarification, and/or apology. If deemed warranted, an article may be removed from the CJC’s website, and a notice of misconduct may be published. In extreme cases, CJC may contact an author’s institution.

For more information on publication ethics in general please visit http://publicationethics.org. While we respect their efforts, the CJC is NOT a member of COPE.

Book/Media for Review?

See Books for Review for instructions about submitting or suggesting book and media reviews.

Advertising Information/Indexing

See Advertising for details about advertising in the journal.

See Abstracting and Indexing for a list of indexes the journal is included in.

The CJC is compliant with the Open Archive Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting.

Policies

Contents