Overview
The Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) publishes occasional sponsored supplements. These must be of the same standard as articles published in the Journal, and the same criteria that apply to the Journal are used to determine what is to be published in a supplement.
The MJA Editor-in-Chief may choose to have supplements coordinated in-house by one of the MJA editorial team or appoint one or more guest editors.
To decide whether to proceed with commissioning a supplement, the MJA requires a list of manuscripts planned for the supplement and the names and details of each manuscript author and proposed lead author(s). The lead author(s) may assist in coordinating material. Any competing interests of the lead authors must be fully declared to the MJA.
Editorial team assessment
All supplement manuscripts are processed by the MJA’s team of medical editors following the Journal’s standard procedures.
The peer-review process
The MJA is a general medical journal, and all content within the Journal and its supplements is peer-reviewed. This process applies to all manuscripts intended for publication in a supplement. Not all manuscripts commissioned for a supplement will necessarily be published.
Decisions about which manuscripts to include in a supplement, after the peer-review process, will be made in consultation with the guest editor(s).
Editing and circulation
All accepted articles are edited for brevity and clarity and to conform to MJA style by the MJA’s experienced team of scientific and structural editors. For some articles, editing may be extensive. Authors will receive a galley proof of their edited article (by email) for checking and to respond to any queries raised during editing. No further major corrections are usually possible once the galley proof has been returned to us.
All MJA supplements are digital-only and circulated to the full MJA distribution list, which currently exceeds 24,000. All MJA supplements published online will be accessible to all MJA subscribers. Supplements are also distributed via the Wiley Online Library which records over 900,000 article downloads each year.
Acceptance/rejection
The MJA Editor-in-Chief has the final right to accept or reject the publication of all supplements and individual manuscripts within each supplement.
The sponsorship and commercial process
Advertising
- Names and logos of the sponsoring company/companies can be published on an allocated page of the supplement.
- No product-specific advertising can appear within a sponsored supplement.
- In the interests of transparency, associations or societies accepted as a supplement sponsor must publish in the supplement a web address where readers can access a list of the companies that are members of the association and/or a list of companies that fund or support the association.
Commercial activities
- The supplement agreement and all financial matters will be managed by the Head of Publishing Operations.
- A schedule will be created and a publishing date agreed to before any work is commenced on the supplement.
- A quote will be provided to the sponsor for acceptance before the agreement is drawn up.
Further information: Ben Dawe, Head of Publishing Operations supplements@mja.com.au