The Publication Form (also called "license to publish") can be found here.
Yes - all author signatures are needed on the Publication Form.
- The corresponding author should sign the Publication Agreement (section 1)
- All authors should sign the Letter of Responsibility (section 2)
- All authors should sign the Disclosure of Funding and Competing Interests section (section 3)
Authors can sign electronically using digital signing tools like Dropbox Sign (formerly Hellosign). This may be especially helpful if authors are at different institutions or geographically separated. Please note, we do not allow simple digital signatures or typed names. If author submit License forms with simple digital signatures that do not have the appropriate time stamp or auditable information, a replacement license form will be requested.
There is no need to have all of the signatures on one form - we accept different pages each signed by a different author. We do request that each form is then combined into one PDF file, if possible. This will save time when uploading the form to the submission system, and when the form is reviewed by the editorial and production teams.
If there are more authors than will fit on the form, please add additional sheets.
As soon as possible after acceptance of your paper, please upload the completed form signed by all authors to your online account as supplementary file (choose the "License to Publish" category).
If an author refuses to sign or is non-responsive over an extended period of time then it may be that this author does not meet all authorship criteria (see Who should be listed as author and sign the publication form? (authorship criteria)). The only exception is if an author is deceased. To drop an author at this stage for refusal to sign is uncommon, but if it is required, please read How to change (add/drop) authors after peer-review but before publication.
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