What are the authors' responsibilities during copyediting (Step 2)?

Authors have the opportunity to review their copyedited manuscript during Step 2 of the copyediting process. To access the Copyediting section (and copyedited manuscript), you can simply click on the URL provided to you in the Step 2 notification email. Alternatively, you can follow these steps: 

1. Log into your JMIR account.

2. Select your Role as "Author" (green color icon)

3. Under the Active tab, click on the title of your article.

4. Click on the Editing tab as shown below:

5. Below the Submission details, you will see the Copyediting section. At this point, you will need to complete the 5 substeps (2a-2e; see image below) to move the article forward in the copyediting process. 

Detailed step-by-step instructions for completing Step 2 of Copyediting are as follows:

1. Step 2a - MANUSCRIPT: Review the copyedited manuscript and respond to the copyeditor’s queries

• Log into the journal website http://www.jmir.org/author/submissionEditing/{$articleId} 
• Download and open the "Initial Copyedit File".
• Turn on the "track changes" function in Microsoft Word before making changes and responding to queries. See how to navigate Track Changes and add/respond to Comments in Word. If you wish to view the manuscript without any track changes, change the view to Simple Markup for easy readability. 
• Please do not accept or reject tracked changes made by the copyeditor. The copyeditor edits manuscripts in keeping with the AMA Style (11th edition) and our JMIR House Style and Editorial Guidelines. Do not revert any style-related edits made by the copyeditor. Instead of rejecting tracked changes, add a comment if you disagree with any edits. If you agree, you do not have to comment. See also How do I respond to copyeditors' queries? (copyediting step 2a).
• Please note that edits made to adhere to journal style will not be reverted even if requested by the authors, as these are implemented to adhere to certain publication standards.   
• As we use American English spelling, the copyeditor will also correct the language and spelling accordingly, so do not revert any such changes made by the copyeditor.
• See also How do I respond to copyeditors' queries?

2. Step 2b - REFERENCES: Review and correct the references using our web-based interface (RefCheck)

• In Step 1 of copyediting, the copyeditor will remove the references from the manuscript and import them into RefCheck. In Step 2 of copyediting, the author will be able to see all the imported references in RefCheck only.
• Please review the references in RefCheck (click the link "Check references"). Note that this RefCheck form is optimized for Firefox/Safari and may not work properly in Internet Explorer.
• All instructions for the authors are provided at the top of the RefCheck webpage. Importantly, authors only need to confirm and save the references that appear with a red dash in the right corner. A red dash indicates that a mandatory field is missing/incomplete and requires fixing by the author in Step 2 of copyediting.
• Check each field for each reference carefully, as some fields may not have been parsed correctly. Fields marked with an asterisks (*) are required. Note that the correct reference elements are required for XML tagging and depositing in PubMed Central.
• Always use the PMID/DOI/ISBN lookup function when the reference has one of these elements. Most fields will auto-populate/overwrite incorrect information in existing fields if the information is available on Medline, ISBN, Crossref databases (PMID works much better than DOIs, as publishers sometimes do not submit complete metadata for the DOI).
• We recommend that you save all references after checking and making the appropriate changes, but this is optional. When this has been done correctly, a green checkmark will appear by each reference. 
• Please address any editorial comments left by your copyeditor in RefCheck, when applicable.
• We strongly recommend against adding or deleting references at this stage. You may replace a reference if needed. We also cannot change the order of the references at this stage. If you absolutely need to add/delete a reference, please ask your copyeditor to do so for you; see What is the RefCheck process for authors? (copyediting step 2b). If you require any assistance with this, please email your copyeditor or our internal Copyediting team at copyed-support@jmir.org. 

3. Step 2c - METADATA: Review the metadata

• The author information from the metadata form is used to generate the table of contents as well as the author index. It is therefore essential that this information is correct, complete, and consistent with your final processed manuscript.
• Review all author information such as names, first initials, degrees, affiliations, etc, in the web-based metadata form. 
• You can login to your JMIR account and access your metadata here: http://www.jmir.org/author/viewMetadata/{$articleId}, where {$articleId} is your article number. You can also see the PDF attached to the Step 2 request email sent to you by your copyeditor OR use this URL for a preview of your metadata (this preview should reflect the changes you make in real-time): http://www.jmir.org/front/pdf/{$articleId}/1. Circulate the PDF with your co-authors so they can check their information as well (as only the submitter user will be able to access the link). Use the PDF preview to view how the author information will render in the final publication.
• Make sure that all your co-authors, including their middle names (eg, "Smith AJ" instead of "Smith A") and affiliations are correctly entered. Only changes saved in the metadata form will be reflected in the final publication.
• If co-authors are missing, please click ADD AUTHOR to add them.
• Make sure that the order of authors in the metadata reflects the order that should be displayed in the final manuscript.
• Do not use short forms or acronyms; for example, an affiliation like "Nursing" should be changed into "Department of Nursing", and acronyms like "UHN" should be resolved (eg, "University Health Network").
• Affiliations are usually in title case (which means that all words except minor words like "of" or "on" are capitalized). Do not enter information in ALL CAPS or all lower case (department of nursing). Do not abbreviate "Dep" or "Dept", with or without periods.
• If authors have multiple affiliations, ALL affiliations must be entered. Note that author degrees can be arranged from lowest (earliest obtained) to highest. Use the arrow up/down buttons in the metadata form to rearrange them (degrees at the top appear first).
• City names, if from US or Canada, should be followed by the State/Province abbreviation (eg, "Bethesda, MD" or "Toronto, ON")
• A footnote "these authors contributed equally" will be rendered for any two or more authors where the "equal contribution" dropdown selection is set to "yes". This can be used to indicate if, for example, the first two authors or the first and last author contributed "equally" (it is at the discretion of authors to determine what this means). If all authors are checked, a footnote "All authors contributed equally" will be rendered. However, rather than (or in addition to) using these footnotes, we encourage a section "Authors' Contributions" in the manuscript, which specifies the exact contributions in a narrative form.

4. Step 2d - FIGURES AND APPENDICES: Review the Figures and Multimedia Appendices intended for publication including their captions

• Under the "SUPPLEMENTARY AND FIGURE/APPENDIX FILES" section, make sure that all Figures and Multimedia Appendices intended for publishing are numbered.
• Make sure that all Figures and Multimedia Appendices intended for publishing are cited in the manuscript (neither the copyeditor nor the typesetter knows which files were intended for publication unless this is done).
• Click on EDIT to edit the caption of the Figure or Multimedia Appendix. Do not include "Figure #" or "Multimedia Appendix #" in the caption; these will be autogenerated, preceding the actual caption in the final publication.
• Please make sure that you have uploaded all figures in PNG format. Please ensure the largest side is 1200 pixels.
• See What are the guidelines for supplementary files (figures, multimedia appendices, additional material for reviewers/editors only)?

5. Step 2e - COPYEDITING SURVEY: Complete a quick survey to provide us with feedback on your copyediting experience

• Ensure that you rate the copyeditor's work and copyediting process alone. Please save your comments on the usability of the system/website feedback for the post-publication survey. 
• You will be asked just two questions in this survey: Question 1 inquires about the overall quality of the copyediting (1-10 scale, best value is 10), and Question 2 inquires about the extent of copyediting applied (-3 to +3; best value is 0, -3 indicates too little copyediting, +3 indicates too heavy copyediting). The level of copyediting should be judged by excluding the changes made to apply journal style, as these are unavoidable. 
• We encourage authors to provide feedback in the form of comments on the survey, so that we can improve our authors' publishing experience in the future.   

 6. MARK STEP 2 COMPLETE

• Once you complete the copyediting survey, the final button "complete copyediting step 2 and notify copyeditor" will become active. 
• Click on this button to complete step 2 and send your revisions to the copyeditor for Step 3 of copyediting (the final step). The copyeditor will not be able to see the uploaded manuscript nor continue with copyediting until the author has marked Step 2 as completed.

Related:

• Step 2(a) How do I respond to copyeditors' queries?
• Step 2(b) What is the RefCheck process?
• Step 2(c) How do I edit/correct/enter article metadata before publication?
• Step 2(d) What are the guidelines for supplementary files?