Copyright and Licensing Policy
The Herald of the National Children's Medical Center respects the intellectual property rights of authors and provides clear terms governing copyright, publication rights, licensing, and reuse of published scholarly content.
Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
This policy should be read together with the journal’s Open Access Policy and Repository Policy.
Copyright Ownership
Authors retain copyright in their articles, subject to any applicable rights lawfully held by an employer, institution, or other rights holder.
Submission and publication in the journal do not require authors to transfer copyright to the journal, journal owner, or publisher.
Where copyright is legally held by an entity other than the authors, the submitting author must ensure that the necessary authority for publication and open licensing has been obtained.
DOAJ recommends allowing authors to retain copyright without unnecessary restrictions and granting the publisher the rights necessary for publication rather than requiring transfer of copyright.
Rights Granted to the Journal
Upon acceptance and publication, authors grant the journal the non-exclusive right of first publication and the rights reasonably necessary to publish, reproduce, distribute, display, preserve, archive, index, register, and disseminate the article and its metadata.
These rights permit the journal to maintain the scholarly record and make the article available through its website, indexing services, repositories, preservation systems, metadata services, and other legitimate scholarly infrastructures.
The grant is non-exclusive and does not prevent authors from exercising the rights they retain under copyright law and the applicable open license.
Creative Commons License
Published articles are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Under CC BY 4.0, users may share and adapt the licensed material for any lawful purpose, including commercial purposes, provided that the applicable attribution requirements are satisfied.
The license applies worldwide and is intended to facilitate broad dissemination and reuse of scholarly work.
Conditions of Reuse
Reuse under CC BY 4.0 requires appropriate attribution.
Users should identify the author or authors, acknowledge the original publication, provide a reference or link to the applicable CC BY 4.0 license where reasonably practicable, and indicate whether changes were made.
Attribution must not imply that the authors, journal, owner, or publisher endorse a user, product, organization, adaptation, or particular use unless such endorsement has been expressly authorized.
No additional legal or technological restrictions may be imposed that prevent others from exercising rights granted by the license.
Authors’ Reuse Rights
Because authors retain copyright and articles are openly licensed, authors may reuse and disseminate their own published work in accordance with the CC BY 4.0 license and applicable law.
This may include use in future scholarly work, teaching materials, academic presentations, institutional repositories, personal academic profiles, theses or dissertations, and other lawful scholarly contexts.
The original journal publication should be appropriately acknowledged.
Detailed self-archiving arrangements are provided in the journal’s Repository Policy.
Third-Party Material
The CC BY 4.0 license applies to article content for which the relevant rights holder has authorized publication under that license.
Figures, photographs, illustrations, maps, questionnaires, scales, instruments, tables, substantial extracts, or other material owned by third parties may be subject to separate copyright or licensing terms.
Where third-party material is not covered by the article’s CC BY 4.0 license, this must be clearly indicated through an appropriate credit line, legend, copyright notice, or other statement.
DOAJ recognizes that third-party material may be excluded from an article’s open license, provided its rights and licensing status are clearly identified.
Permissions for Third-Party Material
Authors are responsible for determining whether permission is required for third-party material included in their manuscript and for obtaining any necessary permission before publication.
Permission must be sufficient for the intended form of publication and distribution.
Evidence of permission may be requested by the journal.
The journal may require removal, replacement, modification, or additional attribution where the legal status of third-party material is unclear.
Patient and Participant Material
Copyright permission does not replace ethical requirements relating to patients or research participants.
Clinical photographs, videos, case information, pedigrees, genetic information, or other potentially identifiable material must also comply with the journal’s requirements concerning Consent for Publication, Privacy and Confidentiality, and Research Ethics.
Possession of copyright in an image or dataset does not by itself authorize publication of identifiable patient information.
Research Data, Code, and Supplementary Material
The article license does not automatically determine the legal or ethical status of every underlying dataset, software package, code base, instrument, or third-party resource associated with a study.
Research data and supporting materials may be subject to separate licenses, consent limitations, privacy requirements, repository conditions, or third-party rights.
Their availability and reuse are governed by the journal’s Research Data Policy and any license or access conditions specifically attached to those materials.
Journal Website and Other Materials
The CC BY 4.0 license attached to scholarly articles does not automatically apply to every element of the journal website.
Unless otherwise stated, journal logos, trademarks, website design elements, administrative documents, proprietary graphics, and other materials not forming part of a CC BY 4.0 article may be subject to separate rights.
Copyright and licensing information for scholarly articles must therefore be distinguished from copyright applying to the journal website or other publisher materials, consistent with DOAJ guidance.
Corrections, Retractions, and Article Status
Copyright and licensing arrangements do not prevent the journal from correcting, retracting, or otherwise updating the status of a published article where necessary to protect the scholarly record.
Where an article is corrected, retracted, or subject to an Expression of Concern, the relevant notice and article status should remain clearly linked to the published record.
Such actions are governed by the journal’s Corrections, Retractions and Post-Publication Updates Policy.
Publication Agreement
As part of the publication process, the corresponding author, acting with the authorization of all co-authors, may be required to confirm that the authors have the necessary rights to publish the work and that third-party permissions have been obtained where required.
The publishing agreement should be consistent with this policy and must not contradict the CC BY 4.0 license or the journal’s Open Access Policy.
Copyright and License Notice
Published articles should clearly display copyright ownership and licensing information.
A recommended form is:
Copyright © [Year] The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
The license information should be presented consistently on the article landing page and, where technically possible, in the full-text HTML/PDF and article metadata.
The Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing call for copyright and licensing information to be clearly described on the journal website and indicated on published articles.
Policy Application
This policy applies to scholarly articles published by the journal under its current open-access publishing model.
The journal’s copyright, licensing, Open Access, repository, and article-level license information must remain clear, mutually consistent, and consistent with actual publishing practice.