Open access policy
The Herald of the National Children's Medical Center is an open access scholarly journal.
All scholarly articles published by the journal are made available online immediately upon publication, free of charge, and without an embargo period.
Readers may access the full text of published articles without a subscription, access fee, or mandatory registration.
Immediate Open Access
The journal provides immediate open access to its published scholarly content.
Published articles are freely and permanently accessible through the journal’s official website from the date of publication.
The journal does not apply an embargo period to published scholarly articles.
Open Licensing
Published articles are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.
The applicable license defines the conditions under which readers and other users may copy, distribute, share, reproduce, adapt, or otherwise reuse published material.
The specific license, copyright ownership, author rights, and conditions of reuse are set out in the journal’s Copyright and Licensing Policy and should be clearly identified in the published article.
The journal does not impose additional restrictions that contradict the terms of the applicable open license.
Copyright and Author Rights
Open access does not remove copyright protection or the authors’ right to receive appropriate attribution for their work.
Copyright ownership, rights retained by authors, rights granted to the journal or publisher, and permitted forms of reuse are governed by the journal’s Copyright and Licensing Policy.
Copyright and licensing terms must remain consistent with the journal’s open access model.
Rights of Readers and Users
Subject to the applicable open license and relevant law, users may access and reuse published scholarly content for lawful purposes.
Reuse must comply with the conditions of the applicable license, including appropriate attribution to the authors and identification of the original publication where required.
Third-Party Material
Material included in an article but owned by a third party may not necessarily be covered by the article’s open license.
Where figures, photographs, illustrations, instruments, maps, tables, or other third-party materials are subject to separate copyright or licensing restrictions, their status should be clearly identified.
Authors are responsible for obtaining any permissions required for publication.
Reuse of third-party material excluded from the article’s open license may require separate permission from the relevant rights holder.
Patient and Participant Information
Open access does not override obligations relating to patient privacy, confidentiality, informed consent, or protection of research participants.
Particular care is required for identifiable clinical information, clinical images, genetic or genomic information, rare-disease information, and data concerning children or other vulnerable participants.
Such material may be published only when the applicable ethical, consent, privacy, and confidentiality requirements have been satisfied.
Detailed requirements are provided in the journal’s Research Ethics Policy.
Open Access and Research Data
Open access to a published article does not automatically require unrestricted public access to the underlying research data.
Research data may require controlled or restricted access because of participant consent, confidentiality, pediatric safeguards, risk of re-identification, ethical requirements, applicable law, or legitimate third-party restrictions.
Research-data availability and sharing are governed by the journal’s Research Data Policy.
Repository Deposit and Self-Archiving
The journal supports responsible dissemination of published research through appropriate institutional, disciplinary, or other scholarly repositories.
The versions that authors may deposit and the applicable conditions for self-archiving are defined in the journal’s Repository Policy.
Long-Term Accessibility
Open access should be supported by appropriate arrangements for preservation of the scholarly record.
The journal’s mechanisms for electronic backup, digital archiving, and long-term preservation of published content and metadata are described in the Digital Archiving and Preservation Policy.
Post-Publication Notices
Corrections, retraction notices, Expressions of Concern, and other notices concerning the status of published articles should remain publicly accessible.
Retraction or correction does not normally mean silently removing the scholarly record.
Post-publication changes are managed in accordance with the journal’s Corrections, Retractions and Post-Publication Updates Policy.
Editorial Independence
The journal’s open access model does not affect the scientific assessment of manuscripts.
Editorial decisions are based on scientific quality, methodological soundness, originality, relevance to the journal’s scope, research and publication ethics, reporting quality, and the results of independent peer review.
Financial, institutional, commercial, or other non-scientific considerations must not determine the acceptance or rejection of an individual manuscript.
Transparency
Information concerning open access, copyright, licensing, and reuse rights is made publicly available on the journal website.
Where the journal website is available in several languages, the substantive meaning of the open access terms should remain consistent across language versions.
Policy Application
This policy applies to scholarly articles published by the journal and should be read together with the journal’s:
- Copyright and Licensing Policy;
- Repository Policy;
- Research Data Policy;
- Digital Archiving and Preservation Policy;
- Research Ethics Policy;
- Corrections, Retractions and Post-Publication Updates Policy.
The journal aims to ensure that its published scholarly content is immediately and freely accessible, transparently licensed, responsibly reusable, and available to the widest possible scientific and professional audience, while protecting authors’ rights, research integrity, patient privacy, and participant confidentiality.