Principles of transparency and best practice of scholarly publishing 4th version in Annals of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism

Sixteen check list of compliance of the journal to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing published September 15, 2022 (joint statement by Committee on Publication Ethics [COPE, https://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf], Directory of Open Access Journals [DOAJ, https://doaj.org/apply/transparency], the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association [OASPA, https://www.oaspa.org/resources/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing/], and the World Association of Medical Editors [WAME; https://www.wame.org/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing]) was as follows:

JOURNAL CONTENT	JOURNAL PRACTICES	ORGANISATION	BUSINESS PRACTICES
1. Name of journal 2. Website 3. Journal schedule 4. Archiving 5. Copyright 6. Licensing	7. Publication ethics and related editorial policies 8. Peer review 9. Access	10. Ownership and Management 11. Advisory body 12. Editorial team and contact information	13. Author fees 14. Other revenue 15. Advertising 16. Direct marketing

JOURNAL CONTENT

1. Name of journal

The Annals of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism Journal is the official publication of the Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology. Its formal abbreviated title is “Ann Pediatr Endocrinol Metab”. It is a peer-reviewed open access journal of medicine published in English. The journal was launched in 1996 under the title of ‘Journal of Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology’ until 2011 (pISSN 1226-2242). Since 2012, the title is now changed to ‘Annals of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism’.

2. Website

i) The URL address of official journal web site
https://e-apem.org/

ii) ‘Aims & Scope’ statement (https://e-apem.org/about/index.php)
The aims of Annals of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism are to contribute to the advancements in the fields of pediatric endocrinology & metabolism through the scientific reviews and interchange of all of pediatric endocrinology and metabolism. It aims to reflect the latest clinical, translational, and basic research trends from worldwide valuable achievements. In addition, genome research, epidemiology, public education and clinical practice guidelines in each country are welcomed for publication. The Journal particularly focuses on research conducted with Asian-Pacific children whose genetic and environmental backgrounds are different from those of the Western.
Area of specific interest include the following :
Growth, puberty, glucose metabolism including diabetes mellitus, obesity, nutrition, disorders of sexual development, pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal cortex, bone or other endocrine and metabolic disorders from infancy through adolescence

iii) Readership

• • It is primarily for pediatricians who seek tailored information they are able to adopt in their research and practice, but its readership can be expanded to other positions;
• • Researchers have access to recent clinical pediatric endocrinology and metabolism research topics and detailed research methods;
• • Clinicians in the field have access to new information and recent pediatric care developments for their patients;
• • Medical teachers are able to access and adopt a variety of medical education data;
• • Allied health professionals, including nurses, have access to recent information concerning the care of children with endocrine and metabolic diseases;
• • Medical health students can learn about recent trends in the field and read about interesting cases;
• • Policymakers are able to reflect on the article results and apply them in nationwide healthcare policies for children with endocrine and metabolic diseases;
• • The public, especially families with children who have endocrine and metabolic diseases, are able to read about the advancements in their children’s diseases, increasing their knowledge and inspiring confidence in the pediatricians’ devotion to their children.

iv) Authorship criteria
Authorship credit should be based on: (1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be published; and (4) agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Authors should meet these 4 conditions. If the number of authors is greater than 6, there should be a list of each author's role in the submitted paper. If any persons who do not meet the above four criteria, they may be placed as contributors in the Acknowledgments section. Description of co-first authors or co-corresponding authors is also accepted if the corresponding author believes that such roles existed in contributing to the manuscript.

v) Duplicate submission and redundant publication
All submitted manuscripts should be original and should not be in consideration by other scientific journals for publication. Any part of the accepted manuscript should not be duplicated in any other scientific journal without the permission of the Editorial Board, although the figures and tables can be used freely if the original source is verified according to Creative Commons license. It is mandatory for all authors to resolve any copyright issues when citing a figure or table from other journal that is not open access.

vi) ISSN
pISSN 1226-2242, eISSN 2287-1292

3. Journal schedule

Annals of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism is published 6 times a year (on the last day of February, April, June, August, October, and December). Supplements can be published when they are required.

4. Archiving

It is accessible without barrier from PubMed Central (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/2434/) Korea Citation Index (https://kci.go.kr), or National Library of Korea (http://nl.go.kr) in the event a journal is no longer published.

5. Copyright

All published papers become the permanent property of Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology. Copyrights of all published materials are owned by Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology. Permission must be obtained from Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology for any commercial use of materials. Every author should sign the copyright transfer agreement forms.

6. Licensing

This is an open-access journal distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited for noncommercial purpose (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/").

JOURNAL PRACTICES

7. Publication ethics and related editorial policies

i) Journal policies on authorship and contributorship
Authorship credit should be based on: 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) final approval of the version to be published; and 4) agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Authors should meet these 4 conditions. If the number of authors is greater than 6, there should be a list of each author's role in the submitted paper. If any persons who do not meet the above four criteria, they may be placed as contributors in the Acknowledgments section. Description of co-first authors or co-corresponding authors is also accepted if the corresponding author believes that such roles existed in contributing to the manuscript.

ii) Originality and duplicate publication
All submitted manuscripts should be original and should not be in consideration by other scientific journals for publication. Any part of the accepted manuscript should not be duplicated in any other scientific journal without the permission of the Editorial Board, although the figures and tables can be used freely if the original source is verified according to Creative Commons license. It is mandatory for all authors to resolve any copyright issues when citing a figure or table from other journal that is not open access.

iii) Secondary publication
It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the condition of secondary publication of the ICMJE Recommendations, available from https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/. These are:

• • The authors have received approval from the editors of both journals (the editor concerned with the secondary publication must have access to the primary version).
• • The priority for the primary publication is respected by a publication interval negotiated by editors of both journals and the authors.
• • The paper for secondary publication is intended for a different group of readers; an abbreviated version could be sufficient.
• • The secondary version faithfully reflects the data and interpretations of the primary version.
• • The secondary version informs readers, peers, and documenting agencies that the paper has been published in whole or in part elsewhere—for example, with a note that might read, "This article is based on a study first reported in the [journal title, with full reference]"—and the secondary version cites the primary reference.
• • The title of the secondary publication should indicate that it is a secondary publication (complete or abridged republication or translation) of a primary publication. Of note, the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) does not consider translations to be "republications" and does not cite or index them when the original article was published in a journal that is indexed in MEDLINE.

iv) How the journal will handle complaints and appeals
When the Journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as a redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, an ethical problem discovered with the submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and other issues, the resolving process will follow the flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The Editorial Board of APEM will discuss the suspected cases and reach a decision. APEM will not hesitate to publish errata, corrigenda, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.

v) Journal policies on conflicts of interest/competing interests
Conflict of interest exists when an author or the author’s institution, reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence or bias his or her actions. Such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties. These relationships vary from being negligible to having great a potential for influencing judgment. Not all relationships represent true conflict of interest. On the other hand, the potential for conflict of interest can exist regardless of whether an individual believes that the relationship affects his or her scientific judgment. Financial relationships such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, and paid expert testimony are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, or of the science itself. Conflicts can occur for other reasons as well, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion (http://www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest/). Authors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest in the manuscript, including those that may have arisen during the research process. Clear disclosure enables editors, reviewers, and readers to understand the context in which the work was conducted and evaluated. If any of the authors are serving as editors of Annals of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism, this should be explicitly stated in the manuscript (e.g., “Name has served as an editor since 20XX but was not involved in the review or decision process for this article. No other relevant conflicts were reported.”).

vi) Journal policies on open data sharing and reproducibility
For clarification on result accuracy and reproducibility of the results, raw data or analysis data will be deposited to a public repository, for example, Harvard Dataverse (https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/) after acceptance of the manuscript. Therefore, submission of the raw data or analysis data is mandatory. If the data is already a public one, its URL site or sources should be disclosed. If data cannot be publicized, it can be negotiated with the editor. If there are any inquiries on depositing data, authors should contact the editorial office.

vii) Journal's policy on ethical oversight
When the Journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as a redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, an ethical problem discovered with the submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and other issues, the resolving process will follow the flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The Editorial Board will discuss the suspected cases and reach a decision. We will not hesitate to publish errata, corrigenda, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.

viii) Journal's policy on intellectual property
All published papers become the permanent property of the Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology. Copyrights of all published materials are owned by the Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology.

xi) Journal's options for postpublication discussions and corrections
The postpublication discussion is available through letter to the editor. If any readers have a concern on any articles published, they can submit letter to the editor on the articles. If there founds any errors or mistakes in the article, it can be corrected through errata, corrigenda, or retraction.

8. Peer review

APEM reviews all submissions following the general scheme in Fig. 1.

• • Plagiarism Check: Before peer review, all submissions undergo a Similarity Check with iThenticate. Manuscripts with a similarity rate exceeding 40% will be rejected immediately, while those above 15% may require further screening
• • Review Systems: APEM follows a double-blind review process, where both authors and reviewers remain anonymous. Editors select reviewers based on editorial board recommendations or the specialist database. Authors must remove identifying information to ensure impartial evaluation
• • Ethical Considerations for Reviewers: Reviewers must disclose conflicts of interest, maintain confidentiality, and provide impartial, professional, and constructive evaluations
• • Review of in-house manuscripts: All manuscripts from editors, staff, or editorial board members are subject to the same review process as other submissions. During the review process, they will not be involved in the selection of reviewers or the decision-making process. Editors will not handle their manuscripts even if they have been commissioned.

Fig. 1. Flow chart of the peer review and publication process of Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions.

Accepted: The manuscript will be forwarded to the publisher without further corrections
Minor revision: The author should address the comments from the reviewers, which will be confirmed by the reviewers before being sent to the publisher.
Major revision: The author should address the comments from the reviewers and make the appropriate corrections for review by the reviewers.
Rejection: When one out of the three reviewers rejects the manuscript, the final decision is made by the editorial committee.
Consultation: Review of the manuscript will be done through consultation to subcommittees and subspecialties.

9. Access

This is an open-access journal distributed under the term of the Creative Common Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creative-commons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. A free full-text service, both in XML and PDF formats, is available immediately upon publication without an embargo period.

ORGANISATION

10. Ownership and Management

i) Information about the ownership
This journal is owned by the publisher, Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology (http://www.kspendo.or.kr)

ii) Management team of a journal

• -Journal Manager
• Jung Sub Lim    Editor-in-Chief, Korean Cancer Center Hospital, Seoul, Korea
• -Manager of the Review Process
• Ji-Young Seo    Associate Editor, Eulji University, Seoul, Korea
• -Manuscript Editor
• Hwan Tae Ahn    JTS, Korea
• -Website and JATS XML File Producers
• Yoon-Sang Cho    M2PI, Korea

11. Advisory body

The advisory body is the journal's editorial board. The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors are displayed on the About (Editorial Board: https://e-apem.org/about/editorial.php) tab of the journal website.

12. Editorial team and contact information

i) Editorial team
Editorial Board’s website is https://e-apem.org/about/editorial.php.
All of the members are responsible to improve the scientific quality of the journal and to implement editorial policy approved by the editorial board.

ii) Contact information
Publisher Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology
501-107, 30 Seocho-daero 74-gil, Seocho-gu, Seoul 06622, Republic of Korea
Tel: +82-2-3471-4268 Fax: +82-2-3471-4269 E-mail: editor@e-apem.org

Editorial Office
501-107, 30 Seocho-daero 74-gil, Seocho-gu, Seoul 06622, Republic of Korea
Tel: +82-2-3471-4268 Fax: +82-2-3471-4269 E-mail: apem@gmail.com

BUSINESS PRACTICES

13. Author fees

There is no article processing charge (APC). A minimum of 100 off prints will be delivered after payment. Reprints are available at any time after publication; however, reprints ordered after publication may be subject to increases in price. The corresponding author will be requested to pay a page charge and color photographs require an additional fee

14. Other revenue

Revenue sources of journal were from the support of publisher (the Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology), Korea Government’s support, author fee for print copies.

15. Advertising

Annals of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism does not accept any commercial product advertisements until policy changes otherwise.

16. Direct marketing

Journal propagation has been done through the journal web site and distribution of an eTOC. Invitations to submit a manuscript are usually focused on the presenters at conferences, seminars, or workshops if the topic is related to the journal's aims and scope.