The Ewha Medical Journal (EMJ) is an open access, peer-reviewed journal committed to adhering to the following policies to enhance and maintain its high standards.

• 1. Editorial policy
• 2. Peer review policy
• 3. Copyright & Open access policy
• 4. Article sharing policy
• 5. Archiving policy
• 6. Data sharing policy
• 7. Preprint policy
• 8. The process for handling cases requiring corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern
• 9. Crossmark policy
• 10. Advertising policy
• 11. Policies on the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in article writing and peer review

1. Editorial policy

It is available at https://www.e-emj.org/authors/authors.php

2. Peer review policy

Peer review process

• 1) Manuscripts to be reviewed: all submitted or invited manuscripts are peer-reviewed.
• 2) Who conducts peer review: Peer review is conducted by at least two external experts, most commonly three. Reviewers are selected from the list recommended by the corresponding author and the journal's reviewer pools. However, editorial board members may review commissioned manuscripts and editorial materials.
• 3) Type of peer review: EMJ adopts a single-blind peer review (from February 2025) where reviewer identity is concealed from the author, but both are visible to the decision-making editor. Reviewers interact only with an editor, ensuring an independent review.
• 4) Screening before peer review: If the manuscript does not align with the aims and scope of the journal or does not adhere to the “Instructions to authors”, it may be returned to the author immediately after receipt and without peer review. In the case of human population studies, the manuscript without an appropriate ethics statement is also returned to the authors without peer review.
• 5) Plagiarism check: Before review, all submitted or invited manuscripts are screened with Similarity Check powered by iThenticate (https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/), a plagiarism screening tool. If an excessively high similarity score is found, the editorial board will perform a more in-depth content screening. The criterion for similarity rate for further screening is usually 15%; however, an excess amount of similarity in specific sentences may also be checked in every manuscript. Notably, Similarity Check excludes quotes, bibliographies, small matches of 6 words or fewer, small sources of 1% or less, and the Methods section. If a certain amount of duplicate content is detected, it is returned to the authors. Detection of the phrases generated by generative artificial intelligence platforms is also done. The detection rate may be reflected in decision making.
• 6) Author-recommended reviewers: The authors should recommend peer reviewers during submission. The editorial office may select other external experts.
• 7) Review of research data or supplementary material: Those materials are subjected to peer review.
• 8) Duration for the first decision: The result of the first peer review is usually finished within 14 days. If there is no correspondence from the editorial office on the fate of the submitted manuscript one months after the submission, please contact the editorial office at https://www.e-emj.org/about/contact.php. The editorial board’s post-review decision will be one of the following: Accept, Minor revision, Major revision, or Rejection.
• 9) Revision process: The editorial board may request that the authors revise the manuscript according to the reviewers’ comments. If the reviewers made any requests for revision of the manuscript, the authors should do their best to revise it accordingly. If a reviewer’s opinion is not acceptable or is believed to reflect misinterpretation of the data, the authors should reasonably indicate this.
• After revising the manuscript, the author should upload the revised files with a reply to each item of the reviewer’s commentary. The author’s revisions should be completed within 14 days after the request. If the revisions have not been received by the due date, the editorial board will notify the author. To extend the revision period beyond 14 days, the author should negotiate with the editorial board at https://www.e-emj.org/about/contact.php. The manuscript review process can be provided for up to three rounds. If the authors would like further review, the editorial board may consider it. The editorial board will make a final decision on the approval of the submitted manuscript for publication and can request any further corrections, revisions, and deletions of the article text if necessary.
• 10) Review by statistician: It can be implemented when data needs professional statistical review by a statistician.
• 11) Final decision maker: An editorial board finally decides the manuscript's fate, such as accept, reject, and re-submission, after hearing from peer reviewers.
• 12) Review by the editorial board: The editorial board reviews some publication types, including editorials, errata, corrigenda, retractions, withdrawals, and letters to the editor, without external peer review. Also, they may review commissioned manuscripts.
• 13) The journal does not guarantee acceptance of initial manuscript submissions except for the commissioned ones.
• 14) The publication date is published with all published research, including submission and acceptance dates.
• 15) 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.

Submission of a revised manuscript

When preparing a revised version of your manuscript, carefully follow the instructions provided in the editor's letter. Submit an annotated copy that describes the changes you have made. Failure to do so may delay the decision on your revision. If references, tables, or figures are moved, added, or deleted during the revision process, renumber them to ensure all citations remain in numeric order.

Revised manuscript submissions should include a point-by-point response to reviewer comments. Authors should describe how each reviewer comment was addressed or explain why it was not addressed, and clearly indicate which paragraph in the manuscript was revised according to each comment. The response to reviewers will be shared with all reviewers. If certain data should not be included in the manuscript, authors may provide the data supporting their argument in the response to reviewers file.

The annotated copy should have changes highlighted (not by using the Track Changes function in MS Word but by marking them) with notes in the text referring to the editor or reviewer query.

Manuscript withdrawal

Corresponding authors who wish to withdraw a manuscript after submission must provide a signed letter indicating that they represent the wishes of all authors. Manuscripts will remain under consideration until the journal office receives this written request. Manuscripts cannot be withdrawn after final acceptance, except in cases of scientific error or misconduct.

Appeals of decisions

Appeals against editorial decisions must be made within 2 weeks of the decision letter. Authors should contact the editor-in-chief with detailed reasons for the appeal. Appeals are discussed with at least one associate editor and, if needed, at a full editorial meeting. The process follows COPE guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/appeals). EMJ does not consider second appeals.

Processing after acceptance

Once the manuscript is finally accepted, a proofread version will be sent to the corresponding author after professional editing. Authors should review the proof for any misspellings or errors. Delayed responses may result in the manuscript's publication being postponed to the next issue.

Galley proof

After corrections have been made, authors will receive the final version of the manuscript as a PDF file. Within 5 working days of receipt, authors must notify the editorial office (or printing office) of any errors found in the file. The proof may be revised more than once by the corresponding author, if needed. Authors should double-check the content, title, affiliations, capitalization, figure locations, and references for accuracy. Corresponding authors are responsible for any further corrections needed after printing.

Post-publication discussions

To correct errors in published articles, the corresponding author should contact the journal’s editorial office with a detailed description of the proposed correction. Errors can be corrected through an erratum (publisher's errors), corrigendum (author's errors), or retraction.

3. Copyright & Open access policy

Copyright and owner

Authors must declare that their work is original and that copyright is not breached. Copyright for all published material is owned by Ewha Womans University College of Medicine. Each author must sign the authorship responsibility and copyright transfer agreement, attesting to authorship criteria. The corresponding author submits the Copyright Transfer Form during submission. Authors must obtain and provide written permission for any previously published material. Submitted material will not be returned unless requested.

Open access license

EMJ is an open access journal. Articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Authors do not need permission to use tables or figures published in EMJ in other periodicals, books, or media for noncommercial purposes. For any commercial use of material from this open access journal, permission must be obtained from Ewha Womans University College of Medicine at https://www.e-emj.org/about/contact.php.

4. Article sharing policy

EMJ is an open access journal under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) where articles can be shared without embargo. Articles can be shared only as an accepted or published version, as described below.

Accepted version

The accepted version incorporates all amendments made during peer review but precedes the final published version.

The accepted version may be placed on:

• • The author's personal website
• • The author's company/institutional repository or archive
• • Non-profit repositories preprint servers or repositories
• • Directly provided to students or research collaborators for personal use

It is recommended that the authors include a note and DOI link on the first page.

Published version

The final published version can be shared immediately upon publication under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, permitting unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

5. Archiving policy

In accordance with the Korean Library Act, the full text of EMJ is archived in the National Library of Korea (NLK; https://www.nl.go.kr/archive/search_eng.do?op=all&kwd=2234-2591). EMJ ensures electronic backup and preservation of journal content through archiving in the NLK. This allows for permanent preservation of EMJ papers and ensures access in the event the journal ceases publication.

6. Data sharing policy

EMJ encourages data sharing wherever possible to promote openness, transparency, and reproducibility of research. Subject to ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• • Upload research data during the submission process; otherwise, share research data in a relevant public data repository with DOI for the data location.
• • Include a data availability statement linking to the data. If it is not possible to share the data, use the statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.

EMJ accepts the ICMJE Recommendations for clinical data sharing statement policy (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/). Authors may refer to the editorial, “Data Sharing Statements for Clinical Trials: A Requirement of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors,” in J Korean Med Sci 2017;32:1051-3 (https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2017.32.7.1051).

7. Preprint policy

EMJ accepts submissions of papers posted on preprint servers. Authors should disclose the preprint's digital object identifier (DOI) in the cover letter or title page during submission. Authors should not post an updated version of the paper to a preprint server during the peer review process. If accepted, update the preprint with a link to the published article in EMJ, including the DOI. Authors are strongly recommended to cite the published article in EMJ rather than the preprint in future journal submissions.

8. The process for handling cases requiring corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern

EMJ follows the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) and the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/guidance) for this process, if not described as below:

EMJ aims to ensure the integrity of the academic record of all published or potential publications. Whenever it is recognized that a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement, or distorted report has been published, it must be corrected promptly and with due prominence. If, after an appropriate investigation, an item proves to be fraudulent, it should be retracted. The retraction should be clearly identifiable to readers and indexing systems.

Correction

Errors in published papers may be identified in the form of a corrigendum or erratum when the Editor-in-Chief considers it appropriate to inform the journal readership about a previous error and makes a correction to the error in the published article. The corrigendum or erratum will appear as a new article in the journal and will cite the original published article.

Retractions

An article may be retracted when the sincerity of the published work is undermined due to the errors in the conduct, analysis and/or reporting of the study. Violation of publication or research ethics may also result in a study’s retraction. The original article is marked as retracted, but a PDF version remains available to readers, and the retraction statement is bi-directionally linked to the original published paper. Retraction statements will typically include a statement of assent or dissent from the authors.

Editorial expression of concern

Where a certain amount of doubt arises as to the honesty or integrity of a submitted or published article, journal editors may issue an expression of concern. However, it should only be issued if an investigation into the problems relating to the article has proven inconclusivef, and if there are strong indicators that the concerns are valid.

9. Crossmark policy

Crossmark is an initiative to provide a standard way for readers to locate the current version of a piece of content. By applying the Crossmark button, EMJ is committing to maintaining the content it publishes, and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur. Clicking on the Crossmark button will tell readers the current status of a document, and may also give readers additional publication record information about the document (https://www.crossref.org/documentation/crossmark/crossmark-policy-page/).

10. Advertising policy

EMJ does not accept any commercial product advertisements until policy changes otherwise.

11. Policies on the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in article writing and peer review

It generally follows the editorial, Huh S. Editorial policies of Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions on the use of generative artificial intelligence in article writing and peer review. J Educ Eval Health Prof. 2023;20.40. doi: 10.3352/jeehp.2023.20.40.

Generative AI as an author

All organizations forbid generative AI from being listed as an author. The Ewha Medical Journal also does not allow the authorship of generative AI.

Authors’ disclosure of the use of AI tools

The disclosure of AI use to peer reviewers and editors is optional, not mandatory. Plagiarism checking for AI-generated text is the editor’s responsibility.

Asking authors to verify the use of AI tools

Asking authors to verify the use of AI tools is not required. If the authors want to verify it, they can do so at their discretion. The decision depends on the author’s choice. Statistical analysis can now be performed by generative AI platforms. In such cases, authors can incorporate generative AI for statistical programs instead of relying solely on well-known statistical packages. It would be natural to cite generative AIs in this case.

Journal’s explicit policy about the use of AI-generated text and images

If AI tools are thought to be statistical tools or writing tools, it is not required for a journal to disclose explicit policy about the use of AI-generated text and images. The editors can select items on the policy and modify them accordingly. Therefore, this policy can be optional for editors. However, the Ewha Medical Journal has announced its policies about the use of AI-generated text and images in this editorial.

Author’s accountability (responsibility)

The author’s accountability is always emphasized in all writing, not only AI-generated writing. All content of the manuscripts or published articles should be under the author’s responsibility.

Editors’ and reviewers’ specification of the use of chatbots in review and correspondence

As authors’ disclosure of the use of generative AI is optional, editors and reviewers do not need to specify this information.

Reviewers uploading manuscripts to AI tools where confidentiality is not assured

If uploaded manuscripts are not secure, they should not be uploaded for peer review. The problem is that if reviewers upload a manuscript to an AI platform, there is no way for editors to detect it. Therefore, it depends on the reviewer’s choice whether they adhere to this recommendation or not. Furthermore, it is uncertain which generative AIs use uploaded manuscripts for their pre-training for performance improvement. If there is a lucid statement that a platform does not use uploaded data for pre-training, uploading a manuscript for peer review will be no problem.

Availability and use of a tool to check for AI-generated text

There are many tools for this purpose. The editorial office has already used some of them.

Use of generative AIs to enhance linguistic quality

This is unnecessary to mention because it is already routine work for authors.

Research on generative AI

A clear statement regarding AI use for research on AI is natural. It should be mentioned in the Methods section.

AI-generated text or output as a supplement and citing AI-generated text in the main text

The data generated by AI cannot be reproduced because generative AI systems evolve rapidly, so the answers vary over time. Therefore, using AI-generated data, the answers can be presented as supplemental materials. It is not meaningful to cite AI-generated text or images in the References section because they are not reproducible with the same prompt. To cite AI-generated texts, the texts should be added as a supplement.

Generative AI listed in the Acknowledgments section

The Ewha Medical Journal acknowledge generative AI as a research tool. As with authorship, we do not allow authors to list generative AI platforms in the Acknowledgment section.