Principles of Transparency and Best Practice of Scholarly Publishing 4th Version in Urogenital Tract Infection

Posted in October 1, 2024

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

Urogenital Tract Infection (UTI) is the official publication of The Korean Association of Urogenital Tract Infection and Inflammation, The Korean Continence Society, The Han-nam Urological Association, and The Korean Society of Geriatric Urological Care. Its formal abbreviated title is “Urogenit Tract Infect.”

2. Website

i) Aims & Scope

Aims: Urogenital Tract Infection aims to free humanity suffering from urological infections and inflammations from the agony of diseases.
Scope: It publishes practical, timely, and relevant clinical and basic science research articles addressing any aspect of urologic infections and inflammations, including follows: urinary tract infection: sexually transmitted infection; epidemiology, etiology, and pathogenesis; and the detection, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of urologic infectious diseases.
Regional scope: Its regional scope is mainly Korea, but it welcomes submissions from all over the world. Its readership includes urologists, oncologists, radiologists, pediatrician, nephrologist and clinicians treating patients and to those involved in research on diseases of urogenital tract infection. The types of manuscripts include original articles, reviews, case reports, editorials, letters.

ii) Readership

UTI is primarily for clinicians and researchers who seek tailored information to adopt in their research and practice, but its readership can be expanded to other roles: researchers can obtain knowledge on recent topics of clinical research in urogenital tract infection field and detailed research methods; clinicians in the field can receive new information and learn about recent developments in patient care; medical educators can access and adopt a variety of data for medical education; allied health professionals, including nurses, can obtain recent information for patient care in urogenital tract infection field; medical students can understand the recent trends in the field and learn about interesting cases for their work; policymakers can reflect the results of the articles in nationwide health care policies for patients with urogenital tract infection; the public, especially family members of patients with urogenital tract infection, can learn about advances in the diseases affecting their family member in order to obtain better knowledge about the diseases and enhance their confidence in clinicians’ devotion to their family member’s care.

iii) Types of manuscripts

The types of manuscripts include original articles, reviews, case reports, editorials, letters.

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) ISSN

pISSN 2465-8243, eISSN 2465-8510

3. Publishing schedule

UTI is published 3 times a year (on the last day of April, August, and December).

4. Archiving

It is accessible without barrier from Korea Citation Index (https://kci.go.kr) or National Library of Korea (https://www.nl.go.kr/archive/search_eng.do) in the event a journal is no longer published.

5. Copyright

All published papers become the permanent property of The Korean Association of Urogenital Tract Infection and Inflammation. Copyrights of all published materials are owned by The Korean Association of Urogenital Tract Infection and inflammation. Permission must be obtained from The Korean Association of Urogenital Tract Infection and Inflammation for any commercial use of materials. Every author should sign and submit the copyright transfer agreement forms.

6. Licensing

UTI is an open access journal. All articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"). All contents of the journal are available immediately upon publication without embargo period.

Deposit policy: Authors can archive publisher's version/PDF.

JOURNAL PRACTICES

7. Publication ethics and related editorial policies

i) Authorship and contributorship

Authors are required to clearly state their contributions to a manuscript in the cover letter. To be listed as an author, one should have contributed substantially to all four categories established by the ICMJE: (1) conception and design, or acquisition, 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) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Each author should be accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done. In addition, each author should be able to identify which coauthors are responsible for specific other parts of the work and should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of any coauthors. All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors.
When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and identify all individual authors as well as the group name. Journals generally list other members of the group in the Acknowledgments. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship. Authors are responsible for replying to all questions asked by reviewers or editors that relate to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work. All persons who have made a substantial contribution, but who are not eligible to be considered authors, should be named in the acknowledgments. Authors are expected to consider carefully the way authors should be listed and ordered before submitting their manuscript, and to provide a definitive list of authors with their original submission. Any addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made before the manuscript has been accepted— and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (1) the reason for requesting a change in the list of authors; and (2) written confirmation (by email or letter) from all authors saying that they agree with the addition, removal, or rearrangement.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) including language models, chatbots, image creators, machine learning, or similar technologies do not qualify for authorship. The technologies listed above may be used in enhancing readability and language accuracy in scientific writing. The responsibility for the manuscript's integrity ultimately rests with the human authors, and the authors employing generative AI tools in manuscript preparation are required to disclose their use in the Acknowledgments section. Such disclosure should detail the specific tools used, including the model name, version, and manufacturer, and explain the capacity in which they were employed. Should the use of AI extend beyond language enhancement, the methods and tools used must be detailed in the Materials and methods section as a formal part of the research design.

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 (https://publicationethics.org/guidance?f%5B0%5D=type%3A16). The Editorial Board of UTI will discuss the suspected cases and reach a decision. UTI will not hesitate to publish errata, corrigenda, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.

v) Journal policies on conflicts of interest/competing interests

A conflict of interest may exist when an author (or the author’s institution or employer) has financial or personal relationships or affiliations that could bias the author’s decisions of the manuscript. Authors are expected to provide detailed information about all relevant financial interests and relationships or financial conflicts, particularly those present at the time the research was conducted and through publication, as well as other financial interests (such as patent applications in preparation, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, and paid expert testimony), that represent potential future financial gain. Conflicts can occur for other reasons as well, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion (http://www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest/). All disclosures of any potential conflicts of interest, including specific financial interests and relationships and affiliations (other than those affiliations listed in the title page of the manuscript) relevant to the subject of their manuscript will be disclosed by the corresponding author on behalf of each coauthor, if any, as part of the submission process. Likewise, authors without conflicts of interest will be requested to state so as part of the submission process. If authors are uncertain about what constitutes a relevant financial interest or relationship, they should contact the editorial office. Failure to include this information in the manuscript will prohibit commencement of the review process of the manuscript. For all accepted manuscripts, each author’s disclosures of conflicts of interest and relevant financial interests and affiliations and declarations of no such interests will be published. The policy requesting disclosure of conflicts of interest applies for all manuscript submissions. If an author’s disclosure of potential conflicts of interest is determined to be inaccurate or incomplete after publication, a correction will be published to rectify the original published disclosure statement. Authors are also required to report detailed information regarding all financial and material support for the research and work, including but not limited to grant support, funding sources, and provision of equipment and supplies as part of the submission process. For all accepted manuscripts, each author’s source of funding will be published.

vi) Journal policies on open data sharing and reproducibility

Authors have the option to share with readers the datasets used in their research. Authors wishing to do so may deposit their data in a publicly accessible repository and include a link to the DOI within the text of the manuscript, as well as in an optional category in the Structured Disclosures section. For example, “Data sharing: The data analyzed for this study have been deposited in Harvard Dataverse (https://dataverse.harvard.edu) and are available at DOI.”

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 (https://publicationethics.org/guidance?f%5B0%5D=type%3A16). 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 Association of Urogenital Tract Infection and Inflammation. Copyrights of all published materials are owned by The Korean Association of Urogenital Tract Infection and Inflammation.

ix) 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

UTI has an online submission and peer review system at http://submission.euti.org/.

UTI reviews all manuscripts received. A manuscript is first reviewed for its format and adherence to the aims and scope of the journal. If the manuscript meets these 2 criteria, it is dispatched to 3 investigators in the field with relevant knowledge.

UTI adopts double blind review, which means that the reviewers and authors cannot identify each other’s information. The authors’ names and affiliations are removed during peer review. Assuming the manuscript is sent to reviewers, UTI waits to receive opinions from at least 2 reviewers. In addition, if deemed necessary, a review of statistics may be requested. The acceptance criteria for all papers are based on the quality and originality of the research and its scientific significance. Acceptance of the manuscript is decided based on the critiques and recommended decision of the reviewers.

An initial decision will normally be made within 4 weeks of receipt of a manuscript, and the reviewers’ comments are sent to the corresponding author by email. The corresponding author must indicate the alterations that have been made in response to the reviewers’ comments item by item. Failure to resubmit the revised manuscript within 4 weeks of the editorial decision is regarded as a withdrawal. A final decision on acceptance/rejection for publication is forwarded to the corresponding author from the editor.

All manuscripts from editors, employees, or members of the editorial board are processed same to other unsolicited manuscripts. During the review process, submitters will not engage in the decision process. Editors will not handle their own manuscripts although they are commissioned ones.

The editorial board of UTI neither guarantee the acceptance without review nor very short peer review times for unsolicited manuscripts. Commissioned manuscripts also were reviewed before publication.

i) Registration for submission
Any manuscript that has many errors or does not follow the guideline for submissions will be returned to the author without review. Any manuscript registered is given a registration number, which will be emailed to the corresponding author. Once the editorial committee requests an author to revise his or her manuscript, the author should resubmit the revised manuscript using our online submission system.

ii) Review
The manuscript will be reviewed by 2 or 3 reviewers blind to the name and affiliation of the authors. The review process is limited to 3 times; a decision for revision at the third review means the manuscript is no longer eligible for publication.

iii) Revision by authors
Upon the editorial committee’s request, authors should revise and resubmit the revised manuscript accompanied by a cover letter indicating clearly what alterations have been made in response to the reviewer’s comments and stating satisfactory reasons for noncompliance with any of the recommendations of the editors. No reply within 45 days after the request for revision will be assumed as a withdrawal of the manuscript and the review process will be terminated. In this case, a new submission is required if authors desire further review of their manuscript by the Editorial Committee. The review process will require 3 months on average.

iv) Conclusion of review
Once the manuscript is accepted for publication in UTI, a certification of publication stating that the manuscript will be published can be issued on demand by the author(s).

v) Printing
The authors should proofread and edit their accepted manuscript carefully before printing, and can still request additional corrections at this stage. The editorial committee makes the final edits and decides whether to publish the manuscript and the order in which the manuscript is published.
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 (https://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. 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, The Korean Association of Urogenital Tract Infection and Inflammation (https://www.uti.or.kr/)
• ii) Management team of a journal
  • - Journal Manager
      Koo Han Yoo Editor-in-Chief, Kyung Hee University, Korea
  • - Manager of the Review Process
      Seung-Kwon Choi Associate Editor, Seoul Medical Center, Korea
  • - Manuscript Editor
      Hwan Tae Ahn JTS, Korea
  • - Website and JATS XML File Producers
      Yoon-Sang Cho M2PI, Korea
  • - Layout Editor: In Soo Choi, Medrang, Korea
  • - English Editor:

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://www.euti.org/about/editorial.php) tab of the journal website.

12. Editorial team and contact information

i) Editorial team

Editorial Board’s website is https://www.euti.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
The Korean Association of Urogenital Tract Infection and Inflammation
365 Pilmun-daero, Dong-gu, Gwangju 61453, Korea
Tel: +82-62-220-3210, Email: kauti@uti.or.kr

Editorial Office
Department of Urology, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong, 892, Dongnam-ro, Gangdong-gu, Seoul 05278, Korea.
Tel: +82-2-440-6271, Fax: +82-2-440-7744, Email: office@euti.org

BUSINESS PRACTICES

13. Author Fees

Neither page charge, article processing fee nor submission fee will be applied. UTI is a platinum open access journal, meaning there are no fees on the author side.

14. Other revenue

Revenue sources of journal were from the support of publisher (The Korean Association of Urogenital Tract Infection and Inflammation), Korea Government’s support.

15. Advertising

UTI 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.