Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions

First published on January 1, 2004
First revision March 1, 2006
Second revision July 6, 2008
Last revision May 1, 2013

>> Last revision August 5, 2024

General Information
Research and Publication Ethics
Manuscript Preparation
Manuscript Submission
Peer Review and Publication Process
Copyrights and Creative Commons License

General information

To submit the manuscript to the Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions (JEEHP), it is advised to read aims and scope section of this journal precisely, which includes the information on the editorial policy and category of papers. It is published immediately after the manuscript is accepted without any regular interval like paper journals. Everyone who has interested in the aims and scope of JEEHP is encouraged to submit the manuscripts from all over the world. JEEHP follows Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (http://www.icmje.org/) if otherwise not describe below. JEEHP has been a member journal of the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (2005-), Korean Council of Science Editors (2012-), Council of Science Editors (2008-), the Alliance of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (2010-), the European Association of Science Editors (2011-). the Committee on Publication Ethics (2013-), and the World Association of Medical Editors (2013-). JEEHP has been also listed as publication that follows the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/ since 2007. Therefore, it would like to keep the principles and policies of those professional organizations during editing and publication process.

Research and publication ethics

For the policies on the research and publication ethics not stated in the instructions, Guidelines on Good Publication (http://publicationethics.org/) or Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals (http://kamje.or.kr/) can be applied.

1. Conflict-of-Interest statement

Conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence (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 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, and of science itself. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion (http://icmje.org/ethical_4conflicts.html). If there are any conflicts of interest, authors should disclose them in the manuscript. The conflicts of interest may occur during research process; however, important point is the disclosure itself. If there is a disclosure, editors, reviewers, and reader can approach the manuscripts after understanding the situation where the research work was processed.

2. Statement of human and animal right

Clinical research should be done in accordance of the Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects, outlined in the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (revised 2008), available from: http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/. Clinical studies that do not meet the Helsinki Declaration will not be considered for publication. Human subjects should not be identifiable, such that patients' names, initials, hospital numbers, dates of birth, or other protected healthcare information should not be disclosed. For animal subjects, research should be performed based on the National or Institutional Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and the ethical treatment of all experimental animals should be maintained.

3. Statement of informed consent and Institutional Review Board approval

Copies of written informed consents should be kept for studies on human subjects. For the clinical studies of human subjects, there should be a certificate, agreement, or approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of author's institute. If necessary, the editor or reviewers may request copies of these documents to resolve questions about IRB approval and study conduct.

4. Registration of the clinical trial research

Any researches that deals with clinical trial should be registered to the primary national clinical trial registration site such as Korea Clinical Research Information Service (CRiS, http://cris.nih.go.kr), other primary national registry sites accredited by World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/ictrp/network/primary/en/) or clinicaltrial.gov (http://clinicaltrial.gov/), a service of the Unite States National Institutes of Health.

5. Authorship

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; and 3) final approval of the version to be published (http://icmje.org/ethical_1author.html). Authors should meet these 3 conditions. If the number of authors is greater than 6, there should be a list of each author's role for the submitted paper. If any persons who do not meet above three criteria, they may be placed as contributors in Acknowledgments section. Description of co-first authors or co-corresponding authors is also accepted if corresponding author believes that their roles are equally contributed.

6. Originality and Duplicate Publication

All submitted manuscripts should be original and should not be considered by other scientific journals for publication at the same time. 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 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 a different journal that is not open access.

7. Secondary publication

It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the condition of secondary publication of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors', available from: http://www.icmje.org/publishing_4overlap.html as followings:
Certain types of articles, such as guidelines produced by governmental agencies and professional organizations, may need to reach the widest possible audience. In such instances, editors sometimes deliberately publish material that is also being published in other journals, with the agreement of the authors and the editors of those journals. Secondary publication for various other reasons, in the same or another language, especially in other countries, is justifiable and can be beneficial provided that the following conditions are met.

• The authors have received approval from the editors of both journals (the editor concerned with secondary publication must have a photocopy, reprint, or manuscript of the primary version).
• The priority of the primary publication is respected by a publication interval of at least 1 week (unless specifically negotiated otherwise by both editors).
• 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 footnote on the title page of the secondary version informs readers, peers, and documenting agencies that the paper has been published in whole or in part and states the primary reference. A suitable footnote might read: “This article is based on a study first reported in the [title of journal, with full reference].” Permission for such secondary publication should be free of charge.
• The title of the secondary publication should indicate that it is a secondary publication (complete republication, abridged republication, complete translation, or abridged 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 translations when the original article was published in a journal that is indexed in Medline.
• Editors of journals that simultaneously publish in multiple languages should understand that NLM indexes the primary language version. When the full text of an article appears in more than one language in a journal issue (such as Canadian journals with the article in both English and French), both languages are indicated in the Medline citation (for example, Mercer K. The relentless challenge in health care. Healthc Manage Forum. 2008 Summer;21(2):4-5. English, French. No abstract available. PMID:18795553.)

8. Process to manage the research and publication misconduct

When the Journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflict of interest, ethical problem with a submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and etc, the resolving process will be followed by flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The discussion and decision on the suspected cases are done by Editorial Board.

Manuscript preparation

1. Style and language
2. Reporting guidelines for specific study designs
3. Organization of the manuscript
1) Research article
(1) General points: Manuscript should be inputted in the following computer program: Open office (http://www.openoffice.org/), any word processor program with RTF format, or MS Word 2000 or higher version. Font size 10 points, double-spaced and blank space at least 2.5 cm from every margin of A4 paper size. The arrangement of subtitles is as followings: Title page, abstract and keywords, introduction, methods, results, discussion, Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID), conflict of interest, acknowledgments (if any), Supplementary materials or appendix, references, tables and figures. Graphic files are included separately. Page numbers should be included in the center of bottom. Number of word count of main text should be equal to or less than 3,000 excluding abstract, references, tables, and figures.
(2) Title page: In this section, the type of manuscript, title of manuscript, name of all authors and their affiliations, address of corresponding author, e-mail address, telephone number, fax number, any conflict of interest, and financial assistance should described. The type of manuscript should be typed in the top left area of the title page. Title should represent the content of manuscript lucidly. The title of phrase form is encouraged. The title should be written in small characters except the first word’s first character. Avoid abbreviations in the title of the manuscript. Name of authors should be described fully without abbreviation. In author name, any title of degree or professions such as M.D. or Ph.D. should not be added. Differentiation of authors’ affiliation can be done with superscript arabic character numeral such as 1, 2, 3 after authors’ name and before address of their affiliation. Address of affiliation should comprise at least the institute, city, and country. The authors’ e-mail is strongly recommended to use their institutes’ e-mail rather than commercial companies. E-mail of commercial companies can be added as secondary e-mail. Corresponding author has full responsibility on the manuscript's exactness, whose name, mailing address, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail address should be described. Corresponding author should submit the manuscript with his e-mail. The word count of abstract and main text (excluding abstract, references, tables, and figures) should be noted.
(3) Abstract: JEEHP has adapted structured abstract since May 2013 that is composed of subheadings of purpose, methods, results, and conclusion. Word count of abstract should be equal to or less than 250. Keyword should be a core terminologiesy that represent the content of full text rapidly. The number of keywords should be equal to or less than five. It is recommended to use MeSH (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh) terms as keywords if possible, but not mandatory. Keywords should be arranged as an alphabetical order. Only first character of the first word of keywords should be in capital letter. Keywords are separated by semicolon (;). They are presented in italic form.
(4) Introduction: It provides a research background, and specific purpose or objectives. Hypothesis tested can be stated. The references should be exactly pertinent one with a least number. Introduction section should be described in one or two paragraphs.
(5) Methods: Materials and/or Subjects: The materials used in the research should be clearly indicated for the further follow-up researches. Any materials purchased should be disclosed the source of maker. Research subjects also should be precisely described such as age, sex, region, schools, country, date of intervention period, or job etc. The reason of inclusion or selection of subjects should be explained. If there is exclusion of certain group, it should be also explained. Questionnaires in non-English languages also may be published in appendix.
Technical Information: In describing analytic methods, reporting guideline should be referred to better understanding of the content. If methods are already well-know one, just cite method with reference and mention only modified part. If method is something new, describe it more precisely. Too complicated statistical methods can be placed in appendix. Cut and paste from other papers in method section is not recommended. In that case, just cite the those papers since cut and paste can be detected easily using CrossCheck, detecting system of plagiarism and duplicated publication.
Statistics: It should be described very meticulously. If reviewers want to analyze the data to confirm the results, the raw data may be provided to editorial office. Computer program used should be verified with company and version. Statistical results are encouraged to provide the measurement error or uncertainty such as confidence intervals besides of P-value.
(6) Results: It should be described logically according to methods. Tables and figures are recommended to present the results more rapidly and easily. Do not duplicate the content of table as figure with same results. Briefly describe the core results related to the conclusion in the text when data are provided in tables or in figures. In the results, audio or video files are also welcomed. Extra supplementary results can be placed in appendix.
(7) Discussion: It is important to deduce the conclusion from the results avoiding statements not described in methods or results. At the first part of discussion, briefly summarize the main findings, then explore possible explanations for these findings, compare, and contrast the results with other relevant studies. Please do not mention repeatedly the results of previous relevant studies, but mention any difference or concordance. Emphasize the core findings and the conclusions derived from them in the best available evidence. At the last part of discussion, describe the limitation of study, future research plan, and conclusion. If there was a research hypothesis in introduction section, it should be answered. It is meaningful to mention what is the usefulness of the content in educational evaluation to promote the medical health education.
8) ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID): ORCID of all authors are recommended to be provided. To have ORCID, authors should register in the ORCID web site available from: http://orcid.org/. Registration is free to every researchers in the world.
(9) Conflict of interest: It should be disclosed here according to the statement in the RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION ETHICS regardless of existence of conflict of interest. If there is nothing to disclose, please mention here as ‘No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.’
(10) Acknowledgments: Any persons that are not enough to be authors according to authorship criteria should be placed here. For the placement of any persons or any institutes, there should be a written permission from them. Funding to the research should be appreciated here. It is recommend to describing the FundRef ID, name of funding agency, country and the number of grant provided by funding agency if present. If funding agency does not have Fundref ID, please ask that agency to contact FundRef (e-mail: fundref.registry@crossref.org). Other detailed policy of FundRef description is available from http://www.crossref.org/fundref/.
(11) Supplementary materials or appendix: If there are any supplementary materials to help the understanding of readers or too great amount data to be included in the main text, it may be placed as supplementary data or appendix. Questionnaire form in local or regional languages is the example of data in appendix. Authors’ recording of abstract or text will be mentioned here. All other audio or video files are also mentioned here.
(12) References: The description of the journal reference follows the below description. Otherwise it follows the NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/citingmedicine).
Every reference in the reference section should be cited in the text. Number of reference citation is the appearance order. References in tables or figures are also number according to the appearance order. Reference inclusion in the text, tables, and figures should be cited in bracket ([ ]). If there is a consequence of number of citation, the number should be described as [1-3]. ‘Personal communication,’ ‘abstract,’ or ‘unpublished data’ can not be included not only in the text but also in the reference section. In the reference, journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in the list of Journals Indexed in NLM Journal Catalog (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals). For journal titles not listed in NLM Journal Catalog, it should follow the ISO abbreviation "ISO 4:1997 Information and documentation—Rules for the abbreviation of title words and titles of publications" (http://www.iso.org/iso/home/store/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=3569). Total number of references in research article is recommended equal to or less than 20. If authors would like to add more number of references, it is also negotiable with Editorial Board.
In citing references, journal articles are the most preferable ones in research articles. Nowadays, web site materials is used frequently. The problem of web site materials are frequent change of the URL address or sudden disappearance of data. Therefore, it is recommend to cite open access journal or free access book archived in the public site such as PubMed Central (PubMed Central) or Bookshelf (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books).
In selecting references, please do not include the journal papers or books longer than 10 years after the publication. References published within five years are recommended to be selected. In special cases, such as history papers or review papers, old references allowed to be included. If authors would like to add references of more than ten-year old, it should be negotiated with Editorial Board.; Example of reference descriptions according to type of references are as followings:
(13) Tables and Figures (Drawings and Pictures): In the digital journals, tables and figures only should be able to provide the enough information without reading main text. Therefore, the explanation of figures and tables has enough information to explain the data included to be self-explanatory. There is no limitation number of tables or figures. If any tables or figures are moved or modified from other papers, authors should get the permission through Copyright Clearance Center if they are not included in open access journal published according to Creative Commons License. If tables or figures are from open access journal, just verify the source journal exactly in the footnote. Be cautious that free access journal is different with that of open access; therefore, it is necessary to get permission from publisher to use tables or figures.
In table, remove internal horizontal or vertical lines. The horizontal line is only used for the field title and the bottom line. Line should be single. Explanatory matter should be placed in footnotes including explanation of nonstandard abbreviation. To indicate the specific content in the table use the superscript a), b), c), d) consequently and explain them at the footnote.
Drawings should be done with computer program. Scanned drawings can not be acceptable. Acceptable figure file formats are AI, BMP, DOC, EMF, EPS, JPG, PDF, PPT, PSD, TIF, WMF, or XLS. Figures are loaded as separate files during submission process. Other formats of figure are negotiable. Contact editorial office for other formats. Contrast of figure file should be at least 600 dpi with a size of 82 mm or 164 mm in width. The drawings and pictures are recommended to be in full color.
2) Brief report: It deals with the pilot study, simple but interesting study, meaningful follow-up study of the previous works etc. may be described in this type. Sections of introduction, methods, results, and discussion emerges into one section. Total number of references is recommended equal to or less than ten. Number of word count of main text should be equal to or less than 1,500 excluding abstract, references, tables, and figures.
3) Case report: Main text of case report is composed of three sections: Introduction, case presentation, and discussion. Total number of references is recommended equal to or less than ten. Number of word count of main text should be equal to or less than 1,500 excluding abstract, references, tables, and figures.
4) Review: Invited review will be published on the interesting or new topic. Also submitted reviews are welcomed for the easy presentation of any field. Sections of methods, results, and discussion emerges into one main text section. Total number of references is recommended equal to or less than 50. Number of word count of main text should be equal to or less than 5,000 excluding abstract, references, tables, and figures.
5) Editorial: Editorial is usually invited by Editorial Board. It provides the brief review of the articles in the journal and comment on the recent development and events in the field of educational evaluation for health professions. It also deals with change of journal’s style and format and the communication with outside organization or professionals. Also, a variety of topics shall be dealt by Editorial Board. There is no division of section. Total number of references is recommended equal to or less than ten. Number of word count of main text should be equal to or less than 1,500 excluding references, tables, and figures.
6) Opinion: It is possible to propose new idea although there is no concrete database or analysis. Such a creative suggestion is determined to be interesting to many medical health teachers in the world, it may be considered to publish. No sectional division of abstract and keywords, introduction, methods, results, and discussion is required. Title author, affiliation, main text and the reference are required. Total number of references is recommended equal to or less than ten. Number of word count of main text should be equal to or less than 1,500 excluding references, tables, and figures.
7) Technical report: It pursues the exposure of data analysis generated many nation-base or high stake examinations. This kind of data is not very easy to get. It may facilitate the international comparison of the evaluation data. It follows the format of the original article. Total number of references is recommended equal to or less than 20. Number of word count of main text should be equal to or less than 3,000 excluding abstract, references, tables, and figures.
8) Software: The useful software for the education can be introduced. The program and its source are better to be opened to public. However, commercial program can be introduced. It follows the format of the original article or review article. Total number of references is recommended equal to or less than 20. Number of word count of main text should be equal to or less than 3,000 excluding abstract, references, tables, and figures.
9) Letter to editor: Any opinion or inquiry on the paper published can be lettered to editor. Title, author, affiliation, main text and the reference are required sections. Total number of references is recommended equal to or less than 10. Number of word count of main text should be equal to or less than 1,500 excluding references, tables, and figures.
10) Book review: The books on the educational evaluation of health professions can be reviewed. The books in non-English also can be introduced. Title of book, author name, affiliation, main text, and reference are enough. Total number of references is recommended equal to or less than 10. Number of word count of main text should be equal to or less than 1,500 excluding references, tables, and figures.
11) Educational/Faculty development material: The quality workshop materials that should include power point presentation, case studies, link to journal articles, program evaluation materials etc. are considered for publication. The manuscript format follows that of review article with materials. Total number of references is recommended equal to or less than 10. Number of word count of main text should be equal to or less than 1,500 excluding abstract, references, tables, and figures.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

1. Article processing charge: There is no author's submission fee or other publication related fee since every cost for the publication process is supported by the publisher. JEEHP is the platinum open access journal. Platinum open access is a model of scholarly publishing that does not charge author fee.
2. Online submission site and process: Manuscripts must be submitted to JEEHP in the web (http://jeehp.org). The authors are recommended to list the name of equal to or greater than three appropriate reviewers not related to authors with their affiliation and their e-mail address. During submission process, information on authors’ ORCIDs and FundRef ID of funding agency will be requested. Authors’ ORCIDs are mandatory. FundRef ID is strongly recommended to be added although it is not mandatory. Audio or video file for abstract or full text should be submitted after decision of acceptance. The audio file format should be mp3, wav, or ogg and the video file format should be mp4, webM, or ogg. Those formats support HTML5 audio or HTML5 video respectively.; The review and publication processes that are not described below will be incorporated into the Editorial Policy Statements approved by the Council of Science Editors Board of Directors available from: http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/.
1. Screening Before Submission: If the manuscript does not fit to aims and scope the Journal or keep the Instructions to authors, it may be returned to sender without review immediately after receipt of manuscript. Before review, all submitted manuscripts are checked through CrossCheck powered by iThenticate (http://www.crossref.org/crosscheck/), a plagiarism screening tool. If too high degree of similarity rate is found, the more profound content screening will be done by Editorial Board. The criterion of similarity rate for further screening is usually 15%; however, the excess similarity in specific sentences may be also checked in every manuscript.
2. Number of Reviewers: One or two reviewers will be selected from the list of reviewers recommended by corresponding author. Manuscripts are peer reviewed by at least two reviewers, usually by three reviewers.
3. Peer Review Process and Author’s Response to Reviewers’ Opinion: Submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by two or more experts in the corresponding field. Review period is two weeks. Usually the first decision is made within three days after finish of review. Editorial Board’s decision after review will be one of followings: Accept, Accept after minor revision, Accept with major revision, or Rejection. The Editorial Board may request authors to revise the manuscripts according to the reviewer's opinion. If there are any requests of revision of manuscript by reviewers, the authors should do their best to revise the manuscript. If the reviewer's opinion is not acceptable or is believed to mis-interpret the data, author should indicate it reasonably. After revising the manuscript, the author should upload the revised files with a reply to each item of the reviewer's opinion. The author's revisions should be completed within 60 days after the request. If it is not received by the due date, the Editorial Board will not consider it for publication again. To extend the revision period to more than 60 days, the author should negotiate with the Editorial Board. The manuscript review process should be finished up to the second review. If the authors wish further review, the Editorial Board may consider it. The Editorial Board will make a final decision on the approval for publication of the submitted manuscripts and can request any further corrections, revisions, and deletions of the article text if necessary. Statistical editing is also performed if the data need professional statistical review by a statistician.
4. Process after Acceptance: If manuscript is accepted finally, the proofreading will be sent to corresponding author after professional manuscript editing and/or English proof-reading. Proofreading should be checked out again for any misspelling or errors by authors. Before final proofreading, the manuscript may appear at the journal homepage or PubMed as epub ahead of print with unique DOI number for rapid communication. Ahead of print version will be replaced by replacement XML file and final PDF. All published papers will be included in PubMed/PubMed Central or other full-text archiving databases in the world. All or a part of abstracts will be indexed to a variety of databases including PubMed, PubMed Central, CINAHL Complete, EBSCO host, WorldwideScience.org, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Google Scholar, and DOI/CrossRef.
5. Feedback after Publication: If authors or reader found any errors, or contents that should be revised, it can be requested to the Editorial Board. Erratum, corrigendum or retraction may be considered by the Editorial Board. If there are any revisions of the papers, there will be a CrossMark description to announce the final draft. If there is a reader’s opinion on the published article with form of ‘Letter to Editor’, it will be delivered to authors. Authors can reply to reader’s opinion. Those ‘Letter to Editor’ and author’s ‘Reply’ may be also published.; Copyrights of all published materials are owned by the National Health Personnel Licensing Examination Board, Republic of Korea. Corresponding author should agree to the copyright transfer during the submission process. The Editorial Board takes it granted that co-authors also accept the copyright transfer according to the acceptance by corresponding author. Corresponding author has a responsibility to get the permission of copyright transfer to the publisher.
Articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To use the tables or figures of the journal in other periodicals, books or other media, the process of permission request to the publisher is not necessary.

Instructions to authors

Table of Contents

General information

Research and publication ethics

Manuscript preparation

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

PEER REVIEW AND PUBLICATION PROCESS

COPYRIGHTS AND CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE