1. Copyright Policy

1.1 Copyright Ownership

Authors ordinarily retain copyright in their original articles published in Health Nexus. Publication does not require a general transfer of copyright ownership to the journal or publisher.

Copyright may belong to an employer, institution, governmental authority, or another lawful rights holder where applicable law, employment arrangements, or contractual obligations so provide. Authors must identify relevant ownership restrictions and confirm that the necessary publication rights have been obtained.

The journal may request written confirmation of copyright ownership, institutional authorization, or licensing authority when reasonably necessary.

1.2 Non-Exclusive Publication Licence

Upon approval of publication under the journal's standard agreement, the relevant copyright holder grants Health Nexus and Panorama Scholarly Group a non-exclusive licence to:

• Publish the article as the journal's formally issued Version of Record.
• Identify Health Nexus and Panorama Scholarly Group as the journal and original publisher.
• Reproduce, distribute, host, communicate, and make the article accessible in electronic, print, archival, accessible, and other appropriate formats.
• Prepare and disseminate article metadata, bibliographic information, indexing records, and persistent identifiers.
• Deposit authorized article copies and associated metadata with repositories, libraries, discovery services, and digital preservation providers.
• Perform reasonable copyediting, typesetting, formatting, accessibility conversion, and technical production activities that do not misrepresent the scholarly content.
• Maintain appropriate corrections, retraction notices, expressions of concern, and other post-publication records in accordance with the journal's editorial policies.

These rights are non-exclusive. Authors and other lawful copyright holders may continue to exercise their intellectual property rights, subject to applicable agreements and the rights already granted under the published open-access licence.

1.3 Copyright Notice

Where copyright is held by an institution, employer, or another lawful rights holder, the copyright notice must identify that rights holder accurately. The journal's official article records should display the applicable copyright and licence information consistently.

2. Licensing Terms

Unless otherwise indicated in an article-specific rights statement, the Version of Record published in Health Nexus is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).

2.1 Permitted Reuse

Users may exercise the following rights in material covered by CC BY 4.0 without requesting additional copyright permission:

• Sharing: Copy and redistribute the licensed work in any medium or format.
• Adaptation: Remix, transform, annotate, translate, summarize, or build upon the licensed material.
• Commercial Use: Reuse the licensed content for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
• Academic and Educational Use: Incorporate appropriately attributed content into research, teaching, scholarly publications, professional materials, and evidence syntheses.
• Computational Reuse: Conduct lawful text and data mining, indexing, information extraction, and computational analysis of licensed materials.

2.2 Attribution Requirements

Users must provide appropriate attribution in a manner reasonably suited to the medium and context of reuse. Attribution should include, where appropriate:

• The name or names of the original authors or other designated attribution parties.
• The original article title and journal name.
• The original publication source, preferably including the article DOI or permanent URL.
• Identification of the CC BY 4.0 licence and a link to its official terms.
• A clear indication of modifications, translations, adaptations, or other changes made.
• Retention of relevant copyright, licence, and attribution notices supplied with the licensed material.

Attribution must not imply that the original authors, Health Nexus, its editors, or Panorama Scholarly Group endorse the person, organization, product, interpretation, or adaptation reusing the work.

2.3 No Additional Restrictions

Users must not impose additional legal terms or effective technological restrictions that prevent subsequent recipients from exercising rights granted under CC BY 4.0. The journal does not impose extra copyright restrictions that conflict with the terms of the licence.

2.4 Continuing Effect of the Licence

Once a work has been lawfully published under CC BY 4.0, compliant users may continue exercising the rights granted by that licence. Subsequent changes to the journal's publication policies, fee arrangements, or publishing agreements do not ordinarily revoke permissions previously granted under CC BY 4.0. Corrections or retractions should be identified accurately when affected research is reused.

3. Author Rights

Health Nexus supports author copyright retention, academic freedom, and the lawful reuse and dissemination of published research.

Subject to applicable rights ownership and publication agreements, authors may:

• Retain Copyright: Continue to hold copyright in their original scholarly contributions where they are the lawful rights holders.
• Reuse Published Research: Incorporate their work into future books, reviews, research articles, educational resources, and other scholarly publications, with appropriate acknowledgement of the original publication.
• Deposit in Repositories: Deposit authorized copies of their articles in institutional, disciplinary, and other appropriate research repositories.
• Share the Version of Record: Deposit or distribute the final published article immediately upon publication, without a journal-imposed embargo, subject to applicable third-party rights.
• Disseminate Academic Work: Share published research through personal websites, institutional profiles, academic communication platforms, and professional networks.
• Translate and Adapt: Prepare translations, adaptations, or revised scholarly works under their retained rights or the applicable open licence, with transparent identification of the original publication and any changes.
• Grant Further Permissions: Authorize other lawful uses of material they own, while respecting existing licence grants and the rights of third parties.

The Version of Record is the definitive article formally published by the journal. Earlier manuscript versions should be identified accurately to avoid confusion with the final publication.

4. Third-Party Material

Authors are responsible for ensuring that third-party materials included in a manuscript are used lawfully and that their copyright, licensing, and attribution requirements are properly documented.

Third-party materials may include:

• Previously published figures, tables, illustrations, charts, and diagrams.
• Photographs, clinical images, radiological scans, and other visual materials.
• Questionnaires, clinical assessment instruments, measurement scales, and standardized diagnostic tools.
• Maps, illustrations, graphical materials, and proprietary software interfaces.
• Datasets, database extracts, copyrighted documents, and other externally sourced research materials.

4.1 Permission and Attribution

Authors must obtain permission where required by law or the applicable source licence. Permission is not necessarily required when material is already available under an applicable open licence, is in the public domain, or can lawfully be used under a relevant statutory exception.

All reused materials must receive appropriate source attribution. Where permission is required, the journal may request evidence that the permitted uses are sufficient for open-access publication and subsequent distribution.

4.2 Exclusion from the Article Licence

The article-level CC BY 4.0 licence does not automatically authorize reuse of third-party material that the authors or publisher lack authority to license.

Third-party material excluded from the article's licence must be identified clearly in the relevant caption, credit line, rights statement, or supplementary file.

4.3 Clinical Information and Patient Privacy

The publication of clinical images, patient records, or other potentially identifiable materials must comply with applicable confidentiality, informed consent, privacy, and research ethics requirements. Copyright permission alone does not authorize disclosure or unrestricted reuse of protected personal or clinical information.

5. Licensing of Supplementary Materials

Supplementary materials published directly with an article may include additional figures, tables, methodological documentation, study protocols, appendices, multimedia, and related research files.

Original supplementary materials published as part of the journal article are ordinarily distributed under the same CC BY 4.0 licence, unless a different licence or rights statement is clearly identified. Materials hosted externally or subject to independent rights arrangements must be evaluated according to their own applicable licences and access conditions.

5.1 Supplementary Figures and Documentation

• Supplementary files must identify relevant copyright holders and applicable licences.
• Third-party materials must be appropriately credited and excluded from the general licence where necessary.
• Authors must ensure that supplementary content does not infringe third-party rights or disclose confidential information without authorization.
• Published supplementary materials must not contain misleading, fabricated, or inappropriately manipulated research evidence.

5.2 Research Datasets

Research datasets may require separate licensing and access conditions. Authors must distinguish between the licence governing the journal article and the terms governing underlying or externally deposited research data.

• Datasets intended for unrestricted public reuse may be distributed under an appropriate open-data dedication or licence where authorized.
• Restricted datasets must identify applicable privacy, ethical, legal, institutional, or contractual access conditions.
• Sensitive clinical and personally identifiable information must not be made openly available merely because the associated article is published under CC BY 4.0.
• External repository deposits remain subject to their stated licences and access restrictions.

5.3 Software, Source Code, and Computational Materials

Software, source code, computational models, and related technical resources may require licensing arrangements distinct from those of the scholarly article. Authors should use an appropriate software or open-source licence where legally and practically suitable and identify the relevant terms clearly.

Authors must not represent proprietary software, commercial AI systems, external datasets, or third-party model components as openly licensed unless they have the legal authority to do so.

5.4 Ethical and Legal Compliance

All supplementary materials must comply with the journal's publication ethics, data availability, research integrity, confidentiality, and applicable legal requirements. Where different licences or restrictions apply to distinct research outputs, those arrangements must be communicated accurately and transparently.

6. Publisher Rights and Responsibilities

Panorama Scholarly Group, as the publisher of Health Nexus, is responsible for supporting lawful publication, accurate rights information, and the continued accessibility and integrity of the journal's scholarly record.

• Author Copyright Protection: Respect copyright ownership and the publication rights granted under the applicable publishing agreement.
• Accurate Licensing Information: Display appropriate copyright and licence information in article records and publication files.
• Publisher Identification: Identify Health Nexus and Panorama Scholarly Group accurately in official article metadata and publication records.
• Scholarly Dissemination: Support lawful distribution, indexing, repository deposit, and public access to published research.
• Digital Preservation: Support appropriate technical measures for maintaining published article files, metadata, and the reliability of the scholarly record.
• Post-Publication Integrity: Cooperate with authorized editors in the publication and maintenance of corrections, retractions, and other relevant notices.
• Respect for Open Licensing: Refrain from imposing unauthorized restrictions on lawful reuse of material covered by CC BY 4.0.
• Editorial Independence: Support scholarly decision-making that is independent of financial arrangements and does not make acceptance contingent on the authors' payment capacity.

6.1 Journal and Publisher Identity

The CC BY 4.0 licence attached to a scholarly article does not automatically grant rights to the journal's separate logos, publisher trademarks, website interface, confidential editorial documents, or proprietary technical systems.

Journal and publisher names may be used for accurate scholarly attribution, bibliographic identification, and citation. They must not be used to falsely imply endorsement, authorization, partnership, sponsorship, or official journal status.

6.2 Relationship to Publishing Agreements

This policy describes the journal's standard copyright and licensing arrangements. Article-specific rights notices and applicable publication agreements determine the rights and obligations associated with individual publications, subject to mandatory law.

Any article-specific exceptions must be displayed accurately. A subsequent agreement or policy change does not ordinarily revoke permissions already granted to compliant users under an applicable CC BY 4.0 licence.

6.3 Relationship to Article Processing Charges

Copyright ownership and the CC BY 4.0 licence are independent of the payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC). Paying an APC does not transfer copyright to the publisher, create exclusive publishing rights, or affect editorial decisions. Articles receiving an APC waiver or exemption are subject to the same standard copyright and licensing arrangements as other eligible open-access articles.

7. Compliance with Open Access Standards

Health Nexus seeks to maintain copyright and licensing practices consistent with internationally recognized open-access principles, transparent publishing policies, and responsible scholarly communication.

Relevant frameworks and guidance include:

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): Transparency principles concerning copyright ownership, open licensing, publication rights, reuse permissions, and publicly accessible publishing policies.
• Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI): Principles supporting immediate access to scholarly research and lawful reuse consistent with open-access publishing.
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): Guidance concerning responsible scholarly publishing, research integrity, editorial accountability, and the maintenance of reliable publication records.
• Creative Commons: Standardized public licensing arrangements governing reuse, attribution, adaptation, and permitted distribution of openly licensed material.

Reference to these organizations and principles does not itself establish formal membership, database indexing, certification, or endorsement. Any such status must be reported separately and supported by appropriate verification.

7.1 Transparency of Copyright and Licensing Information

The journal seeks to display applicable rights information consistently through:

• Article landing pages and publication records.
• Published PDF and HTML article files.
• Bibliographic and machine-readable metadata where technically supported.
• DOI registration and scholarly discovery records where applicable.
• Repository deposits and preservation copies where appropriate.

7.2 Policy Consistency and Review

This Copyright & Licensing Policy should be read together with the journal's Open Access Policy, Author Guidelines, Data Policy, and Publication Ethics Policy.

The journal may revise this policy to reflect developments in copyright law, scholarly publishing, open-access standards, research data governance, and publishing technologies. Changes will be communicated appropriately and will not ordinarily remove rights already granted under an applicable open licence.

For further information, please consult the Open Access Policy, Data Policy, and the Official CC BY 4.0 Licence.