Table of contents
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
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.