Research and Publication Ethics

> For Authors and Reviewers > Research and Publication Ethics

Enacted on January 1, 2009
Amended on January 1, 2016

For the policies on the research and publication ethics not stated in these instructions, “Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals (http://kamje.or.kr)” or “Guidelines on good publication (http://www.publicationethics.org)” can be applied. If there are any ethical issues from the manuscripts, it should be first reviewed by Editorial Board and the recommendations should be processed by the Society. If anyone does not agree or accept the decision by Society in the process of ethical issues, those may be referred to the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (http://kamje.or.kr) or appropriate Committee of the corresponding institutes.

The papers already published to other scientific journals or periodicals are not considered for publication. The published paper to this journal should not be submitted to other scientific journal. Secondary publication is only possible when it is compatible to the “Acceptable Secondary Publication” policy suggested in the conditions of secondary publication of the ICMJE Recommendations (http://www.icmje.org/urm_main.html).

If any persons who do not meet following conditions, 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.

Authors who meet all of following conditions can be listed: 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) 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.
The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest forms and statements, are properly completed, although these duties may be delegated to one or more coauthors. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely way, and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information should questions about the paper arise after publication. Authors are responsible for the whole content of each article.

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

Clinical research should be done in accordance with the Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects, as outlined in the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (revised 2013) (available from: https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/). Clinical studies that do not meet the Helsinki Declaration will not be considered for publication. For publication, the human subjects’ identifiable information, such as the patients' names, initials, hospital numbers, dates of birth, or other protected healthcare information, should not be disclosed. For animal subjects, the 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.

The manuscripts related to the human subjects or samples drawn from humans should receive the informed consent according to the rule of Institutional Review Board of author’s institute. Copies of written informed consent documents should be kept for studies on human subjects. For clinical studies of human subjects, a certificate, agreement, or approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the author's institution is required. If necessary, the editor or reviewers may request copies of these documents to resolve questions about IRB approval and study conduct. If manuscripts include clinical trials, the clinical trials registration number should be got after the registration to the WHO accredited registration centers such as CRiS (https://cris.nih.go.kr/).

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

The Editorial Board will continuously work to monitor and safeguard publication ethics: guidelines for retracting articles; maintenance of the integrity of the academic record; preclusion of business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards; publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed; and excluding plagiarism and fraudulent data. The editors maintain the following responsibilities: responsibility and authority to reject and accept articles; avoiding any conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject or accept; promoting publication of corrections or retractions when errors are found; and preservation of the anonymity of reviewers.