Research and publication ethics

The journal adheres to the guidelines and best practices published by professional organizations, including Recommendations from the ICMJE and Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (joint statement by COPE, DOAJ, WAME, and OASPA; http://doaj.org/bestpractice/). Manuscripts submitted to this journal must comply with the following research and publication ethics:

Table of Contents

• 1. Authorship and Author’s Responsibility
• 2. Originality, Plagiarism, and Duplicate Publication
• 3. Secondary Publication
• 4. Conflict-of-interest Statement
• 5. Statement of Human and Animal Rights
• 6. Statement of Informed Consent and Institutional Review Board Approval
• 7. Registration of Clinical Trial Research
• 8. Process for the Management of the Research and Publication Misconduct
• 9. Editorial Responsibilities
• 10. Data Sharing Statement

1. Authorship and Author’s Responsibility

Authorship criteria are 1) substantial contributions to the study’s conception and design, data acquisition, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content. All authors must grant final approval for the manuscript version to be published. They must also agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work and ensure that any questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Authors should meet either 1 or 2 to be considered authors and agree to the responsibilities listed above.

Any requests for changes in authorship (adding author(s), deleting author(s), or re-arranging the order of authors) after initial manuscript submission and before publication should be explained in writing to the editor in a letter or e-mail signed by all authors of the paper. A copyright assignment must be completed by every author.

There is no limitation on the number of authors. Persons who do not meet the authorship criteria may be indicated as contributors in the Acknowledgments section. Descriptions of co-first authors or cocorrespond ing authors are also accepted if the corresponding author believes that contributions to the manuscript warrant such roles.

The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review processes to respond to editorial queries and critiques of the work in a timely manner. The corresponding author should cooperate with any requests from the journal for data, additional information, or questions about the paper even after the paper is published.

2. Originality, Plagiarism, and Duplicate Publication

All manuscripts submitted to the JMLS should be original work that should not be published or be under consideration for publication by any other scientific journal. In whole or in part, accepted manuscripts should not be duplicated in any other scientific journal without the permission of the JMLS Editorial Board. Figures and tables can be used freely if the original source is verified according to the Creative Commons license.

It is mandatory for all authors to resolve any copyright issues when citing a figure or table from a journal that is not open-access. Submitted manuscripts are screened for possible plagiarism or duplicate publication using Crossref Similarity Check (https://www.crossref.org/getstarted/similarity-check/) upon their submission.

If plagiarism or duplicate publication are detected in manuscripts submitted to this journal, the manuscripts may be rejected, the authors’ details published in the journal, and their institutions will be informed. There will also be penalties for the authors violating this regulation. Anyone who violates this regulation and/or general ethical principles of research will be banned from submitting papers to this journal for two years.

3. Secondary Publication

The corresponding author must inform the editor of any potential conflicts of interest that could influence the authors’ interpretation of their study’s data. A conflict of interest exists when an author or the author’s institution, reviewer, or editor, has financial or personal relationships that could inappropriately influence or bias their 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 a true conflict of interest.

On the other hand, the potential for a conflict of interest can exist regardless of whether an individual believes that the relationship affects their scientific judgment. Financial relationships such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, and paid expert testimony are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and are most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, or the work itself.

Conflicts of interest 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, the authors should disclose them in the manuscript. Conflicts of interest may manifest during the research process itself; even for these, it is important to provide disclosure. The disclosure helps editors, reviewers, and readers approach the manuscript with an understanding of the situation and background of the completed research.

4. Conflict-of-interest Statement

It is possible to republish manuscripts if they satisfy the condition of secondary publication as per Recommendations from ICMJE. These are:

• • The authors have received approva l from the editors of both journals (the editor concerned with the secondary publication must have access to the primary version).
• • The priority of the primary publication is respected by a publication interval negotiated by the 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 secondar y publication shou ld indicate that it is a secondary publication (complete or abridged republication or translation) of a primary publication. Of note, the United States Nationa l Libra r y of Med icine (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.

5. Statement of Human and Animal Rights

Clinical research should be conducted in accordance with the requirement of an institutional or regional “Clinical Trial Ethics Committee” that reviews the ethics of clinical research. Clinical research must also be conducted in accordance with the WMA Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (https://www.wma.net/whatwe-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/). Clinical studies that do not meet the Helsinki Declaration will not be considered for publication.

For publication, human participants’ identifiable information, such as patients’ names, initials, hospital numbers, dates of birth, or other protected healthcare information, should not be disclosed. If you want to publish a facial photo of a subject, cover their eyes and delete information about the subject from radiographs. If it is not possible to cover the patient’s eyes, it can be published with the consent of the patient.

For animal participants, 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. In principle, it should be stated in the manuscript that the experimental process does not conflict with the ethics committee regulations of the research institute or the Animal Protection Act.

6. Statement of Informed Consent and Institutional Review Board Approval

Copies of written informed consent should be kept for studies involving human participants. For clinical studies with human participants, there should be a certificate, an agreement, or approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the institution with which the author is affiliated. If necessary, the editor or reviewers may request copies of these documents to resolve questions about IRB approval and study conduct. In addition, for studies conducted with human participants, the method by which informed consent was obtained from the participants should be stated in the Methods section.

7. Registration of Clinical Trial Research

It is recommended that any research that deals with a clinical trial be registered with a primary national clinical trial registration site, such as http://cris.nih.go.kr, or other sites accredited by the World Health Organization as listed at http://www.who.int/ictrp/en/ or ClinicalTrial.gov (https://clinicaltrials.gov), a service of the US National Institutes of Health.

8. Process for the Management of the Research and Publication Misconduct

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 issue 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 (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/). The discussions and decisions concerning the suspected cases will be carried out by the Editorial Board. For other related matters, the regulations of the Jeju National University Research Ethics Committee apply.

9. Editorial Responsibilities

The Editorial Board will continuously work to monitor and safeguard the following publication ethics: guidelines for retracting articles; maintaining the integrity of academic records; precluding 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: to reject and accept articles; to avoid any conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject or accept; to promote the publication of corrections or retractions when errors are found; and to preserve the anonymity of reviewers.

10. Data Sharing Statement

We adopt the ICMJE Recommendations for data sharing statement policy (http://icmje.org/icmjerecommendations.pdf). Authors may refer to the editorial, “Data Sharing statements for Clinical Trials: A Requirement of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors,” in JKMS vol. 32, no. 7:1051-1053 (https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2017.32.7.1051).