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For the policies on research and publication ethics not stated in the Instructions, Guidelines on Good Publication (https://publicationethics.org/) or Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals (https://kamje.or.kr/) can be applied.
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 (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/author-responsibilities–conflicts-of-interest.html). 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/policy). 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.
Copies of written informed consents should be kept for studies on human subjects. For the clinical studies with human subjects, there should be a certificate, an agreement, or the approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the author’s affiliated institution. If necessary, the editor or reviewers may request copies of these documents to resolve questions about IRB approval and study conduct.
Any research that deals with a clinical trial should be registered with the primary national clinical trial registry site such as the Korea Clinical Research Information Service (CRiS, https://cris.nih.go.kr), other primary national registry sites accredited by the World Health Organization (https://www.who.int/clinical-trials-registry-platform) or ClinicalTrials.gov (https://clinicaltrials.gov/), a service of the United States National Institutes of Health.
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; 3) final approval of the version to be published, and 4) agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. The authors should meet these 4 conditions. If the number of authors is equal to or greater than 2, there should be a list of each author’s role in the submitted paper. The description of co-first authors or co-corresponding authors is also accepted if the corresponding author believes that such roles existed in contributing to the manuscript. The authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process for other submitters’ manuscripts
All submitted manuscripts should be original and should not be in consideration by other scientific journals for publication. Any part of the accepted manuscript should not be duplicated in any other scientific journal without permission of the Editorial Board, although the figures and tables can be used freely if the original source is verified according to the Creative Commons Attribution License. It is mandatory for all authors to resolve any copyright issues when citing a figure or table from other journal that is not open access.
It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the condition of secondary publication of the “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals” by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), available from https://icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/overlapping-publications.html. These are:
The authors have received approval from the editors of both journals (the editor concerned with the secondary publication must have access to the primary version).
The priority for the primary publication is respected by a publication interval negotiated by 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 secondary publication should indicate that it is a secondary publication (complete or abridged republication or translation) of a primary publication.
The secondary publication does not modify the original work’s content in a way that would create a derivative (changes should be limited to format or details necessary to target a different audience).
Full attribution is given to the original work and it is not misrepresented as new original content.
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 problem discovered 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 (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts). The Editorial Board of JDL will discuss the suspected cases and reach a decision. JDL will not hesitate to publish errata, corrigenda, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.