version 2024.11

For the policies on the 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.

Table of Contents

• Research ethics
• Conflict of Interest
• Authorship
• Redundant Publication and Plagiarism
• AI Used in Manuscript
• Clinical Trials
• How the journal will handle complaints and appeals
• Journal's policy on ethical oversight
• Journal's options for post-publication discussions and corrections

Research ethics

All of the manuscripts should be prepared based on strict observation of research and publication ethics guidelines recommended by the Council of Science Editors (https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, https://www.icmje.org/), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME, https://www.wame.org/), and the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE, https://www.kamje.or.kr/en/main_en). All studies involving human subjects or human data must be reviewed and approved by a responsible Institutional Review Board (IRB). Please refer to the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/) for all investigations involving human materials. Animal experiments also should be reviewed by an appropriate committee (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, IACUC) for the care and use of animals. Also studies with pathogens requiring a high degree of biosafety should pass review of a relevant committee (Institutional Biosafety Committee, IBC). The approval should be described in the Methods section. For studies of humans including case reports, state whether informed consents were obtained from the study participants. The editor of AOEM may request submission of copies of informed consents from human subjects in clinical studies or IRB approval documents. The AOEM will follow the guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org/) for settlement of any misconduct.

Conflict of Interest

The corresponding author of an article is asked to inform the Editor of the authors' potential conflicts of interest possibly influencing the research or interpretation of data. A potential conflict of interest should be disclosed in the cover letter even when the authors are confident that their judgments have not been influenced in preparing the manuscript. Such conflicts may include financial support or private connections to pharmaceutical companies, political pressure from interest groups, or academic problems. Disclosure form shall be same with ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest (https://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/). The Editor will decide whether the information on the conflict should be included in the published paper. In particular, all sources of funding for a study should be explicitly stated. The AOEM asks referees to let its Editor know of any conflict of interest before reviewing a particular manuscript.

Authorship

The AOEM follows the recommendations for authorship by the ICMJE, 2017 (https://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) and Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals 2nd Edition (KAMJE, 2013, https://www.kamje.or.kr/board/view?b_name=bo_publication&bo_id=7&per_page=). Authorship credit should be based on 1) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; 2) Drafting the work 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. Authors should meet conditions of 1, 2, 3, and 4. In addition, an author should be accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done and should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. Authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their coauthors. All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged as contributors not be authors. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criterion #2 or 3. Therefore, all individuals who meet the first criterion should have the opportunity to participate in the review, drafting, and final approval of the manuscript.

A corresponding author should be designated when there are two or more authors. The corresponding author is primarily responsible for all issues to the editor and audience.

When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and identify all individual authors as well as the group name. Journals generally list other members of the group in the Acknowledgments. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship.

Redundant Publication and Plagiarism

Redundant publication is defined as “reporting (publishing or attempting to publish) substantially the same work more than once, without attribution of the original source(s)”. Characteristics of reports that are substantially similar include the following: (a) “at least one of the authors must be common to all reports (if there are no common authors, it is more likely plagiarism than redundant publication),” (b) “the subjects or study populations are the same or overlapped,” (c) “the methodology is typically identical or nearly so,” and (d) “the results and their interpretation generally vary little, if at all.”

When submitting a manuscript, authors should include a letter informing the editor of any potential overlap with other already published material or material being evaluated for publication and should also state how the manuscript submitted to AOEM differs substantially from other materials. If all or part of your study population was previously reported, this should be mentioned in the Methods, with citation of the appropriate reference(s). Submitted manuscripts are screened for possible plagiarism or duplicate publication by Similarity Check using iThenticate upon arrival. If plagiarism or duplicate publication is detected, the manuscripts may be rejected, the authors will be announced in the journal, and their institutions will be informed. There will also be penalties for the authors. AOEM will take action against plagiarism in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

AI Used in Manuscript

AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements.

Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Acknowledgment section the following:

• • Name of the AI software platform, program, or tool
• • Version and extension numbers
• • Manufacturer
• • Date(s) of use
• • A brief description of how the AI was used and on what portions of the manuscript or content
• • Confirmation that the author(s) take responsibility for the integrity of the content generated Note this guidance does not apply to basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references, and similar.

Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.

Clinical Trials

Obligation to register

Clinical trial defined as “any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention and comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome” should be registered to the primary registry to be prior publication. AOEM accepts the registration in any of the primary registries that participate in the WHO International Clinical Trials Portal (http://www.who.int/ictrp/en/), NIH ClinicalTrials.gov (https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/), ISRCTN Resister (www.ISRCTN.org), or the Clinical Research Information Service (CRIS), Korea CDC (https://cris.hih.go.kr/cris/index.jsp). The clinical trial registration number shall be published at the end of the abstract.

Data sharing statement

AOEM accepts the ICMJE Recommendations for data sharing statement policy (https://icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf). All manuscripts reporting clinical trial results should submit a data sharing statement following the ICMJE guidelines from 1 July 2018.

How the journal will handle complaints and appeals

The policy of the journal is primarily aimed at protecting the authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher of the journal. If not described below, the process of handling complaints and appeals follows the guidelines of the Committee of Publication Ethics available from: https://publicationethics.org/appeals

• • Who complains or makes an appeal?: Submitters, authors, reviewers, and readers may register complaints and appeals in a variety of cases as follows: falsification, fabrication, plagiarism, duplicate publication, authorship dispute, conflict of interest, ethical treatment of animals, informed consent, bias or unfair/inappropriate competitive acts, copyright, stolen data, defamation, and legal problem. If any individuals or institutions want to inform the cases, they can send a letter to editor. For the complaints or appeals, concrete data with answers to all factual questions (who, when, where, what, how, why) should be provided.
• • the complaints or appeals, concrete data with answers to appeals?: The Editor or Editorial Board is responsible for them.
• • What may be the consequence of remedy?: It depends on the type or degree of misconduct. The consequence of resolution will follow the guidelines of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE).

Journal's policy on ethical oversight

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 will discuss the suspected cases and reach a decision. We will not hesitate to publish errata, corrigenda, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.

Journal's options for post-publication discussions and corrections

The post-publication discussion is available through letter to editor. If any readers have a concern on any articles published, they can submit letter to editor on the articles. If there founds any errors or mistakes in the article, it can be corrected through errata, corrigenda, or retraction.