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J Korean Acad Nurs : Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing

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Research and publication ethics

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Editorial policy

1. Research Ethics

The policies on research and publication ethics of the journal follow the guidelines set by the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, http://publicationethics.org/), the Ministry of Education, and the National Research Foundation of Korea with respect to the settlement of any misconduct.

All manuscripts should be prepared in strict accordance with the research and publication ethics guidelines recommended by the Council of Science Editors (CSE, http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, http://www.icmje.org/), and the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE, http://www.kamje.or.kr/).

The author(s) must be able to state that research involving humans or animals has been approved by the responsible IRB and conducted in accordance with accepted national and international standards. JKAN will follow the guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, http://publicationethics.org/) to resolve any misconduct. All studies involving human subjects or data must be reviewed and approved by a responsible research ethics committee or institutional review board (IRB). Please refer to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-ofhelsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-humansubjects/) for all investigations involving human subjects and materials. For human studies, including case reports, the author(s) must state whether informed consent was obtained from the study participants. The editor of the journal may request the submission of copies of informed consent received from human subjects in clinical studies, or IRB approval documents. Animal experiments should also be reviewed by an appropriate committee (e.g., the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) for the care and use of animals. If the study is exempted from such approval, the basis of such an exemption and the regulatory framework should be described.

Submission Declaration: When submitting a manuscript, authors should include a letter informing the editor of any potential overlap with other previously published materials or materials being evaluated for publication and should also state how the manuscript submitted to JKAN differs substantially from previously published paper(s). If all or part of your patient population has been previously reported, this should be mentioned in the Methods section, along with citations to the appropriate reference(s).

Permissions: The authors obtain permission from copyright owners to use measurement tools for their studies. Permission to reproduce previously published material must also be obtained in writing from the copyright holder (usually the publisher) and acknowledged in the manuscript.

2. Conflict of Interest

The corresponding author of an article is asked to inform the Editor of the authors’ potential conflicts of interest that may have influenced the research or interpretation of data. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed on the title page and at the end of the main text, even if the authors are confident that their respective judgments have not been influenced when preparing the manuscript. Such conflicts may include financial support or private connections with pharmaceutical companies, political pressure from special interest groups, or academic problems. To address potential conflicts of interest, the disclosure form should be the same as the ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form (http://www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf). The Editor decides whether the information provided regarding conflicts of interest should be included in the published paper. All sources of funding for a study should be explicitly stated. JKAN asks the referees to inform the editor of any conflicts of interest before reviewing a particular manuscript. Editors who make final decisions regarding manuscripts should recuse themselves from making editorial decisions if they have relationships or activities that pose potential conflicts with the articles under consideration. Additionally, other editorial members who participate in editorial decisions must provide editors with a current description of their relationships and activities (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and recuse themselves from any decisions in which an interest that poses a potential conflict exists. The editorial staff must not use the information obtained by working on manuscripts for private gain.

3. Authorship

JKAN follows the recommendations for authorship set out by the ICMJE, 2023 (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf).

Authorship credit should be based on the following: 1) substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; 2) drafting the work or reviewing 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 to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Any designated author should meet all four criteria for authorship, and anyone who meets all four criteria should be identified as an author. The authors have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their coauthors. All other contributors not listed as authors should be mentioned in the Acknowledgements section. When a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation is submitted for publication, the first author should be awarded the degree and declare that the content is from the thesis or dissertation.

If there are two or more authors, the corresponding author should be designated. The corresponding author has the primary responsibility for addressing all issues with the editor and readership. Any comment by the corresponding author is regarded as the opinion of all co-authors. The corresponding author should confirm that all appropriate persons are listed as authors of the manuscript, and all coauthors should approve the final version to be published.

When a large, multicenter group conducts a study, the group should identify individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should indicate the preferred citation and identify all individual authors, as well as the group name. The journals generally list other members of the group that are not included as authors in the acknowledgments section. The acquisition of funding, data collection, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship.

These criteria are intended to maintain the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and take responsibility for the work. The authors are expected to carefully consider the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and to provide a definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. At the time of submission, all authors, including the order and lists of their names, must be confirmed. When submitting an article, all authors are requested to list the ORCID, which can be obtained from https://orcid.org.

Any addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made prior to the acceptance of the manuscript and only if approved by the editor. To request such a change, the editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason(s) for the change in the author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with any addition, removal, or rearrangement. In the case of the addition or removal of authors, there is a requirement for confirmation from the author being added or removed. Only in exceptional circumstances will the editor consider adding, deleting, or rearranging authors after the manuscript has been accepted. If the editor considers this request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has been published online, any request approved by the editor will result in a corrigendum.

4. Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies

At submission, authors are required to disclose whether they utilized artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies, such as Large Language Models (LLMs), chatbots, or image creators, in the preparation of their manuscript. Authors must detail how these AI-support technologies were used in both the cover letter and the appropriate section of the submitted manuscript. For instance, if AI was used for writing assistance, this should be described in the acknowledgments section. If AI was used for data collection, analysis, or figure generation, authors should describe this use in the methods section. Chatbots (such as ChatGPT) should not be listed as authors because they cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work—responsibilities required for authorship. Therefore, authors are responsible for any submitted materials that involve the use of AIassisted technologies. Authors should thoroughly review and edit any AI-generated output, as it may appear authoritative but could be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Additionally, authors must ensure appropriate attribution of all quoted material, including full citations, and must not list AI or AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author.

5. Redundant Publication and Plagiarism

Redundant publication (duplication) 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;” (d) “The results and their interpretation generally vary little, if at all.”

The authors should not submit the same research to more than one journal and should not publish the manuscript in different languages. If the authors wish to pursue secondary publication of the manuscript in another language, they should obtain approval from the editors-inchief of both related journals. The editorial board determines the nature and degree of duplicate publications or submissions of the manuscript.

Plagiarism refers to the appropriation of another person’s ideas, research processes, results, or texts. This included using previously published material or any other author without citing a reference. The authors are required to submit original manuscripts and confirm that they have cited or quoted others’ ideas and texts appropriately and accurately.

6. Process for Managing Publication Malpractice

When reviewers or readers suspect publication malpractice, such as fabrication, falsification, salami slicing, plagiarism, or simultaneous/ duplicate publication, inappropriate 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 process of resolution will be initiated following the flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The ethics committee will discuss and adjudicate cases of suspected publication malpractice, as well as complaints and appeals to editors.


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