Ethical considerations regarding article submission

Submission of a manuscript to JEBHM will be taken to indicate that

• the content of the manuscript is original and that it has not been published or accepted for publication elsewhere, either in whole or in part, other than as short abstracts, communications or conference proceedings;
• no part of the manuscript is currently under consideration for publication elsewhere;
• all authors have seen and approved the final version of the submitted paper;
• authors have, if necessary, obtained permission to publish from their employers or institutions;
• approvals are held from any persons acknowledged, or cited as having provided personal communication;
• permission has been obtained to use any copyrighted material, such as reproducing a figure from another article, in print and electronic forms, and that the source of the material has been acknowledged; and
• images have not been manipulated outside the CLIP principles.

Allegations that these principles have not been adhered to will be investigated according to COPE workflows.

Conflicts of interest: Authors

JEBHM defines a conflict of interest as a situation in which someone cannot make an objective decision because of a real or perceived bias.

The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to the following: patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company.

The existence of a conflict of interest for an author does not necessarily preclude publication.

If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.

Conflicts of interest: Editorial Team

The full JEBHM editorial team are expected to adhere to a conflict of interest code of conduct, as follows:

Editors and Senior Editors will refrain from involvement in editorial activities for work they have been involved in as an author, or for work from an organisation of which they are an employee, advisor, shareholder or have some other close relationship with.

Editors and Senior Editors will always declare their conflicts of interest when acting as an author of editorials or other pieces in the journal as is required for other authors.

Editors and Senior Editors will declare a conflict of interest if invited to oversee or otherwise contribute to the review of a submitted paper.

For individual articles undergoing peer review, where a conflict of interest exists within the editorial team, the Editor will excuse themselves from handling the manuscript.

Funding

Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation.

For papers where no conflicts of interest or funding are declared, a default statement is added to that paper.

Authorship

The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the work and how. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria:

1. Have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. Been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
3. Given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
4. Agreed 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.

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section (for example, to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support). Prior to submitting the article all authors should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript.

Dual publication and plagiarism

JEBHM’s Senior Editors, Editors and peer reviewers play an important role in identifying misconduct and are trained to identify possible data fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, image manipulation, unethical research, biased reporting, authorship abuse, redundant or duplicate publication, and undeclared conflicts of interest.

Data storage

The journal expects authors to keep the data used in their publication for 10 years, and it reserves the right to ask authors for all of their data in cases of allegations research or publication misconduct.

Retractions, corrections and expressions of concern

Corrections, retractions and expressions of concern are published because the journal has an obligation to ensure the accuracy of the research it publishes.

Corrections, retractions and expressions of concern are published in a timely fashion, after a thorough, timely, and fair investigation; they are linked to the original article and fully accessible (never behind paywalls).

Withdrawing articles

The practice of removal, deletion or obscuring of an article or part of a JEBHM article is limited to the following circumstances:

• Legal infringements, defamation, or other legal limitations; or
• False or inaccurate data, especially those that if acted upon could pose a serious health risk.

Even in these circumstances, a retraction statement will be published to ensure that bibliographic information about the removed article is retained for the scientific record, and an explanation will be given about the circumstances of removal or withdrawal.

Ethical standards during peer review

• Respect the confidentiality of peer review, and not discuss the manuscript or contact the authors or any other people about the manuscript.
• Declare any conflicts of interest.
• Provide an objective and constructive explanation for their recommendation.
• Not allow their decision on a manuscript to be influenced by its origin or authorship.
• Avoid requesting that the author cites the peer reviewer's own papers, unless there is a strong scholarly rationale for this.
• Not reproduce information or any part of the manuscript under review in any of their own work prior to publication by the authors.
• Only agree to peer review manuscripts within their expertise and within a reasonable timeframe.
• Not delay publication.
• Not use insulting, hostile, or defamatory language.
• Destroy submitted manuscripts and all related material after they have reviewed them.

Appealing editorial decisions

To appeal an editorial decision to reject your article, please contact the journal via the editorial office, mose79@kku.ac.kr. Once a decision on an appeal is made by the Editor-in-Chief, this decision is final.

Animal and human studies

For manuscripts reporting studies using laboratory animals, a statement identifying the ethics committee that approved the study and confirmation that the study conforms to recognized standards is required. Authors should state whether experiments were performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals.

For manuscripts reporting medical studies that involve human participants, a statement identifying the ethics committee that approved the study and confirmation that the study conforms to recognized standards is required.

Images and information from individual participants will only be published where the authors have obtained the individual's free prior informed consent. Authors do not need to provide a copy of the consent form to the publisher; however, in signing the author license to publish, authors are required to confirm that consent has been obtained.