CrossCheck data of manuscripts submitted to Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons.

Research ethics is a major concern of modern researchers. In the past, it was a matter of the individual researcher's conscience, making it difficult to judge without comparison to or discussion with other researchers. However, since the rise of the internet, preventing unethical research conduct and publication has become a major problem for researchers as well as journal editors. A major ethical problem in journal publication is plagiarism. It was difficult to check the vast body of literature and discover plagiarism before the development of software able to perform this task. This software performs a comparative analysis and searches for plagiarism of previous publications.

All the works submitted to the Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (JKAOMS) are checked for similarity to previously published journals and books using the software "iThenticate" provided by CrossCheck on the Internet. The resulting similarity index from iThenticate is a text-based similarity report highlighting all parts of the submitted works found to be identical to previously published material1. JKAOMS has checked all submitted papers using iThenticate since late 2013, and provides the resulting similarity report to reviewers as a reference. JKAOMS checked the similarity index of all papers submitted in 2014 (n=94) and the mean was 17%. The similarity index of accepted papers was 13%, while the similarity index of rejected papers was 24%. The similarity index of "Original Articles" and "Case Reports" was 13% and 20%, respectively, suggesting a higher similarity index for case reports. Original articles and case reports had a mean similarity of 13% and 13%, whereas that of rejected original articles was 22% and that of rejected case reports was 30%.(Fig. 1) The reported similarity does not directly correlate with plagiarism, but high similarity can reflect unintentional plagiarism and/or negligence regarding citation. It is also that the similarity index of the rejected papers was significantly higher in the JKAOMS. The similarity index of experimental studies might be high even for papers with legitimate original content because of the experimental methods2; thus, authors should focus on citing carefully when describing experimental methods.

Fig. 1

The similarity of accepted and rejected original articles and case reports.

If the similarity index of submitted papers is higher than 50%, CrossCheck sends a warning message to the JKAOMS. In that case, the editor reviews the paper before the reviewer and most of these papers are rejected. It is important that you have to check similarity either individual directly or through the library of authors' institution before submission. These efforts may reduce misunderstandings regarding plagiarism resulting from unintentional mistakes and help protect the ethics of researchers.