Ethical Guidelines for Publishing in the Annals of Geriatric Medicine and Research.

Annals of Geriatric Medicine and Research (AGMR) aims to provide new information on clinical and biological science and issues on policymaking for older adults. This article summarizes the ethical guidelines of AGMR based on relevant recommendations from the International Standards for Editors and Authors, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. All authors whose articles are to be published in AGMR should refer to these guidelines, which will mention that authors need to comply with the guidelines. The editorial board will also continuously monitor our responsibilities regarding ethical publishing. The combined efforts of authors, reviewers, and editors will help maintain the scientific excellence of AGMR.

INTRODUCTION

Annals of Geriatric Medicine and Research (AGMR) is the official journal of the Korean Geriatrics Society and the Korean Society for Gerontology. This peer-reviewed journal aims to provide new information on clinical and biological sciences and issues regarding policymaking for older adults.1) AGMR is the leading journal of geriatrics and gerontology in Korea, one of the world’s fastest-aging countries.2,3) As population aging has become a dominant demographic trend in East Asian countries, AGMR has also been rapidly growing and establishing its presence in this region.4) AGMR has been publishing articles in English since 2016; since that time, the general volume of submissions has been increasing, and the journal currently has nearly 100% citation growth annually.1)

As the journal continues to grow and receive increasing numbers of submissions every year, the editors seek to continuously examine and revise publication guidelines for authors to maintain credibility, transparency of scientific publications, and minimize potential adverse issues from conflicts of interest. In addition, as with increasing emphasis on publication ethics, it is our duty to meet those standards for high-quality scientific publications. Therefore, to strengthen ethical publishing and encourage authors to adhere to ethical policies, we have established publication guidelines that authors should comply with when submitting their manuscripts to AGMR. These guidelines are based on the International Standards for Editors and Authors by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE),5) the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations,6) and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing—a joint statement by the COPE, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA).7)

GUIDELINES

All authors whose articles are to be published in AGMR should reference these guidelines, which will indicate the authors’ compliance with the following guidelines.

Author’s Responsibility

All authors have agreed to the submission of this manuscript and are responsible for its content. All authors have agreed that the corresponding author is the primary authority regarding the submitted manuscript.

Authorship

Authorship credit is granted to individuals who contributed to the study design or data acquisition and analysis, who made substantial contributions to manuscript writing and revision, who approved the final version of the manuscript to be published, and who agreed to be accountable for all the work related to the manuscript.

All persons who have made considerable efforts but are not eligible to be authors should be named in the Acknowledgments section of the article.

Copyright

All authors must sign the copyright transfer agreement form to ensure that all published papers are the permanent property of the Korean Geriatrics Society. Therefore, the Korean Geriatrics Society is responsible for protecting manuscripts from misappropriation. Permission from the Korean Geriatrics Society must be obtained for any commercial use of the materials.

Statements of Human and Animal Rights

Clinical studies must comply with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Human subjects have the right to privacy and should not be identifiable; thus, any protected healthcare information should not be disclosed. However, if a patient’s personal information is needed as scientific data for publication, written consent from the patient or his or her guardian must be obtained. In the case of altering characteristics to protect anonymity, as in genetic pedigrees, authors should indicate that such alterations do not affect any scientific finding.

For animal subjects, research should be performed ethically and should be based on the National or Institutional Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.

Statement of Informed Consent and Institutional Approval

Clinical studies should be approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the author’s affiliated institution. In addition, a statement regarding the informed consent of human subjects should be retained. For studies involving animal subjects, approval is required by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). These documents may be requested for IRB/IACUC approval and study conduct.

Conflicts of Interest and Funding Sources

All authors should describe any conflicts of interest that may impact data collection, interpretation, or presentation. Examples include financial and personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion. All funds and grant numbers should be stated in the Acknowledgment section. If no conflict of interest exists, state “The researcher(s) claim(s) no conflicts of interest.” AGMR has adopted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest (http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/).

Data Sharing and Reproducibility

If the authors wish to share data in a publicly accessible repository, they should include a link to the digital object identifier (DOI) in the text of the manuscript. For clinical trials, AGMR accepts the ICMJE Recommendations for the data sharing statement policy. Authors may refer to the editorial, “Data sharing statements for clinical trials: a requirement of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors,” in the Journal of Korean Medical Science.8)

Exclusive Publication Statement

The submitted manuscript must be original and must not be published in its entirety or in part elsewhere. If the paper is considered a duplicate or redundant, the author should notify AGMR and submit copies of the duplicate or redundant material to the editorial committee before submission, and such work should be a reference in the new paper.

Secondary Publication

Republishing manuscripts is possible if they satisfy the conditions for secondary publication in the ICMJE Recommendations (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf).

Post-publication Discussion and Corrections

Any post-publication discussion and corrections can be performed by sending a letter to the editor at https://www.e-agmr.org/about/contact.php. If a correction or post-publication discussion is necessary, AGMR will follow the ICMJE Recommendation for Corrections, Retractions, Republications, and Version Control available at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/corrections-and-version-control.html.

Policy on Ethical Oversight

For suspected cases of research or publication misconduct (fabricated data, plagiarism, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflict of interest, misappropriation of the ideas of others, ethical problems with the submitted manuscript, and inappropriate behavior in relation to misconduct), the editorial board will base its decision by following the flowchart provided by the COPE (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts).

CONCLUSION

The guidelines mentioned above are specifically organized for authors who wish to publish manuscripts in AGMR. These guidelines aim to maintain the ethical standards of publications while the journal has been experiencing substantial quantitative growth. While reviewers safeguard the scientific soundness of manuscripts, the editorial board also continuously monitors our responsibilities regarding ethical publishing. The combined efforts of the authors, reviewers, and editors will help to maintain the scientific excellence of AGMR.