Ethical Policies

Ethical Policies of the BMB Reports

Article 1 (Purpose)

The purpose of these regulations is to establish and observe research ethics for research papers submitted to the Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility.

Article 2 (Researcher Ethics)

1. Researchers should be honest about their research. Re-searchers need to have a high ethical standard at all times during the research, in areas such as receiving funds for research, publishing research results, and fairly compensat-ing participants. More specifically, research papers that are forged, altered, plagiarized, overlapped, and/or dishonest cannot be published either online or in journals and are not eligible for research funds.

1. 1) Forgery, Alteration, Plagiarism
   • (1) Forgery: making up data or research results that do not exist.
   • (2) Alteration: fabricating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing/deleting research results intentionally to distort research contents or results.
   • (3) Plagiarism: using others’ ideas, research (process and contents), and/or results without proper authorization or citation.


2. 2) Overlapped Publication and Dishonest Research
   • (1) Publishing research papers that contain the same or similar contents to that which were/are published in other journals or books, or publishing research papers that are/were published in other journals or books.
   • (2) Multiple or duplicate publication can be allowed after a review from the Publication Council, if it is qualified under the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (http://www.icmje. org).
   • (3) Wrongful Research Paper Author Indication: either refusing to grant a qualification to publish (without proper reasons) to a person who contributed to science and/or technology with his/her research contents or results, or granting qualification to publish to a person who did not contribute to science and/or technology because of a wish to express appreciation or honor.

2. If a research object is human, researchers should follow the Declaration of Helsinki (http://www.wma.net). Details are as follows:

1. (1) Researchers should fully explain the purpose and methods of research as well as any possible mental and physical harm that could occur during research par-ticipation. If he/she is to publish the research results, he/she has to indicate that on the paper.
2. (2) Researchers cannot write down participants’ names or initials. In case of possible disclosure of participants’ identification through pictures of face or anything similar, researchers should receive written informed consent from the participants or their guardians.
3. (3) Researchers should receive an approval from Institu-tional Review Board and indicate it on the paper if one wishes to publish the research results.
4. (4) Any research that deals with clinical trial should be registered to the primary national clinical trial regis-tration site such as http://ncrc.cdc.go.kr/cris, or other sites accredited by WHO or International Committee of Medical Journal Editor.

3. If a research object is animal, researchers should follow these general rules:

1. (1) Researchers should indicate what he/she did to mini-mize the pain or discomfort that experiment subjects went through.
2. (2) Researchers should indicate that he/she did not violate NIH guideline (NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals).
3. (3) When necessary, the Society can ask for a written con-sent and an approval letter issued by Animal Ethics Committee.

4. Conflict of interests or financial support should be indicated on the paper.

Article 3 (Research Ethics Council)

1. For consideration of research ethics and related issues, the Journal operates a Research Ethics Council (the Council hereafter).
2. Chairperson of the Publication Committee of Korean So-ciety of Neurogastroenterology and Motility (KSNM) is the Chair of the Council. The constitution of the Council is decided by the Publication Committee of KSNM.
3. Operation of the Council follows separate regulations decided by the Council.

Article 4 (Role of the Council)

The roles of the Research Ethics Council are as follows.

1. The Council reviews research ethics issued from the publication of the Journal and related papers (original articles, review articles, and others).
2. The Council reviews any forgery, alteration, plagiarism, wrongful research paper author indication, or multiple or duplicate publication allegations for published papers and brings the results to the Executive Committee of KSNM.

Article 5 (Administration of Research Ethics Violation)

1. When research ethics violations occur, the chair of the Council should call a meeting immediately to review the situation, and report the results to the executive committee.
2. The Council should keep any investigation of ethics violations confidential, and should not oppose the interests of the Journal.
3. Upon completion of the investigation, the Council decides the level of punishment appropriate for the violator (author or corresponding author) based on the level of violation - the Council can prohibit publication to the Journal for a specified time or exclude the violator permanently.
4. The Council keeps a record of the investigation and the re-sults of ethical misconduct.
5. f the Council confirms ethical misconduct in a paper, the executive committee announces the case and disapproves the publication of the paper in the Journal. If the paper is already published in the Journal, the paper will be deleted from the paper list of the Journal and this will be announced to the members of the Journal, as well as to related academic institutions.

Article 6

Any other cases that are not indicated in this regulation should follow the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication (http://www.icmje.org).