Annals of Geriatric Medicine and Research adheres to the research and publication ethics policies outlined in International Standards for Editors and Authors (http://publicationethics.org) and the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (http://icmje.org). Any studies involving human subject must comply with the principles of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Clinical research should be approved by the Institutional Review Board, as well through patient consent. A patient's personal information cannot be published in any form. However, if it is absolutely necessary to use a patient's personal information, the consent of the patient or his/her guardian will be needed before publishing. Animal studies should be performed in compliance with all relevant guidelines, observing the standards described in the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.

Cases that require editorial expressions of concern or retraction shall follow the COPE flowcharts available from: http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts. If correction is needed, it will follow the ICMJE Recommendation for Corrections, Retractions, Republications and Version Control available from: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/corrections-and-version-control.html as follows:

Statement of Informed Consent

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without an informed consent. Identifying information, including patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that a patient who is identifiable be shown the manuscript to be published.

Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, an informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note.

Policy on Ethical Oversight

When the Journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as falsification of data, plagiarism, improprieties of authorship, misappropriation of the ideas of others, violation of generally accepted research practices, material failure to comply with legislative and regulatory requirements affection research, inappropriate behavior in relation to misconduct, the resolving process will follow the flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The Editorial Board will discuss the suspected cases and reach a decision. We will not hesitate to publish errata, corrigenda, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.

World Association of Medical Editors gives a definition of scientific misconduct and useful overview of the following issues:

Falsification of data

This ranges from fabrication, the deceptive reporting of findings, and the omission of conflicting data to willful suppression and/or distortion of data.

Plagiarism

The appropriation of the language, ideas, or thoughts of another without crediting their true source—representing them as one’s own original work.

Improprieties of authorship

The improper assignment of credit, for example, by excluding others, presenting the same material in more than one publication, including individuals as authors who have not made a definite contribution to the work, and publishing or submitting multi-authored publications without the concurrence of all authors.

Misappropriation of the ideas of others

An important aspect of scholarly activity is the exchange of ideas among colleagues. Scholars can acquire novel ideas from others during the process of reviewing grant applications and manuscripts. However, the improper use of such information can constitute fraud. The wholesale appropriation of such material constitutes misconduct.

Violation of generally accepted research practices

This category includes serious deviation from accepted practices in proposing or carrying out research, the improper manipulation of experiments to obtain biased results, deceptive statistical or analytical manipulations, and the improper reporting of results.

Material failure to comply with legislative and regulatory requirements affecting research

This includes but is not limited to serious or substantial, repeated, and willful violations of local regulations and laws involving the use of funds, care of animals, human subjects, investigational drugs, recombinant products, new devices, or radioactive, biological, or chemical materials.

Inappropriate behavior in relation to misconduct

This includes unfounded or knowingly false accusations of misconduct, the failure to report known or suspected misconduct, the withholding of information relevant to a claim, and any kind of misconduct or retaliation against persons involved in an allegation or investigation.

Options for Post-publication Discussion and Corrections

The post-publication discussion is available through the letter to editor. If any readers have a concern on any articles published, they can submit the letter to editor on the articles. If any errors or mistakes in the article are found, it can be corrected through errata, corrigenda, or retraction.

Honest errors are a part of science and publishing and require publication of a correction when they are detected. Corrections are needed for errors of fact. Minimum standards are as follows: First, it shall publish a correction notice as soon as possible, detailing changes from and citing the original publication on both an electronic and numbered print page that is included in an electronic or a print Table of Contents to ensure proper indexing; Second, it shall post a new article version with details of the changes from the original version and the date(s) on which the changes were made through CrossMark; Third, it shall archive all prior versions of the article. This archive can be either directly accessible to readers; and Fourth, previous electronic versions shall prominently note that there are more recent versions of the article via CrossMark.

How the journal will handle complaints and appeals?

The policy of the journal is primarily aimed at protecting the authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher of the journal. If not described below, the process of handling complaints and appeals follows the guidelines of the Committee of Publication Ethics available from: https://publicationethics.org/appeals

Who complains or makes an appeal?

Submitters, authors, reviewers, and readers may register complaints and appeals in a variety of cases as follows: falsification, fabrication, plagiarism, duplicate publication, authorship dispute, conflict of interest, ethical treatment of animals, informed consent, bias or unfair/inappropriate competitive acts, copyright, stolen data, defamation, and legal problem. If any individuals or institutions want to inform the cases, they can send a letter to editor through http://www.e-agmr.org/about/contact.php. For the complaints or appeals, concrete data with answers to all factual questions (who, when, where, what, how, why) should be provided.

Who is responsible to resolve and handle complaints and appeals?

The Editor, Editorial Board, or Editorial Office is responsible for them.

What may be the consequence of remedy?

It depends on the type or degree of misconduct. The consequence of resolution will follow the guidelines of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE).

Exclusive Publication Statement

Manuscripts submitted to Annals of Geriatric Medicine and Research must be original or review papers not previously published and not being considered for publication elsewhere. Neither the whole—nor any part of the text or illustrations of an original paper—should be (or have been) published elsewhere. The original raw data must be available for review by the Editor if necessary.

Authorship

Every author listed in a manuscript must have been responsible for one of the following: (1) designing the study or carrying out the collection/evaluation of data; (2) making a substantial contribution to writing, changing, or improving the manuscript; (3) approving the final version to be published. Authors are responsible for replying to all questions asked by reviewers or editors that relate to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work. All persons who have made a substantial contribution, but who are not eligible as authors, should be named in the acknowledgments. Authors are expected to consider carefully the way authors should be listed and ordered before submitting their manuscripts, and to provide a definitive list of authors with their original submission.

Any addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made before the manuscript has been accepted—and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for requesting a change in the list of authors; and (b) written confirmation (by e-mail or letter) from all authors to say that they agree with the addition, removal, or rearrangement.

Conflict of Interest

All authors should disclose their conflicts of interest, i.e., (1) financial relationships (e.g., employment, consultancy, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony); (2) personal relationships; (3) academic competition; and (4) intellectual passion.

Funding Source

For each source of funds, both the research funder and the grant number should be listed in the acknowledgements. Even if no participating author has a conflict of interest to disclose, it is still necessary to include a disclosure statement in the manuscript text.