Publication Ethics
Japanese Version is Here
Authorship
All individuals who contributed significantly to the research work, such as its conception, design, execution, analysis, or interpretation of the work, and those involved in drafting, reviewing, or revising an article for intellectual content should be listed as co-authors. Other individuals who contributed valuably to the work should be included in the Acknowledgments section.
Co-authors should take appropriate responsibility for an article and need to agree on which author will be designated as the corresponding author. The corresponding author is solely responsible for communicating with the journal and is also responsible for obtaining the approval of the final version of the article from the co-authors.
Prohibition of Duplicate Contributions
It is forbidden to submit to another journal a manuscript identical or very similar in content to one that has already been published in or submitted to the JMSJ. It is similarly forbidden to submit to the JMSJ a manuscript that has already been published in or submitted to another journal. Doctoral and master’s theses are not subject to duplicate contributions.
Data Retention and Citation of Sources
Authors should be prepared to retain research data for a reasonable amount of time after publication to allow for analysis and review by other researchers.
If the authors have used data, research results, graphics, tables, summaries, etc. in other sources, the authors should cite the original sources appropriately or get permission from the other sources where necessary.
Plagiarism is defined as copy or replication of a substantial part of another source without attribution. Other ideas and/or processes obtained privately must not be used without explicitly acknowledging the original authors and sources. Plagiarism is serious and unethical behavior that is never acceptable.
Peer Review Process
Peer review is scientific assessment made by experts to assist the editor in editorial decisions to accept, reject, or revise a submitted manuscript. The reviewers give scientific evaluations on the field, contribution, novelty, reliability, and understandability of a manuscript.
The editor tries to identify conflicts of interest in order to select reviewers for an unbiased scientific review, and the reviewers should disclose any conflict of interest to the editor. The names of the reviewers are not shared with the authors. A manuscript submitted to the JMSJ is treated as a confidential document, and the reviewers must not share information on a manuscript with anyone except for the editor. Information or ideas obtained through peer review must kept confidential and must not be used in the editor’s and reviewers’ own research.
Conflict of Interest
On behalf of all the authors, the corresponding author has the responsibility to disclose any conflicts of interest, such as professional relationship, employment, patent licenses, etc., to the editor for submitting the manuscript. All funding sources should be credited in the Acknowledgements in the manuscript.
The reviewers are requested to inform the potentially conflicting interests to the editor to provide unbiased assessment of the scientific merit of the manuscript. The editor and reviewers must understand that violating confidentiality and failing to disclose conflicts of interest to the editor are unethical.
Corrections and Retractions
An Erratum will be issued when it is necessary to correct errors or omissions that affect the scientific integrity of the published article. The published article is not removed, but a notice of erratum is given.
The published article may be retracted when the article falls into the following cases.
– Major errors or misconducts invalidate the conclusions of the article.
– The findings have previously published elsewhere without proper referencing.
– There are violations of publication or research ethics, such as plagiarism, inappropriate authorship, etc.
When the editors or publisher may conclude that the retraction is appropriate, a retraction notice with the reasons will be issued.
