Ethics Policies
The journal upholds the highest standards in scholarly publishing.
Before submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure that they have read and complied with the journal’s policies. The journal reserves the right to reject without review or retract any manuscript that the Editor-in-Chief believes may not comply with these policies.
The responsibilities of the journal’s authors, editors, reviewers, and publisher regarding research and publication ethics are described in full below.
Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript has not been previously published (in any language), is not in press, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Authors must inform the editors if any related manuscripts are under consideration, in press, or published elsewhere, or if the information within the manuscript has been summarized and published in an Abstract (e.g., conference abstract book). The availability of a manuscript on a publicly accessible preprint server does not constitute prior publication (see ‘Preprints’).
If authors choose to submit their manuscript elsewhere before a final decision has been made on its suitability for publication in the journal, they should first withdraw it from FMJ.
Authors are responsible for complying with best practices in publication ethics, specifically regarding authorship, dual publication, plagiarism, figure manipulation, and competing interests. Submission of a manuscript to the journal implies that all authors have approved it, warrant it is factual, have agreed to its submission, and have the right to publish it.
The journal welcomes manuscript submissions from authors based anywhere in the world.
Originality
The journal follows the policy of the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity (ORI), which defines plagiarism as: “the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work”. The journal also adopts the ORI definition that “the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property includes the unauthorized use of ideas or unique methods obtained by a privileged communication, such as a grant or manuscript review. Substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work means the unattributed verbatim or nearly verbatim copying of sentences and paragraphs which materially mislead the ordinary reader regarding the contributions of the author.”
The journal uses the Crossref Similarity Check by iThenticate to screen all submissions. Any manuscript with an unacceptable level of unoriginal material may be rejected or retracted at the Editors’ discretion.
Duplicate submission is submitting essentially the same research paper as one that has already been published or submitted to another journal. The editors reserve the right to reject or retract any manuscript that is believed to be a duplicate submission.
Preprints
To support the wide dissemination of research, the journal encourages authors to post their research manuscripts on community-recognized preprint servers, either before or alongside submission to the journal. This policy applies only to the original version of a manuscript that describes primary research. Any version of a manuscript that has been revised in response to reviewers’ comments, accepted for publication, or published in the journal should not be posted on a preprint server. Instead, forward links to the published manuscript may be posted on the preprint server. Authors should retain copyright in their work when posting to a preprint server.
Scooping
When assessing the novelty of a manuscript submitted to the journal, the editors will not be influenced by other manuscripts that are posted on community-recognized preprint servers after the date of submission to FMJ (or after the date of posting on a preprint server, if the manuscript is submitted to the journal within 3 months).
Authorship
Submission to the journal implies that all authors have seen and approved the author list. Changes to the author list after manuscript submission – such as the insertion or removal of author names or a rearrangement of author order – must be approved by all authors and the editor. No changes to the authorship list or order are allowed after a manuscript is accepted for publication.
Authors are those who contributed substantially to conceiving and designing the study; acquiring the data; analyzing and interpreting the data; performing statistical analysis; handling funding and supervision; providing materials, patients, or resources; drafting the manuscript; making critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content; searching relevant literature; or other relevant areas for the manuscript completion. The nature of each author’s contribution should be specified when prompted by the manuscript tracking system during the submission process.
Image integrity
Authors may digitally manipulate or process images, but only if the adjustments are kept to a minimum, are applied to the entire image, meet the relevant community standards, and are clearly described in the manuscript. All images in a manuscript must accurately reflect the original data on which they are based. Authors must not move, remove, add, or enhance individual parts of an image. The editors reserve the right to request original, unprocessed images from the authors. Failure to provide requested images may result in a manuscript being rejected or retracted.
Reproducing copyrighted material
If a manuscript includes material that is not under the authors’ own copyright, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) to reproduce it.
If a manuscript includes previously published material, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright owners and the publisher of the original work to reproduce it as relevant to the copyright or licensing status of the work. The authors must cite the original work in their manuscript.
Copies of all reproduction permissions must be included with the manuscript when it is first submitted.
Availability of data and materials
Authors must disclose the source of publicly available data and materials, such as public repositories or commercial manufacturers, by including accession numbers or company details in their manuscript, as appropriate.
Authors may make their own data and materials available by including in their manuscript link(s) to relevant community-recognized public databases or digital repositories. All data sets must be made available in full to the editors and reviewers during the peer review process and must be made publicly available by the date of publication. Authors commit to preserving their data sets for at least 3 years from the date of publication in the journal.
The journal encourages authors to grant reasonable requests from colleagues to share any data, materials, and experimental protocols described in their manuscript.
Animal/human experimentation
Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving humans or materials derived from humans must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki and any guidelines approved by the authors’ institutions. Where relevant, the authors must include a statement in their manuscript that describes the procedures for obtaining informed consent from participants regarding participation in the research and publication of the research.
Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving animals or materials derived from animals must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the guidelines approved by the authors’ institution(s).
Publication of patient information
Written informed consent for publication of personal information of an identifiable living patient (e.g., in case reports) must be obtained from the patient or their parent or guardian as appropriate. If the patient is deceased, consent from the family or guardian is required. Please use the journal’s consent form. The authors must store the signed consent form securely. The Editorial Board has the right to request supporting documentation if necessary, which will be treated confidentially.
Authors are responsible for anonymizing patient data as much as possible. In cases where information is completely anonymized, patient consent may not be required, but the final decision on the need for consent to publish remains with the Editorial Board. Except in cases where it is not necessary to obtain consent from patients or their family, authors must state at an appropriate place within the manuscript text that patient consent has been obtained.
Specimen collection
Manuscripts describing the collection of archaeological, geological, paleontological, or wildlife specimens or samples should include detailed information on their provenance and collection methods. Authors must include a statement in their manuscript describing the relevant ethics guidelines, local laws, and collection permits under which the research was conducted.
Clinical trial registration
The journal recommends that all clinical trials are registered in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. Manuscripts describing clinical trials must include the registration number of the trial and the name of the trial registry.
Reporting guidelines
The journal requires authors to follow the relevant guidelines for health research, such as the STROBE (for observational studies), CONSORT (for randomized controlled trials), and PRISMA statements (for systematic reviews and meta-analyses).
Author competing interests and conflicts of interest
In the interests of transparency, the journal requires all authors to declare any competing or conflicts of interest in relation to their submitted manuscript. A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived, or potential circumstances that could influence an author’s ability to conduct or report research impartially. Potential conflicts include (but are not limited to) competing commercial or financial interests, commercial affiliations, consulting roles, or ownership of stock or equity. A disclosure, or a statement to the effect that the authors have nothing to disclose, should appear at the end of the main text.
Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Acknowledgments section of their manuscript.
Confidentiality
The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. By submitting their manuscript to the journal, authors warrant that they will keep all correspondence about their manuscript (from the Editorial Office, editors, and reviewers) strictly confidential.
Research misconduct
By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors warrant that the manuscript and underlying research have not been fabricated, falsified, or plagiarized.
According to the Guidelines for Responding to Misconduct in Research released by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2014), fabrication is making up data or research results; falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes to change data or results obtained from research activities; and plagiarism is appropriating the ideas, analysis, analytical methods, data, research results, research paper(s), or words of other researchers without obtaining the permission of the researchers or giving appropriate credit (see also the ‘Originality’ section).
Self-archiving (Green Open Access) policy
Self-archiving, also known as Green Open Access, enables authors to deposit a copy of their manuscript in an online repository. The journal encourages authors of original research manuscripts to upload their article to an institutional or public repository immediately after publication in the journal within the conditions of the article’s CC BY 4.0 license.
Long-term digital archiving
J-STAGE preserves its full digital library, including FMJ, with Portico in a dark archive. In the event that the material becomes unavailable at J-STAGE, it will be released and made available by Portico.
Advertising policy
The journal’s main sources of income are its owner and publication charges. Any commercial considerations have no influence on editorial decision-making. In addition, operations in relation to advertising are handled independently of the Editorial Board.
