The code of ethics for research and publishing, including conflicts of interest, written consent, rights of human and animal subjects, approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), copyright, simultaneous submission, and clinical trial registration, follows the guidelines given in Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals (http://kamje.or.kr/publishing_ethics.html) or “Ethical Guidelines on Good Publication (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines)” and in “Ethical Considerations in ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org/index.html).” All submitted manuscripts must be authentic and must not be previously published elsewhere or under consideration for publication in other journals. The TIP journal contents may be used as a reference for other materials, including journals under consideration for approval from the editor committee of TIP. When duplicate publication or plagiarism is discovered, 1) publishing of the relevant article is automatically rejected, 2) an official letter is sent to the head of the relevant institution or organization, 3) the author is subjected to a disciplinary action.

1. Author and Authorship

An author refers to an individual who has put actual intellectual contributions to the research and holds the authorship with academic, social, and financial influence. ICMJE recommends that the selection of authors should be based on the following criteria: 1) The author should have made substantial contribution to the practical conception and design of the research, as well as to the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data for the research; 2) The author should have written the first draft of the work or have made the revision on critically important intellectual content; 3) The author should be responsible for the final approval of the version to be published. The author must meet all three criteria. These criteria are applied in identifying the contributors and the authors.

2. Duplicate Publication

Only those manuscripts that have not been published in other journals are accepted, and the manuscripts published in this journal may not be published in other journals. In cases where duplicate or secondary publications in other languages are necessary, approvals from the chief editors of both journals must be obtained.

3. Conflict of Interest

Conflict of interest refers to a case where an author, the author’s institution, reviewer, or editor may have financial or personal relationships that can have undue influence on the author’s research. All authors must disclose their conflict of interest. Some examples include 1) financial conflicts (monetary exchange arising from employment, consultation, stockholding, and other compensation); 2) personal conflicts; 3) academic competition; and 4) intellectual passion. Such conflicts must be mentioned on the title page or in the acknowledgements section. All authors must clearly state their conflicts of interest and include their signatures on the manuscripts.

4. Privacy Protection and Written Informed Consent

ICMJE recommends following the guideline for privacy protection and written informed consent: Rights of patients may not be restricted without written consent. Details including technology, photographs, and personal information may not be disclosed unless the patient (or the family or guardian) provides written consent for publication. However, since complete anonymity of the patients may not be guaranteed, informed consent should be obtained in case the anonymity cannot be maintained. For example, covering only the eyes of the patients may not be sufficient to guarantee anonymity of subjects. If any features are to be manipulated to maintain anonymity, the author must make sure that such manipulation does not distort the scientific meaning, and the editor must report such events in writing. If informed consent has been acquired, it should be stated in the published research.

5. Protecting Rights of Human and Animal Subjects

Researches involving human subjects are required to include a statement mentioning that the study has been conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki (http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html) and that it is under review by the Research Ethics Committee (REC) or Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the institution, after which the research has been approved. Informed consents in writing should be acquired on every item. Researches involving animal subjects are required to include a statement mentioning that the research institution has been approved by the REC regulations for its use of animals for testing and breeding and has not violated the NIH Guide in the REC regulations of the research institution and the management method of animals for testing (Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources, Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council, http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/labrats/index.html). Authors are responsible for the storage of the original research data for a minimum of one year after publication and must present this data upon request from the editorial department.

6. Clinical Trial Registration

Every research related to clinical trials should be registered with national clinical registry sites, including http://cris.nih.go.kr/cris/index.jsp, the World Health Organization, or websites certified by ICMJE.