Human Studies

Human studies (involving human subjects, material, or data) must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by an appropriate ethics committee. Submitted manuscripts must state the detailed information (name of the ethics committee, reference number). If the study is judged exempt from ethics approval, this information (name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption, reason for the exemption) should also be included in the manuscript. Further documentation on ethics should also be prepared, as editors may request more detailed information. Manuscripts may be rejected if there are suspected ethical problems.

Animal Studies

Experimental research on animals should have been approved by appropriate ethics committees and must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. Manuscripts must include a statement describing compliance with relevant guidelines and the detailed information (name of the ethics committee, reference number). If the study is judged exempt from ethics approval, this information (name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption, reason for the exemption) should also be included in the manuscript.

Consent

For all research involving human subjects or manuscripts that include any information (details, images, or videos) that could identify individual participants, informed consent should be obtained from the participants (or their parent or guardian for children under 18 and dementia patients). A statement describing the consent process should be included in the manuscript.

All OAE journals employ a highly rigorous peer-review process to evaluate manuscript scientific accuracy, novelty, and significance. All submitted manuscripts are initially reviewed by a journal editor to determine if the manuscript meets the general criteria of the journal, such as the originality of the materials, clarity of the writing, appropriateness of the methods, and reasonableness of the conclusion. Using these basic criteria, the editors assess a paper’s eligibility for publication. If the manuscripts meet these criteria, they will be sent to experts in related fields for peer review. OAE system adopts a single-blind peer review process, which means that the reviewer identities are kept confidential, but author identities are known to reviewers. A manuscript under review is not revealed to anyone other than peer reviewers and editorial staff. Peer reviewers are required to maintain confidentiality about the manuscripts they review and must not divulge any information about a specific manuscript or its content to any third party without prior permission from the journal editors. Information from submitted manuscripts may be systematically collected and analyzed to improve the quality of the editorial or peer review process. Identifying information remains confidential. Final decisions regarding manuscript publication are made by the Editor-In-Chief.

Authorship credit should be solely based on substantial contributions to each of the following three components:

• Study concept and design or data acquisition, analysis or interpretation
• Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
• Final approval of the version to be published

Participation solely in funding acquisition or data collection does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the manuscript content. The order of naming the contributors should be based on their relative contributions toward executing the study and writing the manuscript. Once submitted, the order cannot be changed without written consent of all the contributors. The journal prescribes a maximum number of authors for manuscripts depending upon the type of manuscript, its scope, and the number of institutions involved (vide infra). The authors should provide a justification if the number of authors exceeds the limits.

OAE takes seriously all allegations of potential misconduct to ensure high-quality scientific publications. OAE strives to prevent and pursue any suspected misconduct. For example, OAE is a member of CrossCheck’s plagiarism detection initiative and uses plagiarism detection software. We also follow the COPE’s Code of Conduct flowcharts. If a study is suspected to have ethical problems, Editors may reject a manuscript and inform third parties, for example, author(s), institution(s), and/or ethics committee(s).

Suspected misconducts are as follows:

• Plagiarism
• Redundant (duplicate) publication
• Ethical problems
• A reviewer has appropriated an author’s idea or data
• Data fabrication
• Authorship changes

Articles shall not be published previously or simultaneously submitted for publication elsewhere. Figures or tables that have been published elsewhere must be identified and permission of the copyright holder must be provided for journals cooperated with OAE.

The embargoed copies of an accepted article may be distributed to the press prior to publication. The timing and length of an embargo period is variable depending on production schedules.