Publication Ethics

 Publishing Ethics–Principles

The Andrology Bulletin aims to comply with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scientific Publishing (joint statement of COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, WAME), and the recommendations, guidelines, and basic practices regarding the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scientific studies in medical journals published by the ICMJE. By adhering to these standards, the Andrology Bulletin aims to ensure that the published research is of high quality and meets the ethical standards of the scientific community.

Medical research involving human subjects, including material and data identifiable as human, must comply with the WMA Helsinki Declaration, amended in 2013, which provides guidance on obtaining informed consent from participants, protecting their privacy and confidentiality, and preventing any harm to participants.

The Andrology Bulletin also adheres to WAME’s Recommendations on Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals. These recommendations provide guidance on how to handle conflicts of interest, how to deal with suspected research misconduct, and how to ensure the integrity and transparency of the peer review process. By adhering to these recommendations, the journal helps ensure that the research it publishes meets the highest ethical standards.

Authors are advised to use the EASE Ethics Checklist for Authors to ensure their articles meet ethical standards and practices.

Human and Animal Rights

All research involving medical records of human subjects or human tissues must be reviewed and approved by a review board, such as an ethics committee, before it is conducted. The name of the ethics committee that reviewed and approved the research, the ethics committee approval number, and the date should be included in the Methods section of the article submitted for publication. Also, the journal may request authors to provide a copy of the ethics committee approval as part of the article submission process. This is to ensure that the research has been properly reviewed and approved and to allow the journal to verify that the research meets the ethical standards necessary for publication.

If a study is exempted from ethics committee approval, the authors must submit an ethics committee statement explaining the reason for the exemption. This is to ensure that the research has been reviewed by an ethics committee and that the decision to exempt the study was made in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.

If an article is submitted to the Andrology Bulletin without ethics committee approval, the journal will review it according to COPE’s Research, Review, and Service Assessments guidelines. These guidelines provide guidance on how to handle articles lacking ethics committee approval and allow the journal to assess the risks and potential ethical concerns associated with the publication of that research.

For studies involving animals, research protocols must be approved by the ethics committee. The ethics committee must review the research protocols to ensure they comply with relevant guidelines and regulations, such as the Guidelines for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (8th edition, 2011) and the International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals (2012). These guidelines are widely accepted standards for such studies, and provide detailed information on how to conduct research involving animals in an ethical and humane manner.

Authors should provide detailed information on the ethical treatment of animals in their articles, including measures taken to prevent pain and suffering. They can use the ARRIVE checklist, designed to help them present this information clearly and comprehensively.

Informed Consent

Articles concerning research involving human subjects must include a statement indicating that written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Informed consent must be documented, and a copy of the document should be kept by the researchers for future reference.

In research involving children under 18, the child's parent or guardian must provide informed consent on behalf of the child.
Information about informed consent, along with other relevant details about how the research was conducted, should be included in the Methods section of the submitted article.

It is the authors' responsibility to protect the anonymity of study participants and to ensure that the research is conducted in a way that respects their privacy and confidentiality. This is especially important for photographs that may reveal the identities of patients, as the publication of such photographs without proper consent could potentially contravene the rights of the individuals depicted.

Plagiarism and Ethical Violations

All submissions are scanned by the similarity detection software (Crossref Similarity Checker supported by iThenticate) multiple times during the peer review and/or publication processes.

Authors are strongly advised to avoid all forms of plagiarism and ethical violations, as exemplified below.

Citation manipulation: The practice of manipulating the number of citations received by an author, journal, or other publication through various means such as self-citation, over-citation of articles from the same journal, the addition of honorary citations, or citation stacking.

Self-plagiarism: The practice of using overlapping passages or sentences from an author's previous publications without proper attribution. This is equivalent to using someone else's work (in this case, the author's own work) without proper citation; it is considered as a kind of plagiarism.

Slicing: The practice of using the same data from a research study in several different articles. This is considered unethical because it involves reporting the same hypotheses, population, and study methods in multiple articles.

Data fitting: Adding data that never occurred during data collection or experiments. This is considered a form of research misconduct because it involves presenting false or misleading information as real data.

Data manipulation/falsification: The practice of manipulating research data to create a false impression. This can include manipulating images, removing outliers or "inappropriate" results, altering data points, and other forms of manipulation. Because it involves presenting false or misleading information as factual data, it is considered a form of research misconduct.

In cases of alleged or suspected violations of research ethics, such as plagiarism, citation manipulation, or data falsification/fabrication, the Editorial Board will follow appropriate COPE flowcharts to ensure that allegations or suspicions are addressed fairly, transparently, and consistently.