Ethics Policies
Editorial Committee of the Journal of International Nursing Research (JINR) follows the recommended
procedures outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) International Standards for responsible
research publication for authors and editors when dealing with allegations of misconduct.

All authors are fully responsible for the originality and contents of their submitted manuscripts. All records
and data presented in the manuscripts must be accurate, without any research misconduct such as
fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism, or any other research or publication misconduct.
Any identified misconduct is subject to investigation by the Editorial Committee of JINR. All misconduct
and breach of publication ethics, irrespective of the extent thereof, may result in retraction, publication offormal notice of the misconduct, and formal embargo on future contribution to JINR.

I. Definitions of Publication Misconduct
Fabrication
Fabrication is inventing data or results of research and recording or reporting them with the intentional
purpose of deception.
Falsification
Falsification is defined as an inaccurate presentation of research results with the intention to give a falseimpression. This includes manipulation of research instrumentation, materials, and processes, changing,adding or omitting data, manipulating images, and omitting research results.
Scientific images for publication must be minimally processed. We understand that some image processing
may be necessary. Adjustments, such as in brightness, contrast, or color, are permissible as long as theseadjustments are applied to an entire image uniformly and do not selectively enhance, eliminate, ormispresent any elements in the original image, including the background.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined as the use of another person’s ideas, processes, results, words, or theories as if they
were the author’s own, without giving appropriate credit. This involves any part of the manuscript, including
the figures and tables. All information and content that originate from other resources must be credited andcited and included in the “References” section. Upon submission, the manuscript will be automaticallychecked for plagiarism by using plagiarism screening services or software to determine both text overlap
and manuscript originality.
1Redundant or Duplicate Publication
Articles that are being considered for publication in another journal, including advanced publications such as“in-press” or “E-pub ahead of print” articles, in any language, will be regarded as redundant or duplicate
publication.
The author should notify the editor formally about all submissions, postings, and previous reports that could
be regarded as redundant or which duplicate publication of the same or similar work when submitting amanuscript. Any such material must be referred to and referenced in the submitted work. Copies of suchwork should be included with the submission. Abstracts or posters presented at scientific meetings are notconsidered previously published work.
Editorial actions should be expected if redundant or duplicate publication is attempted or occurs without
such notification. Editorial actions may include the following: immediate rejection of the submitted
manuscript, retraction of published work, a published notice of violation, and revocation of publishingprivileges in the journal.
Author’s Undisclosed Conflict of Interest (COI)
All authors are required to disclose any financial relations, activities, relationships, and affiliations that exist,
or have existed which are related to the research presented, from the initial conception and planning to thecompletion of the research. This includes, but is not limited to, agreements for research support (including
research funding and provision of equipment or materials), honoraria (such as lecture fees), consulting,employment, promotional fees, advisory or directing role, stock and share ownership, patent/licensing fees,
travel and accommodation expenses, and any other financial, institutional, or personal relationships with any
commercial organizations, groups, institutions, or any other entities that have any interest in the subject
matter, materials, or process(es) discussed in the manuscript. Any possible COI related to the study
presented in the manuscript must be disclosed in the manuscript under the heading “Conflicts of Interest.”
Citation Manipulation
Citation manipulation, such as inclusion of references from other publications without actually reading thecited work, or self-citing works that are irrelevant, must be avoided.
Copyright Infringement
All information and contents that originate from other resources must be all credited and cited. If any
copyrighted or previously published materials, adapted, edited, or otherwise, are used in the manuscript, theauthor must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) prior to submitting the paper for review. Also,
the authors must cite the source and indicate that permission has been received, as required by the copyrightowner(s). The authors must submit permissions letters from the copyright owner(s) when submitting themanuscript.
Failure to Obtain IRB Approval2

Clinical research included in articles, which report on human subjects or materials of human origin, mustcomply with the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki, and it must be mentioned that the study has beenapproved by the relevant institutional or national review board (IRB). If no approval from any IRB wasrequired, that must be explicitly stated in the manuscript.
Improper Authorship/ContributorshipAll authors listed in the manuscript must meet the following criteria of contribution as described by theICMJE in the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in
Medical Journals.
1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the research or the acquisition and analysisof data for the work; and2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and3. Final approval of the version to be published; and4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to theaccuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Exclusion of authors who made a definite contribution or inclusion of individuals as authors who have notmade a definite contribution to the work is not permitted. Consent to submit to JINR must be obtained
explicitly from all authors prior to submitting a manuscript.
Noncompliance with Local Laws and Regulations
Authors must comply with local regulations and laws if the work involves animals or human subjects, or if it
involves investigational drugs, recombinant products, new devices, or any chemical materials that may behazardous in their use.
Salami-Slicing
So-called “salami-slicing” or dividing a single study into several parts to increase the quantity ofsubmissions to other journals or the same journal is not permitted.

II. Handling Allegations of Misconduct
JINR follows the COPE’s Core Practices guidelines and flowcharts for handling allegations of publishing
misconduct pre- and post-publication. For any information that is not mentioned in the COPE guidelines,
please refer to COPE’s flowcharts.
Procedure for Handling Allegations of Misconduct in Submitted Manuscripts
When editors, reviewers, authors, and/or journal staff suspect any instances of ethical misconduct during
peer review, they should bring them to the attention of the Editor-in-Chief (EIC). The manuscript will beplaced on hold. The EIC will review the case and make the preliminary assessment. If the EIC finds that an3

explanation from the authors is necessary, the EIC will send the corresponding author a notification, whichpoints out the allegation and requests an explanation.
If the corresponding author does not respond and/or provide sufficient rationale for the raised concern, or if
the EIC is presented with evidence that establishes the ethical breach, regardless of the severity, the EIC willrefer the case to the Editorial Committee, which, in turn, will discuss the allegations, explanations, evidence,possible sanctions, and corrective actions, such as publishing an erratum, expression of concern, orretraction.
Possible sanctions may include: Official warning to the author
 Immediate rejection of the manuscript Publication of formal notice of misconduct
 Formal notice to an author’s institution
 Formal embargo on future contributions to JINR
The authors will be notified of the Editorial Committee’s decision. The authors may appeal the decision bysending an appeal letter to the Editorial Committee.
Complaints and Appeals
The peer review decisions made based on the editors’ judgment will not be rescinded once they are made.
JINR will not reconsider the paper for peer review unless misconduct, negligence, or absolutely unusual
pattern of review process by our editorial team is found. JINR, however, considers complaints anopportunity to improve our peer review process, manuscript handling procedures, and management forjournal publishing. All received complaints are dealt with constructively and in a timely manner. Forprocedures not summarized below, please refer to the COPE’s Core Practices in dealing with complains andappeals.
Making a Complaint
To submit a complaint about the policies, procedures, or actions of the journal staff of JINR, send an e-mailto jinr@kyorin.co.jp.
For all allegations of misconduct related to fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, copyright or intellectual
property infringement, breach of research ethics, authorship or contributorship disputes, conflicts of interest,or any other problematic conduct either pre- or post-publication, please submit a letter of complaint by email to jinr@kyorin.co.jp. The letter of complaint should include factual information and related evidence.
Process for Dealing with Complaints
Once a letter of complaint is received, an e-mail confirming its receipt will be sent to the complainant within
three (3) business days (Japan Standard Time), with the assurance that appropriate action will be taken
immediately.
4The received complaint will be reported to the EIC, which will refer it to the editors and other officials thatare relevant to the issue. In a case of a publication ethics violation, the allegations will be investigated, andthe necessary decisions will be made in accordance with the COPE’s guidelines and flowcharts. The resultof the investigation will be determined within four (4) weeks, if possible. If this is not possible, thecomplainant will be sent details concerning progress of the investigation until the issue is resolved.
Post-publication Discussions
If readers have a grievance concerning any articles published, they can begin a post-publication discussion
by submitting a letter to the editor. The editor will review the letter and may ask other experts in the field toreview the content. If appropriate, the editor will ask the authors of the original article to comment andpublish both the original letter followed by the author(s) response.
Appeals for Editorial Decisions
Editors of JINR apply their best efforts to provide fair and unbiased reviews and decisions. However, if anauthor strongly feels that an inappropriate decision has been made by the editors, JINR allows a single
appeal of the manuscript’s editorial decision. An appeal should include the detailed information and theclear reasons for the appeal, and it should be e-mailed to jinr@kyorin.co.jp.
All received complaints will be forwarded to the EIC, which will then refer it to the editor who handled themanuscript, or the Editorial Committee, and they will review the appeal and determine whether any changesto the decision should be made. This may require re-review of the manuscript. The new decision made after
the appeal is considered final.

III. Erratum, Express of Concern, and Retraction
In order to ensure that retractions, erratum, and expressions of concern are handled according to industry
best practice, JINR follows the Retraction Guidelines, provided by COPE, including:
Erratum
An erratum may be issued to notify readers of important errors such as spelling, data, terms, typography, oromission, which occurred during the production process of an accepted article, which may mislead thereaders. An erratum is also issued for the correction of author and contributor information.
Expression of Concern
An expression of concern will be issued if the investigation of an issue concerning a published article raises
suspicion but does not provide conclusive evidence, and yet the EIC feels the article contains invalid results
or has strong concerns that readers should be made aware of potentially misleading information contained in5

the article. Also, an expression of concern may be issued if the investigation requires a considerable amountof time to reach a resolution.
Retractions
JINR adopts the following retraction process:1. Instances requiring an investigation are brought to the attention of the EIC.
2. The EIC investigates the case following the step-by-step guidelines provided in the COPEflowcharts. The EIC may contact the authors to request an explanation, which will be evaluated.
3. The final decision as to whether to retract is then communicated to the author and, if necessary, anyother relevant bodies, such as the author’s institution.
4. The retraction statement is then posted online and published in the next available issue of thejournal.
JINR may issue retractions to alert the readers of seriously erroneous data that invalidate the conclusion of
the study presented in the published article or of ethical misconduct. Retractions are published if the EIC hasconvincing evidence for the following cases, either as a result of ethical violations or honest error:
1.
2.
3.
4.

The findings or data are unreliable or misleading
Plagiarism
Duplicate publication without permission
Unethical research

The retraction will include:
1.
2.
3.

Information of the retracted article, such as title and authors
Link to the retracted article
Reasons for retraction

To preserve the integrity of the published record, the Journal will not remove the retracted article. It will bemaintained on the platform. The PDF will be replaced with a version watermarked with the word
“Retracted,” but the original text will remain accessible. A retraction notice will also be published in thenext available issue.

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