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i) The URL address of the official journal website
http://www.e-roj.org
ii) ‘Aims & Scope’ statement
Radiation Oncology Journal aims to contribute to the advancements in the fields of radiation oncology through the scientific reviews and interchange of all of radiation oncology. It encompasses all areas of radiation oncology that impact on the treatment of cancer using radiation as well basic experimental work relating to radiation oncology and health policy. It publishes papers describing clinical radiotherapy, combined modality therapy, radiation biology, cancer biology, radiation physics, radiation informatics, and new technology, including particle therapy.
iii) Readership
It is primarily for radiation oncologists, radiation biologists, and medical physicists. Its readership can be expanded to other positions: Researchers on cancer biology can get the recent topics of laboratory investigations related to radiation; Allied health professionals, including medical oncologists, surgical oncologists, and oncologic nurses, can have access to current information regarding the care of cancer patients; Medical students can learn about recent trends in the field; Policymakers can reflect on the article results and apply them in nationwide healthcare policies for patients with cancer; The public, especially families with patients who have cancer, are able to read about the advancement in radiation oncology.
iv) Authorship criteria
Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) final approval of the version to be published; and 4) agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Authors should meet these four conditions.
v) Duplicate submission and redundant publication
All submitted manuscripts should be original and should not be considered by other scientific journals for publication at the same time. Any part of the accepted manuscript should not be duplicated in any other scientific journal without the permission of the Editorial Board. If duplicate publication related to the papers of this journal is detected, the authors will be announced in the journal, and their institutes will be informed, and there will also be penalties for the authors. It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the conditions of secondary publication of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.
vi) ISSN
pISSN: 2234-1900
eISSN: 2234-3156
2. Name of Journal
The Radiation Oncology Journal (ROJ) is an official journal of the Korean Society for Radiation Oncology. Its formal abbreviated title is “Radiat Oncol J”. It is a peer-reviewed open-access journal of medicine published in English. It was launched in 1983 as the official journal of the Korean Society of Therapeutic Radiology. It was changed in 2000 as the official journal of the Korean Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology and finally in 2011 as ROJ.
3. Peer Review Process
ROJ reviews all received materials. The acceptance criteria for all papers are based on the quality and originality of the research and its clinical and scientific significance. Manuscripts are sent to at least two most relevant investigators available for review of the contents. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for final decisions regarding the acceptance of a peer-reviewed paper. An initial decision will normally be made within four weeks of receiving a manuscript, and the reviewers’ comments are sent to the corresponding authors by e-mail. Revised manuscripts must be submitted online by the corresponding author. The corresponding author must indicate the alterations that have been made in response to the referees’ comments item by item. Failure to resubmit the revised manuscript within 12 weeks of the editorial decision is regarded as a withdrawal. The editor selects peer referees by recommendation of ROJ’s editorial board members or from the board`s specialist database. We adopt double-blind peer review.
4. Ownership and Management
i) Information about the ownership
This journal is owned by the publisher, the Korean Society for Radiation Oncology (http://www.kosro.or.kr/).
ii) Management team
Journal Manager:
Sang Min Yoon, Editor-in-Chief, University of Ulsan, Korea, Republic of Korea
Manager of the Review Process:
Dongryul Oh, Associate Editor, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea, Republic of Korea
Manuscript Editors:
Ji Hye Kim, Infolumi, Republic of Korea
Website and JATS XML File Producers:
Yoon-Sang Cho, M2PI, Republic of Korea
5. Governing Body
The governing body is the journal's editorial board.
6. Editorial Team and Contact Information
i) Editorial team
The editorial board’s website is https://www.e-roj.org/about/editorial.php.
All of the members are responsible to improve the scientific quality of the journal and to implement an editorial policy approved by the editorial board.
ii) Contact information
Publisher Korean Society for Radiation Oncology
Department of Radiation Oncology, Samsung Medical Center,
Proton Therapy Center, B2, 81, Irwon-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06351, Republic of Korea
Tel: +82-2-3410-3618
E-mail: kosro@kosro.or.kr
Editorial Committee Office
Department of Radiation Oncology, Samsung Medical Center,
Proton Therapy Center, B2, 81, Irwon-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06351, Republic of Korea
Tel: +82-2-3410-3617
E-mail: rojeditor@gmail.com, roj@korso.or.kr
7. Copyright and Licensing
i) Copyright policy
All published papers become the permanent property of the Korean Society for Radiation Oncology. Copyrights of all published materials are owned by the Korean Society for Radiation Oncology. Permission must be obtained from the Korean Society for Radiation Oncology for any commercial use of materials. Every author should sign the copyright transfer agreement forms.
ii) Licensing information
This is an open-access journal distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited for non-commercial purposes (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
iii) Deposit policy
Full text of APEM has been archived in PubMed Central (PMC) (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/1858/) from the 29th volume, 2011.
According to the deposit policy (self-archiving policy) of Sherpa/Romeo (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/), authors cannot archive pre-print (i.e., pre-refereeing), but they can archive post-print (i.e., final draft post-refereeing). Authors can archive the publisher's version/PDF.
8. Author Fees
There are no charges for submission and publication.
9. Process for the Identification of and Dealing with Allegations of Research Misconduct
When the Journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as a redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, an ethical problem discovered with the submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and other issues, the resolving process will follow the flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The editorial board will discuss the suspected cases and reach a decision. We will not hesitate to publish errata, corrigenda, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
ROJ adheres to the research and publication ethics policies outlined in International Standards for Editors and Authors (http://publicationethics.org) and the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (http://icmje.org). Any studies involving human subjects must comply with the principles of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Clinical research should be approved by the Institutional Review Board, as well through patient consent. A patient's personal information cannot be published in any form. However, if it is absolutely necessary to use a patient's personal information, the consent of the patient or their guardian will be needed before publishing. Animal studies should be performed in compliance with all relevant guidelines, observing the standards described in the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.
Cases that require editorial expressions of concern or retraction shall follow the COPE flowcharts available from: http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts. If correction is needed, it will follow the ICMJE Recommendation for Corrections, Retractions, Republications, and Version Control available from:
http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/corrections-and-version-control.html as follows:
Honest errors are a part of science and publishing and require publication of a correction when they are detected. Corrections are needed for errors of fact. Minimum standards are as follows: First, it shall publish a correction notice as soon as possible, detailing changes from and citing the original publication on both an electronic and numbered print page that is included in an electronic or a print Table of Contents to ensure proper indexing; Second, it shall post a new article version with details of the changes from the original version and the date(s) on which the changes were made through Crossmark; Third, it shall archive all prior versions of the article. This archive can be either directly accessible to readers; and fourth, previous electronic versions shall prominently note that there are more recent versions of the article via Crossmark.
10. Publication Ethics
i) Journal policies on authorship and contributorship
Authorship
Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) final approval of the version to be published; and 4) agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Authors should meet these four conditions.
For any persons who do not meet the above four criteria, they may be placed as contributors in the Acknowledgments section. Description of co-first authors or co-corresponding authors is also accepted if the corresponding author believes that their roles are equally contributed. After the initial submission of a manuscript, any changes in authorship must be explained by a letter to the Editor-in-Chief from the authors concerned. This letter must be signed by all authors of the paper. Copyright transfer and conflict of interest disclosure forms must be completed by every author. ROJ does not correct authorship after publication unless a mistake has been made by the editorial staff.
Originality and Duplicate Publication
All submitted manuscripts should be original and should not be considered by other scientific journals for publication at the same time. Any part of the accepted manuscript should not be duplicated in any other scientific journal without the permission of the editorial board. Submitted manuscripts are screened for possible duplicate publication by Similarity Check upon arrival. If duplicate publication related to the papers of this journal is detected, the authors will be announced in the journal, and their institutes will be informed, and there will also be penalties for the authors.
Secondary Publication
It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the conditions of secondary publication of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.
ROJ maintains a zero-tolerance policy when addressing allegations of plagiarism, duplicate publication (self-publication), data falsification, and scientific misconduct. Articles will be retracted if ethics violations are substantiated. Plagiarism is defined by the World Association for Medical Editors (WAME) as the "use of others' published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source." ROJ participates in the Crosscheck/iThenticate program to investigate incidents of possible plagiarism.
Manipulating data through fabrication, omission, or intentional distortion is unacceptable. Authors should be prepared to provide original data to editors if there is a question of authenticity. Claims of scientific misconduct are investigated and addressed, guided by the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct.
ii) Statement of Informed Consent and Institutional Review Board Approval
Authors should have obtained written informed consent from all participants prior to inclusion in the study, and copies of written informed consent should be kept for studies on human subjects. For clinical studies of human subjects, a certificate, agreement, or approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the author’s institution is required. If necessary, the editor or reviewers may request copies of these documents to resolve questions about IRB approval and study conduct.
The statement should be included in the Materials and Methods section after the IRB approval. Identifying details of the participants should not be published in written descriptions, and photographs. In cases where identifying details are essential for scientific purposes, the participant should have given written informed consent for the identifying information to be published, and it should be stated separately.
Waiver of the informed consent can only be granted by the appropriate IRB and/or national research ethics committee in compliance with the current laws of the country in which the study was performed, and this should be separately stated. It should be noted that manuscripts that do not contain statements on IRB approval and patient informed consent can be returned to the authors before the review process.
iii) Statement of Human and Animal Rights
All studies on human subjects must be conducted according to the principles expressed in the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Clinical studies that do not meet the Helsinki Declaration will not be considered for publication. The name or initials of the patient should not be displayed, and the patient’s identity should not be known when submitting photographs related to the patient. If there is a possibility that the patient’s identity may be exposed, it should be stated that the patient has given written consent.
All studies involving animals must state that the guidelines for the use and care of laboratory animals of the authors’ institution, or any national law, were followed.
All studies dealing with clinical trials should be registered on the primary national clinical trial registration site, such as Korea Clinical Research Information Service (CRiS, http://cris.nih.go.kr), other primary national registry sites accredited by World Health Organization or ClinicalTrials.gov (http://clinicaltrials.gov), a service of the US National Institutes of Health.
iv) How the journal will handle complaints and appeals
When the Journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as a redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, an ethical problem discovered with the submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and other issues, the resolving process will follow the flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The Editorial Board of ROJ will discuss the suspected cases and reach a decision. ROJ will not hesitate to publish errata, corrigenda, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
v) Journal policies on conflicts of interest/competing interests
Conflict of interest exists when an author or the author’s institution, reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence or bias their actions. Such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties. These relationships vary from being negligible to having great potential for influencing judgment. Not all relationships represent true conflict of interest. On the other hand, the potential for conflict of interest can exist regardless of whether an individual believes that the relationship affects their scientific judgment. Financial relationships such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, and paid expert testimony are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and are the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, or of the science itself. Conflicts can occur for other reasons as well, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion (http://www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest). If there are any conflicts of interest, the authors should disclose them in the manuscript. The conflicts of interest may occur during the research process as well; however, it is important to provide disclosure. If there is a disclosure, editors, reviewers, and reader can approach the manuscript after understanding the situation and background for the completed research. The corresponding author must inform the editor of any potential conflicts of interest that could influence the authors’ interpretation of the data.
vi) Journal policies on data sharing and reproducibility
Open data policy
For clarification on result accuracy and reproducibility of the results, raw data or analysis data will be deposited to a public repository after acceptance of the manuscript. Therefore, submission of the raw data or analysis data is mandatory. If the data is already a public one, its URL site or sources should be disclosed. If data cannot be publicized, it can be negotiated with the editor. If there are any inquiries on depositing data or waiver of data sharing, authors should contact the editorial office.
Clinical data sharing policy
This journal follows the data sharing policy described in “Data Sharing Statements for Clinical Trials: A Requirement of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors” (https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2017.32.7.1051). As of July 1, 2018, manuscripts submitted to ICMJE journals that report the results of interventional clinical trials must contain a data sharing statement as described below. Clinical trials that begin enrolling participants on or after January 1, 2019, must include a data sharing plan in the trial's registration. The ICMJE's policy regarding trial registration is explained at https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html. If the data sharing plan changes after registration, this should be reflected in the statement submitted and published with the manuscript and updated in the registry record. All the authors of research articles that deal with interventional clinical trials must submit data sharing plan. Based on the degree of sharing plan, authors should deposit their data after deidentification and report the DOI of the data and the registered site.
vii) Journal's policy on ethical oversight
When the Journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as a redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, an ethical problem discovered with the submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and other issues, the resolving process will follow the flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The Editorial Board will discuss the suspected cases and reach a decision. We will not hesitate to publish errata, corrigenda, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
The Research Ethics Committee of Korean Society for Radiation Oncology covers ethical issues involved with research and publication. This committee is composed of one chairperson and of the members of the committee. The director of the ethics committee acts as the chairperson of this committee. The members of the Research Ethics Committee include the vice president, the auditor, the directors of general affairs, research, and publication committees, and two directors without a portfolio of the society become ex officio. The members of this committee serve for a term of two years, and they may be reappointed.
If presented with convincing evidence of dual publication, fragmentation, plagiarism, fabrication, or theft of intellectual property in journals, the committee meeting will be held immediately for investigation. If evidence becomes available that the regulation has been breached, publication of the corresponding manuscript is immediately canceled, and all authors, including the corresponding author, are banned from any publication in the ROJ published for the next three years. The investigation results of the committee meeting must be notified for immediate disciplinary measures and reported to the board of directors. Other issues that are not specified in this regulation abide by the decisions made by board members of the society, which conform with the Ethics Code of Science Technology set forth by the Korean Federation of Science Technology Societies.
viii) Journal's policy on intellectual property
All published papers become the permanent property of the Korean Society for Radiation Oncology. Copyrights of all published materials are owned by the Korean Society for Radiation Oncology.
viiii) Journal's options for post-publication discussions and corrections
The post-publication discussion is available through a letter to the editor. If any readers have a concern on any articles published, they can submit a letter to the editor on the articles. If there founds any errors or mistakes in the article, they can be corrected through errata, corrigenda, or retraction.
x) Journal’s policy on preprint
A preprint can be defined as a version of a scholarly paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. ROJ allows authors to submit the preprint to the journal. It is not treated as duplicate submission or duplicate publication. ROJ recommends authors to disclose it with DOI in the letter to the editor during the submission process. Otherwise, it may be screened from the plagiarism check program — Similarity Check (Crosscheck). Preprint submission will be processed through the same peer-review process as a usual submission. If the preprint is accepted for publication, authors are recommended to update the information at the preprint with a link to the published article in ROJ, including DOI at ROJ. It is strongly recommended that authors cite the article in ROJ instead of the preprint at their next submission to journals.
11. Corrections, retractions, and withdrawals policies
i) Correction
Honest errors are a part of science and publishing and require publication of a correction when they are detected. Only errors that impact the article significantly will be considered. To request a correction, authors should write to the Editors of the ROJ detailing the error and needed correction. If a correction is needed, it will follow the ICMJE Recommendation for Corrections, Retractions, Republications and Version Control (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/corrections-and-version-control.html). An Erratum or Corrigendum will be linked to the original article online and will be published in a timely manner.
An Erratum is the correction of an error introduced or not recognized during editing or publication, such as mislabeled figures, missing legends. The author will be given an opportunity to approve an Erratum before publication.
A Corrigendum is the correction of an error found by the authors that impacts the validity or reproducibility of the findings. If a reader finds an error, they should write a Letter to the Editor, which will be peer-reviewed and sent to the authors of the original paper for a response. The Letter and response from the authors will be published in the same issue.
ii) Retraction
Articles are retracted if misconduct such as data fabrication, plagiarism, redundant publishing, ethical issues, and inappropriate authorship, among others has been found. To determine if an article should be retracted, the Editors will launch an investigation and follow the retraction process in accordance with COPE guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines). When Editors have convincing evidence that a retraction is required, Editors may retract publications even if the authors do not agree. The final decision is communicated to the author and, if necessary, any other relevant bodies, such as the author’s institution on occasion. A notice of retraction will be published and linked to the original article. The notice will clearly identify the article will be available and clearly marked as a retraction. The notice will also include the reason for the retraction and who is retracting the article. The original article will not be removed from online of the ROJ, but will be identified as a retracted article as clearly as possible.
iii) Withdrawal
Submitted manuscripts can be withdrawn by the authors before final acceptance of the manuscript for publication (i.e., before it is published online with formal identifiers). Authors should submit a signed statement to the Editors to request the withdrawal. Bibliographic information about the deleted article is retained for the scientific record, and an explanation is given for the withdrawal.
12. Publishing Schedule
It is published in English quarterly on the last days of March, June, September, and December. Supplement issues may be published.
13. Access
This is an open-access journal distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
14. Archiving
It is accessible without a barrier from PubMed Central (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/1858), Korea Citation Index (https://www.kci.go.kr/), or National Library of Korea (http://nl.go.kr) in the event a journal is no longer published.
15. Revenue Sources
Revenue sources of the journal were from the support of the publisher (the Korean Society for Radiation Oncology), the Korea Government’s support, and advertising rates.
16. Advertising
Radiation Oncology Journal accepts advertisements on the following basis:
i) Eligibility of the advertised products or services
All products or services should be safe and reliable, and not cause any harm to the health and welfare of humans. Advertisements may promote information and technologies relevant to authors, editors, reviewers, and readers. Pharmaceutical products may also be considered.
- - Advertising is separate from content. Advertisers and sponsors have no advance knowledge of our editorial contents, nor do the editors have advanced knowledge of advertisers. Content is never altered, added, or deleted to accommodate advertising. Advertisers and sponsors have no input regarding any of our editorial decisions or advertising policies.
- - We reserve the right to decline or cancel any advertisement at any time.
- - Advertisements for pharmaceutical products must conform to all regulations and policies of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the Republic of Korea in every respect.
ii) Orders
Any individuals or organizations who are interested in advertising their products or services in the print copies of the journal or on its website are encouraged to contact the editorial office. The acceptance of the advertisement will be discussed by the editorial board and will be ultimately approved by the publisher.
iii) Disclaimer
Liability
Neither the publisher nor the editors will be legally liable for advertisements presented in the journal. In addition, they cannot guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of the information provided.
Endorsement
The publisher and the editors do not endorse any products or services that are advertised.
Disclaimer
Neither the publisher nor the authors will be legally liable for any of the content of advertisements, so readers must keep this in mind when reading or seeing advertisements.
17. Direct Marketing
Journal propagation has been done through the journal website and distribution of eTOC.
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