Human and Animal Research Policy

Journal of Multimedia Information System (JMIS) requires authors to ensure that research involving human participants, human data, identifiable personal information or media, biometric identifiers, or animals is designed, conducted, and reported in accordance with applicable institutional, national, and international standards. This policy applies to all submissions, including original articles, brief papers, dataset papers, system papers, user studies, and supplementary materials.

This policy covers, but is not limited to, surveys, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, usability tests, human-computer interaction studies, online experiments, field studies, behavioral logging, eye-tracking, physiological sensing, biometric recognition, dataset collection or annotation involving people, studies using identifiable images, audio, video, screenshots, social media or platform data, and animal studies.

Human Participants and Human Data

Research involving human participants should follow applicable ethical principles, including the Declaration of Helsinki where relevant, and must be reviewed by an Institutional Review Board (IRB), research ethics committee, or equivalent body when required by institutional policy or law. The manuscript must state the official name of the reviewing body, the approval or exemption number, and the approval date. If ethical review was not required, the manuscript must explain the reason and the relevant institutional or legal basis. When an approval or exemption number is reported, a copy of the approval letter or exemption determination issued by the reviewing body must be uploaded as a separate file at submission.

Informed Consent

Authors must obtain informed consent from participants, or from legally authorized representatives when required, for participation in research involving human subjects. If consent was waived, the manuscript must state which committee granted the waiver and why. For research involving minors or other vulnerable populations, authors must confirm that additional safeguards and legally valid consent or assent procedures were followed as required.

Consent for Publication

If any individual may be identifiable in text, figures, tables, photographs, screenshots, audio, video, case descriptions, or supplementary files, written consent for publication must be obtained before submission. De-identification should be used whenever possible, but de-identification alone may be insufficient if re-identification remains possible.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Authors must protect participants' privacy and confidentiality and should minimize the collection, use, and disclosure of personally identifiable information. Direct identifiers should not be published unless scientifically necessary and explicitly authorized through consent for publication.

Secondary Data, Public Datasets, and Online Content

Research using previously collected data, public datasets, archived records, web data, or social media material must comply with the terms of use of the source, applicable privacy and data protection requirements, and the authors' institutional rules. If such materials contain identifiable or sensitive human information, authors must explain the ethical basis for use and whether ethics review or exemption was obtained. The use of publicly accessible data does not automatically remove ethical responsibilities.

Animal Research

Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional and national guidelines for animal care and use. Where required, authors must obtain approval from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or equivalent committee and report the official committee name, approval number, and approval date in the manuscript. Authors must describe how animal welfare was protected and how pain, distress, and unnecessary harm were minimized. When an IACUC or equivalent approval number is reported, a copy of the approval letter must be uploaded as a separate file at submission.

Reporting in the Manuscript

All manuscripts must include a Declarations section before the References with the following headings: Acknowledgement, Ethics Approval, Informed Consent Statement, Consent for Publication, Conflicts of Interest, Funding, Data Availability and Reproducibility, Declaration of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies, and Related-Party Co-authorship Disclosure. Where ethical oversight is relevant, the Methods section must also describe recruitment, consent, privacy protection, and other safeguards sufficient for scholarly assessment. If a declaration does not apply, retain the heading and state Not applicable.

Editorial Verification

Editors and reviewers may request ethics approval letters, exemption determinations, participant information sheets, consent documentation, or additional explanations at any stage of review or after acceptance. Failure to provide satisfactory documentation may result in rejection or other editorial action.

The approval certificate required at submission does not replace the Ethics Approval statement in the manuscript. Manuscripts that report an approval or exemption number without the corresponding certificate may be returned to the authors before peer review. The certificate is used only to verify ethical oversight and is not published with the article.

Non-compliance

Manuscripts that do not meet this policy may be rejected. If concerns arise before or after publication, JMIS will evaluate the matter in accordance with its Research and Publication Ethics policy and relevant COPE guidance. The journal may contact authors, institutions, ethics committees, or other relevant bodies and may publish a correction, expression of concern, or retraction when warranted.

Contact

Questions regarding this policy should be directed to the Editorial Office at jmis@kmms.or.kr.

Adopted on September 15, 2026