AOSIS promotes ethical and responsible research practices:

• Authors should provide evidence that research has adhered to national standards for research practices (in human and animal studies).
• Authors should provide evidence that studies have been approved by relevant bodies, the relevant research ethics committee or institutional review board (e.g. institutional review board, research ethics committee, data and safety monitoring board, and regulatory authorities, including those overseeing animal experiments).
• If human participants were involved, manuscripts must be accompanied by a statement that the experiments were undertaken with the understanding and appropriate informed consent of all participants.
• If experimental animals were used, the materials and methods (experimental procedures) section must clearly indicate that appropriate measures were taken to minimise pain or discomfort, and details of animal care should be provided.
• Editors should encourage peer reviewers to consider ethical issues raised by the research they are reviewing.
• Editors should request additional information from authors if they feel this is required.
• Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts if there are doubts regarding whether appropriate procedures have been followed.
• If a manuscript has been submitted from a country where there is no ethics committee, institutional review board, or similar review and approval, editors should use their own experience to judge whether the manuscripts should be published. If the decision is made to publish a manuscript under these circumstances, a short statement should be included to explain the situation.

 

Individual information and identifiable images

Where individual human subjects or case studies are discussed (e.g. as in medicine, psychology, and criminology), journals should protect confidentiality and should not permit publication of items that might upset or harm participants/subjects or breach confidentiality of, for example, the doctor-patient relationship. AOSIS will not publish individual information and identifiable images from patients/human subjects. We will also require explicit consent from any patients described in case studies or shown in photographs.