J Korean Med Assoc JKMA Journal of the Korean Medical Association 1975-8456 2093-5951 Korean Medical Association 10.5124/jkma.2010.53.8.685 Focused Issue of This Month Practical Use of Online Medical Database An Understanding of New Concepts and Publication Ethics in the Use of Online Medical Journals and their Database Web Sites http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0965-5674 Bae Chong-Woo MD 1 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0244-9090 Hahm Chang-Kok MD 2 Department of Pediatrics, Kyunghee University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. Department of Radiology, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. Corresponding author: Chong-Woo Bae. baecw@khnmc.or.kr 08 2010 30 07 2010 53 8 685 694 05 07 2010 17 07 2010 Copyright © 2010 Korean Medical Association 2010 This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Nowadays, we have much more convenient access to every medical journal through web sites, compared to the paper-based publications of the past. Beyond simply reading, we can compose, submit, inspect, review, and store data through these web sites. Furthermore, medical journals do not operate independently, but are rather integrated through online journal databases: therefore, an era of ubiquitous access to medical information for any purpose, has arrived. Thousands of new papers are pouring out in the flood of information everyday, so that it is very important for authors to make their research outcomes known to science scholar online especially in the options or selections of his or her own purpose of study. Therefore, a thorough understanding of database usage is necessary in order to meet authors' and readers' goals. The Journal of the Korean Medical Association (JKMA) began operating an online database (www.kjma.org) in July 2010, to keep pace with international digital journal standards. Digital publication is a very encouraging improvement in meeting contemporary reader's' needs over the previous paper-based system. The tools and content of the journal web site will both be continuously updated. Our society ought to not only catch up with other society's but further develop our online presence in innovative ways. The authors here introduce and summarize the latest trends and ethical issues in online publication needed to manage and use the online medical databases appropriately.

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