Ethics Guideline

Research ethics regulations of the Korean Society of International Agriculture (KSIA)

Clause 1 (Objectives) The objectives of these regulations are to present basic principles and directions on the roles and responsibilities required for preventing dishonest research acts in scientific activities and securing research ethics of members of Korean Society of International Agriculture (KSIA).

Clause 2 (Scope of research ethics violating act) “Research ethics violating act” means forgery of contents, alteration, piracy, improper disclosure of a paper’s author, duplicated publication due to an intentional or serious error which is not related to the research objectives in the course of proposing, performing and announcing the research, and details of these are as follows:

1. “Forgery” means the act of falsely making and reporting research data or research result which does not exist.
2. “Alteration” means the act of distorting research contents or results by artificially manipulating research data, research process, research result, and so forth, or by arbitrarily manipulating and deleting the data.
3. “Piracy” means the act of using ideas, research processes, research results, and so forth of others without indicating the definite source.
4. “Improper disclosure of a paper’s author” means the act of not granting the qualification of the paper’s author without proper reason to the person who has conducted scientific contribution or service to research contents or result, or of granting the qualification of paper’s author for the reason of acknowledgement or respect, et cetera to the person who has not conducted scientific contribution or service.
5. Other acts that seriously damage the fidelity of research will be included.

Clause 3 (Report and reception of research ethics violating act) Informers can report directly to the editing committee’s secretariat of the Korean Society of International Agriculture or via telephone, document, electronic mail, and so forth, and contents and evidence of specific dishonest acts shall be included in the report.

Clause 4 (Investigation of research ethics violating act) When the occurrence of a dishonest act is recognized or reported, the editing committee of this society shall perform an investigation for this, and pursuant to the opinion of the editing committee, the editing chairperson shall constitute the investigation committee for examining corresponding research ethics violating act.

Clause 5 (Constitution of investigation committe

① Investigation committee will be constituted with more than seven members in principle, and an investigation chairperson will be elected through mutual election by the members.
② The investigation committee can request attendance for statement to informer, informant, witness, and reference.
③ The investigation committee can request the submission of data by the informant, and in order to preserve evidence material, research data for the person related to the research ethics violating act can be stored upon obtaining approval from the chairman of this society.
④ The investigation committee can recommend adequate follow-up measures for the person related to the research ethics violating act which has turned out to be true to the chairman of this society.

Clause 6 (Protection of rights and observance of secrets of informers and informants) ① Investigation committee shall exert affirmative efforts to protect the identity of informers, and shall take special precautions not to violate the reputation or rights of informants until verification of the research ethics violating act is completed. ② All items related to the investigation shall remain confidential, and the person who directly or indirectly participates in the investigation shall not improperly disclose all information obtained during the course of investigation and performance of duty. However, when there is reasonable necessity of opening, it can be opened through a resolution by the editing committee.

Clause 7 (Assurance of presenting objection and clarification opportunity) The investigation committee shall provide sufficient time for presenting objections and clarification opportunities to informants who have reported violating of research ethics.

Clause 8 (Judgment)

① The investigation committee decides the contents and procedure of the investigation on the basis of presented objections or contents of clarification.
② Judgment of research ethics violating act will be decided with more than two-thirds approval by investigation committee members.

Clause 9 (Punishment) When confirmation ofa research ethics violating act is decided, each of the following punishments can be applied or more than one of them can be applied simultaneously:

1. Publication of a dishonest research paper is not allowed.
2. In the case of a published paper, it will be deleted from the paper list of the society’s journal, and the fact that publication is deleted will be announced through the homepage and scientific journal of this society.
3. Deprivation or suspension of member qualification
4. Other adequate measures

Clause 10 (Fairness of Publishing)

① Members of the editing committee shall treat the submitted manuscripts in accordance to the publication submission and review regulations of the Korean Society of International Agriculture regardless of gender, age, and affiliation of the author, stereotypes, and personal connections.
② Any reviewers from the same organization of the contributor shall be excluded.

Clause 11 (Revision of research ethics regulation)

① Items not stipulated in this regulation will be performed in accordance with the decision of the committee.
② Revision of research ethics will be in accordance with the regulation revision procedures of the society.

[Supplementary provision]

Clause 1 (Effective date) This regulation will be effective from the date of announcement through a resolution of the general meeting.
Clause 2 For the policies on the research and publication ethics not stated in this instructions, International standards for editors and authors (http://publicationethics.org/internationalstan- dards-editors-and-authors) can be applied.