Korean Social Science Journal Research Code of Ethics
Chapter 1. General Provisions
Article 1. [Purpose] The purpose of Korean Social Science Journal Research Code of Ethics is to establish ethical principles and standards for KSSJ editorial board, reviewers, and manuscript authors and to enhance the morality of this Journal and its authors.
Article 2. [Obligations of Authors] Manuscripts must be written according to the author’s scholarly conscience. Authors should not present others’ research work or opinions as their own and must respect the copyright of other authors.
Article 3. [Obligations of Reviewers] Reviewers must evaluate manuscripts according to their scholarly conscience and maintain the confidentiality of the review.
Chapter 2. Scope of Unethical Acts in Research
Article 4. [Definition] Unethical acts in research include the following:
- Fabrication: falsely creating data or describing research results that do not exist.
- Alteration: Distorting the contents or results of a research project by artificially manipulating its materials, equipment, and procedures or by intentionally distorting or deleting data.
- Plagiarism: Using another’s ideas, research, or results without permission or acknowledgment. This Journal regards as plagiarism any time an author copies or uses another’s original work without disclosing the source, even if plagiarism was not intended. Acts of plagiarism include the following:
- Intentionally using the original author’s composition, research, original expressions, data, or analysis without disclosing the source.
- Copying a substantial amount of writing from another source verbatim, and failing to acknowledge it as a quotation even if the source is disclosed.
- Multiple submissions: Submitting the same or a similar manuscript to a second journal before the review process at the first journal is complete.
- Multiple publications: Publishing the same or a similar manuscript in more than one journal.
- Misrepresenting authorship: Failure to assign credit as authors to persons who made scientific or technological contributions to the research process or results, or assigning credit as authors to persons who did not make a scientific or technological contribution.
- Intentionally disrupting an investigation of one’s own or another’s actions or harming an informer.
- Other acts that are substantially outside the limits of acceptable behavior in the academic field of public administration.
Chapter 3. Investigation and Judgment of Unethical Acts
Article 5. [Judges] KSSJ editorial board will investigate any allegation of plagiarism either in an article that has been published in KSSJ or in a manuscript that is being reviewed, and will decide on appropriate sanctions against an author found to have committed plagiarism.
Article 6. [Preliminary Investigation] A preliminary investigation will be undertaken to decide whether it is necessary to investigate an allegation of plagiarism, and should be commenced within 30 days after receiving the allegation.
- If the subject of the investigation admits his or her plagiarism after the preliminary investigation, the editorial board can make a final decision without further investigation.
- If the board decides not to proceed after the preliminary investigation, a notice must be given to the informer in writing within 10 days after the decision, unless the informer was anonymous.
- If the informer disagrees with the result of the preliminary investigation, he or she can file an appeal to the KJPS editorial board. The appeal must be filed within 30 days after the notice is made.
Article 7. [Main Investigation and Final Decision] The main investigation is the procedure taken to establish whether plagiarism took place.
- The KSSJ editorial board will provide an opportunity to the informer and the subject of the investigation to state their views. If either party does not respond, that party will be considered to have no objection to the process.
- The result of the main investigation should be announced in writing within 10 days to the informer and the subject of the investigation.
- If the informer or the subject of the investigation disagrees with the result of the main investigation, he or she can file an appeal to KSSJ within 30 days after the notice. If KSSJ editorial board finds the appeal reasonable, it will reinvestigate.
- Unless unavoidable circumstances prevent it, the final decision should be made within 6 months after the preliminary investigation begins.
Article 8. [Writing and Handling the Report]
- After the main investigation is complete, a report will be written including the following contents:
- Text of the informer’s accusation
- Alleged unethical act under investigation
- Result of the preliminary investigation and the basis for proceeding to the main investigation, if there is one
- List of the members of KSSJ editorial board judging the case
- Record of evidence and testimony given in the case and the board’s assessment of it
- Contents of appeals by the informer and the subject of the investigation and arguments made by the parties
- The board’s decision
- KSSJ editorial board will keep all documents relating to the investigation, including computer files, for five years.
- The investigation report and the list of judges may be open to the public after the decision is made.
Article 9. [Consequences] Any author who is found to have committed an unethical act may receive the following sanctions depending on the degree of seriousness.
- Submission of manuscripts to KSSJ is forbidden for five years or less.
- If an article is found to contain plagiarism after it has been published, it will be deleted from the online publication of KSSJ.
- Public announcement of the fact of plagiarism will be made on the KSSJ homepage and in the following issue of KSSJ.
- Notice regarding the act of plagiarism will be sent to the organization in which the author works within 10 days.
- The author will write an apology to the editorial board.