Ethics Guideline

The Research Ethics Policy of the Korean Society of Environment and Ecology

(Established on November 1, 2007)

Chapter 1. General Rules

Article 1 (Purpose) The purpose of the research ethics policy is to specify the standards to secure research ethics and inspect and prevent unfair research behavior following the ideas and principles of the Korean Society of Environment & Ecology (KSEE).

Article 2 (Application Target) This policy should be applicable to all members of this conference.

Article 3 (Application Range) This policy should be followed except for the specific rules in relation to the research ethics and truth of the special research area. If there are special cases that are not able to follow this policy, the application of the policy can be extended.

Article 4 (Application Time Period) This policy should be applied on the day of its establishment and proclamation by KSEE.

Chapter 2 Research Trust and Social Responsibilities

Article 5 (Research Trust) ① Researchers should conduct their research (proposal of research, conduction of research, report and presentation of research, and review and evaluation of research, etc.) honestly and truthfully; ② Researchers should describe the contents and importance of research objectively and precisely and should not change, delete, or add results not found; ③ Researchers should labor to conduct their research without prejudice and prejudgment.

Article 6 (Obligation of Record, Preservation, and Report/Public Release of Research Information) ① All research information should be reported exactly, and should be recorded, processed, and preserved accurately.
② Researchers should use appropriate research design and statistical analysis, and it should be open to the public if necessary.

Article 7 (Contribution of Research Results to Society) Researchers should make an effort to promote social benefits and standards of public interest through their research and should be aware of the impact of their research on the society and accept responsibility as professionals.

Article 8 (Caution on Application of Research Results) Researchers should act according to their conscience when they publish and utilize their research results. Researchers particularly should not distort or exaggerate research results to improve their reputation or to obtain research funding.

Article 9 (Obligation of Relevant Regulations Obedience) Researchers should respect intellectual property rights including patents and copyrights.

Article 10 (Obligation of Life Respect) Must observe and respect the life of living things used for research.

Chapter 3 Fairness of Interrelationship between Researchers

Section 1 Responsibility and Obligation of Researchers

Article 11 (Collaborative Research) Researchers should clarify their roles and interrelationship between researchers in collaborative research and should discharge their responsibility. Before conducting research, researchers should agree and understand the purpose and expected results of research, individual roles in cooperation, data collection, preservation, and sharing method, the order and ranking standard of authors, correspondent selection, intellectual property copyright and ownership, etc.

Article 12 (Responsibility and Obligation of Authors) ① Correspondents should take overall responsibility about research data and indicate the authors' order and should control research of co-authors; ② Authors should verify their contributions to their university or outside institutions if it is required.

Article 13 (Correspondents) ① Correspondents should be those who continuously take overall responsibility about the order of authors and co-authors; ② Correspondents should accept the responsibility of verification of the indication of authors' order and the indication of co-authors.

Section 2 Standards of Authorship and Indication of Authors

Article 14 (Authorship) ① Authors should be determined depending on their academic and technical research contributions about research contents or results. Examples of academic and technical contributions are as stated below:
1. Research plan and design
2. Data collection and analysis
3. First draft
4. Confirmation of final manuscript etc.
② People who do not academically or technically contribute to research contents or results should not be included in authorship as a mark of gratitude or courtesy. However, it is possible to recognize those who contribute to data collection, data input, or translation etc. in acknowledgements.

Article 15 (Decision of Order of Authors' Listing) The order of authors' listing should be fairly determined according in agreement with all authors and research contributions.

Article 16 (Indication of Authors' Institutional Affiliations) Authors' Institutional Affiliations, where research was conducted on and the manuscript was written, should be identified in the paper. However, other practices can be used under different circumstances.

Article 17 (Ownership of Research Results and Relevant Product) Correspondents should clarify the ownership and related responsibility about utilized or created data, samples, and research products from the research plan and design steps.

Article 18 (Ownership about Research Results Created as a duty) Because the research results created as a duty should be owned by KSEE, these results should not be used or endorsed to other institutions without permission.

Article 19 (Research Results Sharing and Public Open) Correspondents, on his or her responsibility, may provide the data and samples of the paper to co-authors on request with the proper reasons.

Chapter 4 Unfair and Unethical Research Behaviors

Section 1 Citation Styles and Principles

Article 20 (Citation Styles and Principles) ① The author may cite other publications in the author's paper using original language or translations corresponding to proper citation styles and principles such as introduction, references, comments, and other methods.
② The author should be responsible for reference contents and citation sources. The author should confirm to all contents of the citation (Authors' names, journal volume and issue number, pages, publication year etc.) using the original papers. However, it is possible to recite sources under necessary conditions.
③ The author should make a citation to distinguish between his/her paper and a cited paper under the writing requirement using proper styles and principles.
④ The author should make a citation for the published paper. In case of a non-published paper citation, the author must obtain an agreement from the counterpart researchers who have the non-published data, research proposals, or personal contact with the author.
⑤ The author should make a citation for the idea or theory of others when the author translates and introduces them in his/her paper.
⑥ The author should write clearly to reveal his/her ideas from the citation for the readers, when the author made extensive citations from one source repeatedly.
⑦ The author should include all citations in references if references would have an important impact on the research direction and information for the understanding of the readers.
⑧ In the previous research review steps, it is highly advised not to use an abstract citation as the actual paper citation or proceeding citation as the journal article citation.

Article 21 (The general knowledge citation) ① It is required to make a citation when using information from other ideas or facts. However, it is not necessary if ideas or facts are general knowledge.
② It is advisable to make a citation if notions or facts are not in the scope of the general knowledge.

Section 2 Unfair Research Behavior

Article 22 (Definition of Unfair Research Behavior) "Unfair research behavior" means all behavior including counterfeit and falsification, plagiarism, unfair author indication, overlapping publications, etc. from the overall research process.
1. "Counterfeit" means behavior intentionally referencing nonexisting data or results.
2. "Falsification" means behavior distorting research contents or results by artificially controlling research methods, tools, processes, by changing or deleting the data (in here, "delete" means using behavior selecting only advantageous data with purposely eliminating impeditive data in drawing a conclusion).
3. "Plagiarism"means behavior using others' writings, research ideas or hypothesis, theories, or research results without permission or citations.
4. "Unfair author indication" means behavior not referencing as authors, people who academically contributed to research contents or to results without proper recognition, or referencing authors who did not provide any academic contribution.
5. "Overlapping publications"means behavior in which authors submit and publish again already published manuscripts elsewhere which have exactly same or almost same texts without any notification.

Article 23 (Idea Plagiarism) ① "Idea plagiarism"means behavior in which progenitor's whole or part of the ideas (explanations, theories, conclusions, hypotheses, metaphors etc.) are used intact or superficially modified without citations.
② Authors must have ethical obligations stating sources of ideas through common footnotes or list of references.
③ Authors must not use others' research proposals or ideas from submitted manuscripts known by peer reviewers without citing proper sources or citations.

Article 24 (Text Plagiarism) "Text plagiarism" means copying a part of manuscript texts from others without citing original authors.

Article 25 (Mosaic Plagiarism) "Mosaic Plagiarism" means combining a part of manuscript texts from others or using those by replacing synonyms without stating original authors or citations.

Article 26 (Overlapping Publications) ① Overlapping publications refers to the author's manuscript which has the same main content as an already published his/her manuscript although it shows somewhat different viewpoints or perspectives or includes somewhat different analysis.
② In case of overlapping publications for different independent reader groups, it is necessary to have an agreement between different editors from different journals. Additionally, authors must indicate overlapping publications to journal readers. Also the same rules are applied if the same manuscript is published in different languages in different journals.
③ It is forbidden that the same manuscript is submitted to multiple journals. It is a rule in which a manuscript should be submitted to another journal after being rejected from one journal.

Article 27 (Unfair Research Behavior and Caution of Copyright Violation) ① The copyright usually belongs to the journal in which the manuscript is first published. Therefore, authors should know if there could be an infringement of copyright when they publish their already published manuscript in a different form or they duplicate it.
② Pay attention to an infringement of copyright in case of overlapping publications.
③ Pay attention to an infringement of copyright in case of broad text citation despite using citation marks adequately or referring correctly.

Section 3 Unethical Research Behavior

Article 28 (Unethical Research Behavior during Review) ① The reviewers must not use specific information for their own research directly or indirectly, which is learned from reviews of research proposals or manuscripts, without original authors' agreement.
② Behavior stated as below can be regarded as unethical research behavior in reviews:
1. Asking students or third persons to review the requested manuscript
2. Discussing research proposal or manuscript contents under review with colleagues in departments or conferences
3. Keeping manuscripts after reviewing without returning or shredding
4. Using original authors' ideas directly or indirectly in review processing
5. Reviewing and evaluating manuscripts without reading fully

Article 29 (Unethical Research Behavior) Behavior stated below can be unethical research behavior:
1. To be cited as a solo inventor, not purposely recognizing co-inventors
2. Presenting research at a conference or seminar without appropriately citing collaborative research
3. Presenting research results in the media without going through proper verification procedures
4. Distorting truths related to an expectation effect to get research funding by giving confirmation in which a research plan will considerably contribute to the related area
5. Stating defamation or personal attacks in the review process of submitted manuscripts
6. Exaggerating research results to get monetary profit

Section 4 Inappropriate Writing Behavior

Article 30 (Inappropriate Writing Behavior) Behavior stated below is inappropriate writing behavior:
1. Inappropriate resource citations
2. Distorting references
3. Relying on abstracts etc. in citations of published manuscripts
4. Citing unread or uncomprehending references
5. Borrowing contents intensively from only one resource but citing only part
6. Reusing texts
7. Publishing research results that should be published as one manuscript in multiple manuscripts to exaggerate research achievements

Article 31 (Prohibition of Reference Distortion) ① References must be directly related to the manuscript contents. It is forbidden to include purposely non-related references to fabricate the number of references or to raise the possibility of publication.
② There is an ethical obligation not only including partially advantageous references for one's own research but also including contradictory references from one's own viewpoint.

Article 32 (Reuse of Texts) ① "Reuse of Texts" means reusing the parts of texts in the authors' own works.
② It is necessary to avoid reusing texts to keep an ethical writing behavior. However, when it is necessary to reuse texts in unavoidable situations, try to avoid an infringement of the copyright by giving it citation marks or properly referring to the sources.

Article 33 (Other Inappropriate Writing Behaviors) Behaviors stated below shows inappropriate writing behavior:
1. Not reporting or informing important related evidences different from the research data or the viewpoints of the readers
2. Citing research that have methodical, statistical, or other faults as the ground of proof
3. To avoid other researchers independently reproducing the research results, describing unclearly or distorting the research methods including a sampling design is forbidden.

Supplementary Provision

This policy is executed from November 1, 2007.