Korean Journal of Acupuncture

Enacted on July 7, 2009
Revised on December 14, 2016
Revised on December 27, 2018
Revised on March 10, 2020

Chapter 1. General Rules

Article 1. Objective
This research ethics rules aims at setting research ethics for submission of manuscript to <Korean Journal of Acupuncture>, one that is published by Society for Meridian and Acupoint, to publish research results, or reviewing and publishing steps of a manuscript.

Article 2. Subject of Application
The subjects of this rules are manuscript, contribution, letter, other relevant materials, and relevant documents that are submitted to <Korean Journal of Acupuncture>.

Chapter 2. Research Ethics Rules for Authors

Article 3. No Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification
Plagiarism is either stealing another author's opinions, ideas, or research results without any proper approval or mark of source, or duplicating or publishing overlapping research paper with the same or similar conclusion from one's own past work without mentioning that fact. Fabrication is arbitrarily coming up with data or research results that do not exist. Falsification is distorting the content or result of a research by artificially faking research materials or steps or by changing or deleting data on purpose. Authors submitting documents such as manuscript, contribution or letter should make sure that there is no plagiarism, fabrication and falsification.

Article 4. No Duplicate Submission and Publication
Authors should not have duplicate, redundant or overlapping publication in both domestic and international publications. When submitting a result from a research, the author should clarify that this manuscript has not been published on other journals, and also will not be submitted to them after being accepted. If the author is to publish parts of research results that are already published prior to submission, he or she should acquire approval from the publisher.

Article 5. Quotation and Reference
When quoting previously published materials, whether it is someone else's work or one's own work, authors should clarify that they are quoting, and the source of quotation should be stated clearly.

Article 6. Authorship and Contribution
Authors are recognized for their own research or academic contribution, and are assumed to hold responsibility and get credential for the contents of their paper. Order of authors should be irrelevant from relative ranking but clearly reflect the amount of contribution to the work. The author is qualified only in case of
1) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3) Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Contributors who meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged.

Article 7. Specially related person as a co-author
A specially related person (a chid under age of 19 years or a member of family including brothers and sisters, spouse, ancestors, and lineal descendants) who is recognized for his/her own research or academic contribution can be qualified as an author. The corresponding author is asked to provide the disclosure form when at least one of the authors is a specially related person.

Article 8. Animal Protection
Animal experiments should require full compliance with the law. Animal study should be done only for the purpose of research and animals should not be exploited or harassed, and be treated according to animal protection principles.

Article 9. Institutional Review Board
All studies involving human should be proceeded only after getting approval from Institutional Review Board (Constituted review board or Ethics committee), and this fact should be noted in the paper.

Article 10. Conflicts of Interest
The corresponding author of an article is asked to inform the Editor of the authors’ potential conflicts of interest possibly influencing their interpretation of data. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. A potential conflict of interest should be disclosed in the manuscript even when the authors are confident that their judgments have not been influenced in preparing the manuscript. The disclosure form should be the same as the ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest (http://www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf).

Chapter 3. Research Ethics Rules for Editors

Article 11. Review Request
Editors will request assessment of a paper to peer reviewers who are expected to have professional opinion on the subject and fair judgment to make decision whether the paper should be published in the journal. For a fair review, the author's personal information should not be revealed to a reviewer and vice versa.

Article 12. Acceptance Decision
Editors have the rights and responsibility whether to publish a paper. Submitted papers should not be handled with any bias or be affected by personal relations of the editors. Rather, editors should judge if the reviewers' assessment was fairly done based on scientific evidence, and should decide whether to publish the submitted paper.

Chapter 4. Research Ethics Rules for Reviewers

Article 13. Accepting or Declining Reviewer's Duty
Within a certain period of time set for review, reviewers are to report back to editors with fully assessed result of the paper that was given to be evaluated. If the reviewer feels that he/she is not a suitable person for the job, or has conflict of interest with the content or the authors of that paper, then he/she should notify the editors, clarify the reason, and decline to review.

Article 14. Fairness of Review
Reviewers should take neutral attitude and stay positive as they review the manuscript, and try to review with objective standards with fairness. There should be specific and reasonable reasons for requested corrections, and commentary for the authors should be included.

Article 15. Confidentiality Disclosure
Until the publication of the paper, reviewers are not allowed to release information about the paper in any kind of forms.

Chapter 5. Ethics Committee

Article 16. Composition of Ethics Committee
Ethics Committee is composed of more than five members. The members will be recommended by board members and be appointed by the president of the Society. If a member has direct conflict of interest to a case, then he/she cannot participate in investigating, deliberating, and voting steps for that case.

Article 17. Reports and Submission of Misconducts
Misconducts that are violating research ethics rules stated by this Society for authors, editors, and reviewers, or behaviors that are suggesting or coercing such misconduct can be reported to the Ethics Committee. Reporter can use any kinds of methods to report the case, such as oral statement, letter, phone call, e-mail and so on, and should identify himself/herself when reporting.

Article 18. Confidentiality for the Reporter and the Subject of Investigation
The Ethics Committee should not reveal identity of the reporter. However, people who falsified report on purpose or who reported a case even when he/she knew that it was not true are not eligible for this identity protection. Until the final decision for disciplinary action is decided by the Society, identity of the subject of investigation should not be disclosed to the public, and if he/she turns out to be clean, then effort to regain his/her reputation should be followed.

Article 19. Rights of the Ethics Committee
The Ethics Committee can make a thorough investigation into a reported case by investigating the reporter, the subject, witness, testifier, or evidence, and if the subject is found guilty after all this, then the committee can propose an appropriate disciplinary action to the president.

Article 20. Investigation and Deliberation of the Ethics Committee
The member who has been reported for his/her misconduct has to cooperate with the investigation of the Ethics Committee. Not cooperating or hindering a rightful investigation is a misconduct by itself.

Article 21. Guarantee for Chance to Object and Defense
The Ethics Committee should equally guarantee the right and chance for appealing opinion, making objection, or arguing defense for both the reporter and the subject of the investigation, and should notify them in advance.

Article 22. Steps and Contents of Disciplinary Action
When the proposal for disciplinary action is made, the president will call for the board meeting and decide whether to act on the disciplinary action and the extent of it. For a member who was found guilty, disciplinary action such as warning, limitation of submission or disqualification of member's status can be applied, and this information can be announced to his/her affiliation and public.

Article 23. Process for Managing Research and Publication Misconduct
When the journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, and so on, the resolution process will follow the flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The discussion and decision on the suspected cases are carried out by the Editorial Board. When research and publication misconduct of a specially related person as a co-author is confirmed, the Editorial Board inform related authorities (schools, universities or research institutions related to entrance examination, admission, or employment) from which a specially related person made unfair profits.

: September 2024, 41 (3)