Ethics Guideline

Ethical Code of the Journal of Korean Society for Simulation in Nursing

1st enactment: March 15, 2013
2nd revision: April 6, 2016
3rd revision: February 3, 2017

1. Purpose

The purpose of these regulations is to present principles and standards to establish the research ethics of the Journal of Korean Society for Simulation in Nursing, to prevent misconduct and to judge research misconduct in a fair and robust manner.

2. Bioethics

1) If the research subject is a human being, the Declaration of Helsinki requires that the subject be informed about the research purpose and that assurances be provided to the subject that that various steps have been taken to protect the subject from any mental or physical harm during the experiment. It is recommended that approval is taken from the Institutional Ethics Board (IRB). If considered necessary, the editor may request the submission of written consent and IRB approval.
2) If the subject of the study is an animal, the measures taken to reduce any pain or discomfort to the animal must be described. A written assurance will be required that the experiment process did not violate the Institutional Ethics Board (IRB) regulations or the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. The editorial board may request the submission of a written consent form and an ethics committee approval form if considered necessary.

3. Organization and operation of the Research Ethics Committee

1) The Editorial Board is in charge of the functioning of the Research Ethics Committee (from now on referred to as the "Committee"), which deliberates research ethics.
2) In the case of deliberation on matters related to research ethics, the editorial board meeting is held when a majority of the members are present, and a decision is made with a majority vote.
3) Members involved in research deliberated by the editorial board cannot participate in the deliberations on that research.
4) If necessary for deliberation, the chairperson may request that the person in charge of the research or its management submit or report data to them.
5) Depending on the case, the committee may appoint experts in a specific field as advisory members.

4. Ethics of the review of research results

1) The editorial board strives to ensure fair and objective evaluation by assigning the evaluation of submitted papers to judges with professional knowledge and fair judgment skills in the applicable field.
2) The editorial board conducts a plagiarism verification procedure for all submitted papers using the paper plagiarism prevention system.
3) To ensure a fair review, reviewers belonging to the same institution as the contributor will be excluded whenever possible.
4) Editors and reviewers must not disclose information about the author or the contents of the reviewed paper to anyone other than the reviewer until a decision is made on the publication of the submitted paper.
5) The judges must fairly evaluate the paper based on objective standards, regardless of personal academic beliefs or personal relationships with the author.
6) Reviewers must not cite specific information learned during the review process without the author's consent before the reviewed paper is published.

5. Definition of research misconduct

1) Research misconduct (from now on referred to as “misconduct”) refers to acts of forgery; falsification; plagiarism; improper indication of authorship; and duplicate use of data in the research proposal, the conduct of research, and the reporting and presentation of research results. The definitions of terms are as follows. ① “Forgery” refers to creating false data or research results that do not exist.
② “Falsification” refers to distorting research contents or results by artificially manipulating research materials, equipment, and processes or arbitrarily transforming or deleting data.
③ “Plagiarism” refers to appropriating other people’s works, research ideas, research contents, and results, which are protected under the Copyright Act, without proper approval or quotation.
④ “Improper indication of authorship” refers to not granting the authorship without justifiable reasons to those who have made academic contributions to the research contents or results. It also refers to conferring authorship for appreciation or courtesy to those who have not made academic contributions.
⑤ “Duplicate use of data” refers to re-publishing or posting previously published data without citation. Even if the body of the paper published later uses texts that show slightly different perspectives or contains slightly different analyses of the same data that has already been published, it is considered duplicate if the main content is the same as that of a previously published paper.

6. Research Ethics of Researchers

1) Researchers must refrain from misconduct.
2) When citing published academic data, efforts should be made to describe the data accurately, and the source must be clearly stated. Data obtained during the evaluation of a paper or research proposal or through personal contact can be cited only after obtaining the consent of the researcher who provided the information.
3) When citing someone else's manuscript or borrowing (referencing) an idea, it must be disclosed in a footnote (post note) whether the idea was cited or referenced. Through this note, readers should be able to identify which part is from previous research and which part is the author's original idea, claim, or interpretation.
4) If there is a possibility that the subject (person) will be exposed to serious detrimental risks during the research, the consent of the subject to participate in the research must be obtained after sufficiently explaining the risks to the subject in advance. This process must be described in the paper as well.
5) If the consent of research subjects or related institutions is required to secure research data, the legitimacy of these procedures must be ensured.
6) Simultaneously contributing the same paper to multiple journals is unethical. Submission to another journal is allowed only after one journal has rejected the paper.
7) Researchers follow plagiarism verification procedures by utilizing the paper plagiarism prevention system (Korean Academic Index (KCI) thesis similarity test service, etc.).

7. Investigation and processing procedures for research misconduct

1) When the committee recognizes misconduct or receives a report of misconduct, the committee must decide whether or not to review the matter.
2) The identity of the misconduct informant is not disclosed to people outside the committee.
3) Investigations into misconduct are confidential, and if necessary, the committee may interview and investigate the relevant researcher, informant, and reviewers of the paper in question.
4) The results of the investigation into misconduct must be reported to the society, and the record must be kept in the society for five years from when the process is completed.
5) The following information must be included in the report. ① Misconduct subject to review
② List of reviewers and investigation process
③ Grounds for review decision and related evidence
④ Clarification and processing procedure of the member subject to review 6) For researchers who are found to have violated these regulations and general ethical principles of research, disciplinary measures such as a warning, suspension of submission qualifications (for at least three years), and retraction of published papers may be taken. These measures will be notified to other institutions or individuals. The editorial board decides other related matters.

8. Protection of the rights of persons subject to research misconduct investigation

1) The identity of the relevant researcher is not disclosed to people outside the committee until the committee decides to sanction the misconduct.
2) Researchers who have been reported for misconduct are given sufficient opportunity to explain themselves before necessary measures are taken.
3) The researcher may request that the committee review the disciplinary decision within seven days of receiving the disposition notification.
4) If reexamination is requested, the committee must convene the meeting within 20 days from the date on which the request is made and decide whether to take disciplinary action within 60 days from the date on which the request is made. However, if there are unavoidable reasons, the period may be extended by 30 days.

Addenda

1. This regulation is effective from March 2013.
2. This regulation is effective from April 2016.
3. This regulation is effective from February 2017.