Article 1 (Purpose)

This Ethical Guidelines to Research Publication (the "Guidelines") is to set forth basic principles and directions of obligations and responsibilities necessary to secure research ethics of the members of the Korea Information Technology Association (the "Association").

Article 2 (Persons Subject To)

This Guidelines shall apply to all the members of the Association and other persons who are engaged and participate in researches and academic activities hosted by the Association: Provided, however, that such academic activities shall mean all activities related to researches including, but not limited to, academic events, publication business and educational business.

Article 3 (Scope of Application)

Except as otherwise provided by laws and regulations with respect to ethics and truthfulness for specific research areas, this Guidelines shall apply.

Article 4 (Scope of Research Fraud)

Research Fraud to be used in this Guidelines shall mean forgery, falsification, plagiarism, overlapping publication, unjustifiable indication of authors and other acts related to those and the details of those are as follows:

4.1 “Forgery" shall mean any academic activity which uses non-existent data, research contents or results without justifiable approval or quotation.
4.2 "Falsification" shall mean any activity which distorts research contents or results by artificially manipulating materials, equipment, research process and results necessary for research or arbitrarily modifying and removing data.
4.3 "Plagiarism" shall mean any activity which uses other person's idea, research contents and/ or results without justifiable approval or quotation.
4.4 "Overlapping publication" shall mean any activity which uses the same or substantially similar academic work that he or she did before in other journals or works either without consent of the co-author or the editor of academic journal where such work was firstly published or without any proper quotation.
4.5 "Unjustifiable indication of authors" shall mean any activity which either does not make a person become an author even such person has made scientific or technical contributions to thesis, writing or report with respect to research contents or results or make a person become an author even such person has not made such contributions.
4.6 Any activity which either intentionally interferes with the investigation made for suspicious fraudulent acts of his or her own or others or threatens or harm the informant. 4.7 Any activity which seriously deviates from the one commonly acceptable to the science and technology society.

Article 5 (Protection of Informant's Right)

5.1 Informant shall mean any person who informs the fact or related evidence of fraudulent acts known to him or her to the Association.
5.2 Informants may inform such fact or evidence in any manner available , oral or written, including using telephone or email under their real names, in principle: Provided, however, that, if the information is provided in writing or email with specific content and evidence of fraudulent act such as the title of research assignment or thesis, an anonymous report shall be dealt with as the same case of those informed under real name.
5.3 The Association shall protect the personal information of informants so that such information would not be disclosed. In addition, the Association is responsible to protect the informants not to be disadvantaged in term of their position or working conditions and unfairly pressured or harmed and take necessary measures for such protection.
5.4 Upon request of informant for investigation procedure and schedule to be carried on after their report on fraudulent act, the Association shall faithfully respond to such request.
5.5 The provisions of this Article 5 shall not apply to the protection of the informants who reported even though they knew or should have known that the contents they reported is false.

Article 6 (Protection of Right of Persons Subject to Investigation)

6.1 Persons subject to an investigation shall mean those who became subject to such investigation either by informants report or recognition of the Association or being assumed as being involved in fraudulent acts in the course of investigation: Provided, however, that reference witnesses or witnesses shall not be included to such persons.
6.2 The Association shall take great care not to unjustifiedly infringe on the reputation or rights of the persons subject to an investigation in the course of verification.
6.3 Any suspicion of fraudulent act shall not be disclosed to the outside until the result of investigation is affirmed.
6.4 Persons subject to an investigation shall be entitled to request to the Association to inform them the procedures and schedule of investigation and treatment and, in such event, the Association shall faithfully respond to such request.

Article 7 (Term of Verification

Any act conducted in more than 5 years from the date of report shall not be subject to the investigation: Provided, however, that the provisions of this Article 7 shall not apply to the cases where the persons to be subject to the investigation carries on follow-up research by directly reciting the results of any fraudulent act made in more than 5 years from the date of report.

Article 8 (Principle of Verification)

8.1 The burden of proof the truthfulness of fraudulent act at issue shall be borne by the Association and the Research Ethics Committee (the "Committee"): Provided, however, that, if the person subject to investigation either intentionally destroy or reject to submit the data requested by such Committee, such person shall have such burden of proof that the contents which is considered as contained in such data is true or not.
8.2 The Committee shall ensure that both informants and persons subject to investigation have equal rights and opportunities to state their opinions, raise opposition and make arguments. In addition, the Committee shall inform them related procedures in advance.
8.3 Chairmans group and directors of the Association shall make their best efforts in ensuring that the Committee maintains its independency and fairness without any unfair pressure or interference.

Article 9 (Procedure of Truth Verification)

9.1 Investigation on fraudulent research act shall be commenced within 10 days from the date of receiving the report.
9.2 All the investigation schedule shall be completed within 6 months from the date of receiving the report.
9.3 Decision and measurement for the investigation shall be made with 1 year from the commencement date of such investigation.
9.4 The persons against whom a decision of fraudulent research act has been made may request a re-review within 1 month from such decision and, in such event, the Committee shall make a decision from such re-review and inform it to such person.

Article 10 (Constitution and Authority of Committee)

10.1 The number of members of the Committee shall be more than 7 members including the Chairman, in principle, and the Chairman shall be nominated by the President of the Association: Provided, however, that the chief editors of the journal of Korean, English version shall be appointed from existing members.
10.2 Except for existing members, other members shall be recommended by the Chairman of the Committee and appointed by the President of the Association.
10.3 In the event that any member of the Committee becomes subject to an investigation, the Committee shall be comprised of the other members other than such member.
10.4 The Committee may request to informants, person subject to investigation, witness and reference witness to attend to make statements in the course of investigation and, in such event, the person subject to investigation shall attend with no fail.
10.5 The Committee's decision of fraudulent act shall be made by a simple majority of vote of total number of its members.

Article 11 (Report of Investigation Result)

The Committee shall investigate a research fraudulent act and make a report of such investigation to the President of the Association within 10 days from completion of such investigation and such report shall contain the followings with no fail:

11.1 contents of informants' report;
11.2 fraudulent act subject to investigation;
11.3 lists of members of the Committee who participated in the investigation;
11.4 whether a full-scale investigation has been conducted or not and the grounds for decision;
11.5 the role of person subject to investigation in the research at issue and whether such person made any fraudulent act or not; and
11.6 related evidence and witness

Article 12 (Follow-up Measures of Investigation Result Report)

12.1 The Association shall suspend the person, who committed a research fraud and damaged on the reputation of this Association, from his or her activity in this Association up to 5 years according to the severity of such act.
12.2 The Association shall preserve decision results of research fraud made by the Committee for more than 5 years.

Article 13 (Miscellaneous)

Any matter which has not set forth in this Guidelines shall be determined in accordance with applicable internal rules of the Association or discussion of board of directors of the Association.

Article 1.

This Guidelines was enacted on June 01, 2008.

Article 2.

Part of this Guidelines was amended on September 30, 2013