Operational guidelines/enforcement rules of the Ethics Review Committee of Korean Society of Critical Care Medicine

Established April 23, 2009.

• Article 1 (Name)
  
  • These guidelines shall be called "Operational Guidelines of the Ethics Review Committee of Korean Society of Critical Care Medicine (KSCCM) (herein after called the Committee).
• Article 2 (Objective)
  
  • The objective of these guidelines is to define and regulate the role and responsibilities of researchers and reviewers in order to prevent any misconduct or irregularity in the submission, review, evaluation and publication of manuscripts for the Journal (hereinafter called the Journal) issued by KSCCM (hereinafter called the Association).
• Article 3 (Composition)
  
  • The editing director will chair the Committee composed of selected directors, editors, and an administrator.
    The total regular members of the Committee will be seven to ten, including the chairman. Special members can also be appointed from executives of the Association, if necessary.
• Article 4 (Terms for members)
  
  • All members shall serve a three-year term and can be reappointed.
• Article 5 (Responsibilities of members)
  
  • ① The chairman will oversee the overall operations as the head of the Committee.
    ② The administrator will assist the chairman and preside in absence of the chairman. The administrator is also responsible for completing and storing meeting minutes.
• Article 6 (Scope of the Committee)
  
  • The Committee shall govern the following:
    ① The Committee shall decide on the penalty for any manuscript or its authors that have violated research ethics or publication ethics after reviewing all of the evidence submitted by the Editorial Board of the Association independently.
    ② The Committee will decide whether the accused will be given a chance to defend themselves.
    ③ Their decisions should be reported to the Association with details on how the allegation was made, the nature of the violation, the names of committee members involved, decision making procedures, related evidence, and final decisions.
• Article 7 (Meetings)
  
  • The Committee's and the Editorial Board's meetings shall take place on the same day. A special meeting can be convened by the chairman.
• Article 8 (Resolution)
  
  • ① The committee meeting will be held if at least half of members are present. Resolutions shall pass by a majority vote of members present. In the case of a tied vote, the chairman has the power to pass resolutions.
    ② Any revision of these guidelines shall require the attendance of two-thirds of members and a two-thirds vote of members in attendance.
• Article 9 (Resolution)
  
  • ① These regulations shall take effect upon the approval of the Editorial Board.
    ② Terms related to research, publication, and reviewer ethics will be defined in the enforcement rules for the operating guidelines, along with procedures for ethics violations.
    ③ The enforcement rules shall supersede these guidelines for any items not covered by these guidelines. Any revision of these rules shall require the attendance of two-thirds of members and a two-thirds vote of members in attendance.

Enforcement rules for operating guidelines of the Publications Committee of the Korean Society of Critical Care Medicine

• Article 1 (Objective)
  
  • These enforcement rules are intended to ensure efficient research, publication, and review by defining related terms and providing guidelines for sanctions against ethics violations, pursuant to Article 9 Section ② of the operational guidelines.
• Article 2 (Publication of manusripts)
  
  • Section 1: Research ethics
    
    • Research ethics involve the application of ethical standards for research integrity and discuss research misconduct related to human subjects, data processing, and the publication of results, including fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism.
      
  • Section 2: Publication ethics
    
    • Publication ethics involve the application of ethical standards relating to authorship, conflicts of interest, duplicate publication, and the review and editing process.
      
  • Section 3: Fabrication
    
    • Fabrication refers to the act of fabricating data that does not exist.
      
  • Section 4: Falsification
    
    • Falsification refers to the act of modifying data or misrepresenting statistical analysis in favor of the author's own interests.
      
  • Section 5: Duplicate or redundant or overlapping publication
    
    • Duplicate publication refers to publishing a manuscript that overlaps substantially with one already published and includes self-plagiarism, salami publication, and imalas publication. However, this does not include secondary publication.
      
  • Section 6: Imalas publication
    
    • Imalas publication refers to adding more case(s) to an already-published manuscript without any changes in the manuscript’s conclusion.
      
  • Section 7: Salami publication
    
    • Salami publication refers to dividing up the results of research into two papers or more.
      
  • Section 8: Self-plagiarism
    
    • Self-plagiarism refers to plagiarism in which an author reuses a portion of their previous paper, including tables and illustrations, without citing the sources of such material.
      
  • Section 9: Plagiarism
    
    • Plagiarism refers to the use of others' intellectual material such as ideas, words, methods, and study results without acknowledging the original source or permission.
      
  • Section 10: Secondary publication
    
    • Secondary publication refers to publishing a similar paper for second time in a different journal. This may be acceptable when the paper meets six uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedicine Journals.
      
  • Section 11: Conflicts of interest
    
    • Conflicts of interest refers to situations in which financial or other personal interests of related parties may compromise their judgement in the publication of a paper.
      
  • Section 12: Authorship
    
    • An author is deemed to be an individual who has made sustentative intellectual contributions to a study.
      
  • Section 13: Withdrawal
    
    • Authors can withdraw their manuscripts if they identify problems for publishing. However, withdrawal is not allowed for published manuscripts.
      
  • Section 14: Retraction
    
    • When a published manuscript contains misconduct or serious errors, the manuscript shall be retracted from the respective database to remove its recode.
• Article 3 (Research ethics)
  
  • Section 1: Fabrication, falsification and plagiarism
    
    • Authors must not commit any form of misconduct, including fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism, in all articles submitted to the Association.
      
  • Section 2 Institutional Review Board (IRB)
    
    • All human subjects research projects are required to obtain approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) before research begins. IRB approval should be mentioned in a sentence in the manuscript. Research involving animals should provide an explanation of whether the study was reviewed by IRB or which experimental guidelines were followed.
• Article 4 (Publication ethics)
  
  • Section 1: Authorship
    
    • ① The Committee can request the details of contribution made by each author if there is any doubt in the author list or if any misconduct is reported.
      ② After a manuscript is accepted for publication, the addition or deletion of authors is allowed based on information on the role of the author and confirmation from the remaining authors.
      
  • Section 2: Conflicts of interest
    
    • Author(s) must clearly acknowledge any financial support or any personal assistance that they received for the research.
      
  • Section 3: Duplicate publication and errors
    
    • ① Author(s) must clarify that their manuscript has not been published elsewhere and will not be published elsewhere if accepted by the Association.
      ② If the submitted manuscript is intended for secondary publication, the author(s) must inform the Committee of their intentions. No duplicate publication is allowed.
      ③ Unacceptable duplicate publication includes imalas publication, self-plagiarism, and salami publication. When author(s) find an error in their manuscript after submission, they must correct it after notifying the Association. If the error is serious, author(s) can request withdrawal of the manuscript.
• Article 5 (Reviewer ethics)
  
  • Section 1: Reviewer ethics
    
    • ① Peer review is performed by editors and reviewers.
      ② Reviewers should admit independence of the author as a professional intellectual
      ③ Editors should communicate with readers, authors, and guest reviewers in a concise and clear manner with courtesy. To inform rejection of manuscript, editors must state the reason for inappropriateness for publication in a clear and persuasive way so that author(s) can accept the results smoothly.
      ④ Reviewers must notify the Committee of the results of peer review within the timeline set by the review policy.
      ⑤ If a reviewer has committed misconduct, the editor-in-chief can convene an Editorial Board meeting and decide on the penalty the accused reviewer will receive.
      
  • Section 2: Conflicts of interest
    
    • ① Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts fairly while ensuring that a conflict of interest does not exist, and provide sufficient evidence to support review results.
      ② Conflicts of interest that may affect peer reviews include financial gains, personal connections, research competition, and intelligence interest. These should appear in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript.
      ③ Any editor or guest reviewer who is involved in a conflict of interest should not take part in the decision of review results.
      
  • Section 3: Request for review
    
    • If the review is conducted by a guest expert who is involved in a conflict of interest, the reviewer should be notified in advance of the code of conduct he or should follow.
      
  • Section 4 Confidentiality
    
    • ① The chairman of the Committee shall convene a committee meeting when ethical standards are violated in research or publication and when any ethics violation is reported.
      ② Editors shall not reveal any personal information on the author accused of a violation of ethical rules.
      ③ Only sanctions that have officially been imposed on the accused can be revealed to the public.
• Article 6 (Procedures for ethics violation)
  
  • Section 1 Resolution
    
    • ① The chairman of the Committe shall convene a committee meeting when ethical standards are violated in research or publication and when any ethics violation is reported.
      ② The meeting should be held if at least half of committee members are present, and resolution requires a majority vote of members present.
      ③ Any committee member who is involved in a conflict of interest related to ethics violations shall not take part in decision-making, although the member can provide their opinion.
      
    Section 2 Review of allegations
    
    • ① The Committee shall review a suspected violation of research ethics by requesting the investigation of the affiliation where the accused author carried out the study.
      ② The Committee shall collect and review related data for a suspected violation of publication ethics to make a decision.
      The accused author will be given an opportunity to defend themselves, if necessary.
      
    Section 3: Hearing for the accused
    
    • ① The accused author must be given the opportunity to defend themselves at least once.
      The alleged author can choose to defend themselves via a closed hearing or a written statement.
      ② The Committee shall not disclose any personal information about the accused author and the progress they have made in the review process.
      ③ The accused will be given a second chance to defend themselves, even if they have rejected their first chance. If the author rejects their second chance, the Committee will inform them of its decision.
      
    Section 4: Decision reversal
    
    • The Committee can reverse its earlier decision after the hearing of the accused author.
      
    Section 5: Data storage
    
    • The Committee shall store all related data and the minutes of meetings related to ethics violations for five years from the date on which its decision is made.
      
    Section 6: Sanctions/penalties
    
    • The Committee shall impose the following sanctions according to the nature and severity of misconduct.
      ① A letter for instruction of ethics rules
      ② A formal letter to the head of the author's affiliation or research funding institute
      ③ Announcement of duplicate publication and misconduct via the Journal
      ④ Written announcement by the chairman of the Committee with details on misconduct
      ⑤ Prohibition against any new submission of manuscripts from authors or affiliations accused of misconduct for a certain period of time
      ⑥ Official withdrawal or cancelation of manuscript
      ⑦ Notification to editors of other journals and index institutes
      ⑧ Notification to other parties that are investigating the same author
      
    Section 7: Reporting
    
    • The Committee shall report its decisions and all related evidence to the board of directors of the Association.
• Article 7 (Additional clauses)
  
  • These enforcement rules will take effect upon the approval of the Committee of the Association.