Table of Contents

• I. General Rules
• II. Ethics Code for a Researcher
• III. Establishement and Operation of the Committee

Enactment Jan 21, 2008
1st revision April 19, 2010
2nd revision March 28, 2014
3rd revision February 28, 2020

I. General Rules

1. Title
This code is titled as 'The Code of Research Ethics of the Korean Society of Community Nutrition'.

2. Purpose
The purpose of the code is to establish the standard for the research ethics observed by the members of the Korean Society of Community Nutrition and the contributors to the Korean Journal of Community Nutrition, and determine the establishment and operation of the Committee on the Research Ethics (hereafter the 'Committee') for fair and systematic verification in the case of the scientific misconduct.

II. Ethics Code for a Researcher

3. Integrity of Researcher
A researcher should conduct research and publish research results with research integrity.

4. Inclusion of Scientific Misconduct

• (1) Fabrication refers to the act of creating, documenting, or reporting the data or the research results that do not exist.
• (2) Falsification refers to the act of creating the documentation that do not match study results by manipulating the research materials, equipment, or procedures or changing or omitting data or research results.
• (3) Plagiarism refers to steal others' ideas, procedures, results, or records without legitimate authorization.
• (4) The improper authorship refers to the act which confers authorship on the person without any academic contribution due to gratitude or seniority, or does not reward with authorship without proper cause to the person who academically contributes or devotes the research contents or results.
• (5) It includes the acts which seriously exceed generally accepted criteria.

5. Prohibition of Duplicate Submission or Duplicate Publication of Research Product
A researcher should not submit or publish the same research results in two different places.

6. Authorship
Contributors who have made substantive intellectual contributions to a paper are given credit as author and authorship is based on the following four criteria.

• (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 reviewing 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.

7. Record of Published Work

• (1) An author should accept the credit for only the accomplishments of the research he/she conducted or contributed to and take responsibility for them.
• (2) The order of the authors (including translators) of articles or other publications should be determined with fairness according to the extent of the contribution to research regardless of relative positions. Simply being in a particular position should not guarantee a credit as a co-author, the first author, or a corresponding author. Neither the act of not crediting the sufficient contribution to research with authorship can be justified. When the contribution to research is low, a statement of appreciation is expressed in a footnote, a preface, or an acknowledgement.

8. Citation and Reference

• (1) An author who cites academic materials should make efforts to describe them accurately and state their sources clearly. The materials that are obtained from personal communication can be cited with the permission from the researcher who provides information.
• (2) When an author cites or makes a reference to others' words, he/she should state the fact in a footnote, and distinguish them from his/her original thoughts or results of interpretation.

9. Role and Ethics for a Journal Editor

• (1) An editor should request a reviewer with expertise in the field, objectivity, and impartial judgment for the evaluation of submitted manuscripts.
• (2) An editor should not disclose the information about the author or the content of the manuscript until the submitted manuscript is decided to be published.

10. Role and Ethics for a Reviewer

• (1) A reviewer should evaluate the manuscript under review with commitment and impartiality within a specified period and notify a journal editor of results.
• (2) A reviewer should notify a journal editor immediately of the intention to resign from reviewing a manuscript when he/she believes oneself to be unsuitable for reviewing the manuscript.
• (3) A reviewer should evaluate a manuscript with objective criteria and impartiality without consideration of one's academic beliefs or personal relationship with its author. A reviewer should not reject a manuscript without logical reasons or on the reason that it is in conflict with his/her own view or interpretation, and rate a manuscript without reading it thoroughly.
• (4) A reviewer should respect an author's personality and individuality as an intellectual and use comments in a polite and gentle manner as much as possible, and should not use degrading or insulting expressions.
• (5) A reviewer should maintain confidentiality of a manuscript under review and should not cite the content of a manuscript prior to its publication.

III. Establishement and Operation of the Committee

11. Function of the Committee
The Committee reviews and decides the issues below related to the research ethics of the members of the Korean Society of Community Nutrition.

• 1. The establishment of the research ethics
• 2. The prevention and investigation on the scientific misconduct
• 3. Whistleblower protection and confidentiality
• 4. Verification on the violation of the research ethics, process of the verification results and follow-up measures
• 5. Restoration in the honor of the examinee
• 6. Other issues imposed by the chair of the Committee

12. Organizing Principles of the Committee
The Committee consists of 5 members. The committee is chaired by the President of the Society and the Editor-in-chief serves as the associate chair of the committee. The other three are appointed by the President of the Society with the recommendation from the Executive Board.

13. Report and Receipt of the Scientific Misconduct
The whistle-blower may provide the information to the secretariat of the editorial board in the Korean Society of Community Nutrition directly or through the telephone, written document or e-mail on the real name. However, if the contents and evidence of the misconduct are specific, the report provided by an anonymous informant is considered as the case by the real-name person.

14. Authority for Verification and Recommendation of the Committee
The Committee is authorized to conduct an investigation about the allegation of the violation of the ethics code using a wide range of evidence from informants, the person under investigation, witnesses, and reference materials. The committee reviews and decides the status of violation of the ethics code based on the results of investigation, and recommends appropriate sanctions to the president based on the decision.

15. Verification Process of the Committee
The verification process for the act of violation of research ethics proceeds in the order of preliminary inquiry, investigation, and judgment. The investigation should be completed within 6 months. However, when the investigation is unlikely to be completed within the time frame, the investigation period may be extended with the committee chair's approval. When an informant or the person under investigation disagrees with the decision, he/she may file an appeal within 30 days from receiving notification, and the Committee may conduct reinvestigation if necessary.

16. Assurance of Opportunity to Be Heard
The member who is alleged to violate the Code of Research Ethics should be given a written notice of the overview of the issue under investigation. He/she is guaranteed to have an opportunity to submit a letter of explanation, and as long as he/she whishes, an opportunity to attend one or more of the Committee meetings in the investigation procedure and provide an oral explanation.

17. Confidentiality Duty for a Member of the Committee
A member of the Committee shall not disclose the identification of the reporter and the member suspected of the research ethics violation until the final decision is confirmed by the society.

18. Disciplinary Procedures and Content
In the event of proposed disciplinary measures by the Ethics Committee, the committee chair convenes the Executive Board and makes a final decision on the status and the content of discipline. The member who is determined to have violated the Code of Research Ethics may be given disciplines including warning, ban on manuscript submission for a specified period, and suspension or cancellation of membership depending on the severity of the issue, and the article may be retracted and the results may be disclosed if necessary.

19. Revision of the Code of Research Ethics
Revision procedure of the Code of Research Ethics follows the revision procedure of the code of the Society.