KOTESOL Ethical Standards for Research and Publication

Korea TESOL Ethical Standards for Research and Publication

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ARTICLE I. GENERAL PROVISIONS.
 
Section 1. Purpose.
The Korea TESOL Ethical Standards for Research and Publication (hereafter referred to as “the Standards”), designed to promote and maintain high ethical standards concerning professional research and publication, shall provide the guidelines for the organization and operation of the Korea TESOL (hereafter, KOTESOL) Board on Research and Publication Ethics, entitled to investigate any wrongdoings against the ethical policies described in the Standards.
 
Section 2. Scope of Application.
The Standards shall apply to all research related to KOTESOL, manuscripts submitted to the official scholarly publications of KOTESOL, and materials submitted to and presented at scholarly events of KOTESOL. These include the following:
1.      Korea TESOL Journal
2.      KOTESOL Proceedings
3.      The English Connection
4.      Korea TESOL International Conference Extended Summaries
5.      The Korea TESOL website
6.      KOTESOL event program books and website (including international, national, chapter, and SIG conferences, symposiums, and workshops)
7.      KOTESOL event presentation content, either in-person or virtual (including international, national, chapter, and SIG conferences, symposiums, and workshops)
 
ARTICLE II. ETHICAL PRINCIPLES.
 
Section 1. Ethical Principles of the Author.
(a) The author (as defined in Art. VIII) shall perform faithful research.
(b) The author shall make the research process transparent.
(c) The author shall be open to constructive criticism of the author’s work (defined in Art. VIII) by reviewers and the publication chief (defined in Art. VIII).
(d) The author shall disclose conflicts of interest and be transparent as to any entity that may be supporting or may profit from the author’s work.
(e) The author shall not infringe on the privacy, autonomy, rights, or well-being of an individual through a procedure in execution of a work or through the outcome of a work.
(f) The author shall not publish (publication defined in Art. VIII) the work of another as the author’s own.
(g) The author shall make a concerted effort to adhere to research and publication ethics set out herein.
 
Section 2. Ethical Principles and the Work.
(a) A work shall conform adequately to the submission requirements of the publication (as defined in Art. VIII).
(b) A work shall conform adequately in contents and organization as prescribed by the publication.
(c) A work shall demonstrate respect for participants’ autonomy, privacy, and well-being. This includes the use of language that is sensitive to people and places; the avoidance of deficit-centered perspectives that demean participants; weighing potential risks in relation to benefits of the work and taking steps to minimize such risks, especially when considering working with vulnerable groups; and throughout all aspects of the research, being attentive to the well-being of the participants. All work should make a positive contribution to the body of knowledge and ultimately to society.

Section 3. Breach of Ethical Principles
Breaches of research and publication ethics include the following:
1. Fabrication, the act of falsely creating nonexistent data or outcomes.
2. Falsification, the distortion of content or outcomes by artificial manipulation of research materials, equipment, or processes, including selective reporting; or by arbitrary modification or deletion of data.
3. Plagiarism, the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit. This includes self-plagiarism, the appropriation of the author’s earlier published ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.
4. False authorship, the allocation of principal authorship or other publication credit that does not reflect, in any justifiable manner, scientific and professional contributions of an individual to a work.
5. Multiple submissions, the submission of a manuscript that has already been published, accepted for publication elsewhere, or concurrently submitted for review to another publication.
 
ARTICLE III. AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHOR OBLIGATIONS.
 
Section 1.  Acknowledgement of Sources.
An author who submits a manuscript shall include proper acknowledgement when drawing upon the ideas, concepts, words, or research of another, including any additional information obtained during the review and proposal evaluation process.
 
Section 2. Authorship and Author Responsibility.
An author shall have responsibility for and take credit for only the work to which they have made a substantial contribution.
 
Section 3. Authorship and Contribution Disclosure.
(a) An author shall clearly disclose their relevant affiliations and positions.
(b) In the case of a submitted work with multiple authors, all contributing authors shall be disclosed.
(c) Authors shall be listed in a descending order of the contribution made to the work. Each author shall be able to clearly justify their role and contribution to the work.
(d) No individual shall be credited with authorship without making a contribution to the work.
 
Section 4. Submission of Manuscript.
An author shall not be permitted to submit a manuscript for review that has already been published elsewhere, that has been accepted for publication elsewhere, or is being reviewed for possible publication elsewhere. If a case of multiple submission occurs, the author shall notify the KOTESOL publication(s) to investigate the acceptability/unacceptability of the multiple submission.
 
Section 5. Revision of Manuscript.
An author shall strive to revise their submitted manuscript in accordance with the feedback and suggestions provided by the reviewer (defined in Art. VIII) and publication chief (defined in Article VIII) during the review and editing process. This includes revisions in accordance with the publication’s style guidelines. If an author disagrees with a requested revision, they shall provide in writing relevant evidence and justification for not making the requested revision, which shall then be taken into consideration by the publication chief prior to a final decision regarding acceptance.
 
ARTICLE IV. EDITORIAL PANEL OBLIGATIONS.
 
Section 1. An editorial panel (defined in Art. VIII) makes decisions regarding the publication of a submitted work. In the decision-making process, each member of the editorial panel shall respect the integrity of each other member as a professional educator, scholar, and/or researcher.
 
Section 2. An editorial panel shall review fairly the quality of a submitted work and whether it complies with the submission guidelines and review criteria. Submitted works shall be evaluated objectively without regard to affiliation, age, gender, and other personal characteristics of the author.
 
Section 3. In order to give each submitted work due opportunity to be reviewed and evaluated objectively, the publication chief shall ensure that the reviewer(s) of a work shall have suitable expertise in the area covered by the work, shall be able to make fair and unbiased decisions, and shall not have any conflict of interest with the work or author.
 
Section 4. The publication chief shall ensure that neither the contents of a submitted work nor the identity of its author be disclosed during the review process to anyone outside that review process. In the case of a blind review publication, the identity of an author shall, in addition, not be disclosed to the reviewer(s).
 
ARTICLE V. REVIEWER OBLIGATIONS.
 
Section 1. A reviewer, upon accepting a review request by the publication chief, shall follow the guidelines set forth for review of the work, including the ethical principles described in Articles II and III; complete the review within the designated time frame; and submit the review results to the publication chief.
 
Section 2. A reviewer shall review a work independently, fairly, and objectively. The reviewer shall explain and support their judgements adequately in the review report made to the publication chief in such a manner so as the basis of the comments may be clearly understood.
 
Section 3. (a) If the reviewer feels inadequately qualified to fairly and objectively conduct a review of the assigned work, the reviewer shall notify the publication chief of their withdrawal from the review process for the work in question.
(b) If a reviewer detects a possible conflict of interest of any type between the reviewer and either the author or their work, the reviewer shall notify the publication chief of the reviewer’s withdrawal from the review process for the work in question.
 
Section 4. In the review of a work, a reviewer shall respect the author’s integrity as a scholar and professional, and respect their right to do independent research.
 
Section 5. A reviewer shall treat a work for review with the utmost confidentiality. The reviewer shall not disclose any information about the work under review or discuss its contents with a third party during the review process, which culminates with notification of review results to the author.
 
ARTICLE VI. THE BOARD ON RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION ETHICS (BORPE).
 
Section 1. Organization.
(a) KOTESOL shall establish a Board on Research and Publication Ethics (hereinafter, BORPE) whose duty shall be to oversee matters (that are in KOTESOL’s national scope) related to ethical standards.
(b) The BORPE shall be composed of four (4) permanent members: the Publications Committee chair, the Research Committee chair, the Diversity Committee chair, and the Korea TESOL Journal editor-in-chief, When the BORPE is convened to consider a case, up to three (3) additional members may be appointed by the BORPE chair on an ad hoc basis for the duration of the proceedings.
(c) The Publications Committee chair shall serve as the BORPE chair, and the BORPE chair’s term of office shall correspond with that of the Publication Committee chair’s term of office.
(d) Entities within KOTESOL that are not explicitly managed or facilitated by a national committee, such as chapters and SIGs (special interest groups), may establish their own boards to oversee, investigate, and deliberate matters related to research and publication ethics in the spirit of the standards set forth herein.
 
Section 2. Duties.
The BORPE shall deliberate matters related to research and publication ethics, including administrative affairs related to the implementation and revision of the Standards, and investigate possible violations of the Standards. In the case where the BORPE determines that a violation has been committed, the BORPE shall recommend an appropriate response to correct the violation; if sanctions against the violator are suggested, the sanctions shall be presented to the National Council for approval.
 
Section 3. Meetings and Operation.
(a) Meetings shall be convened, either in-person or virtually, as deemed necessary by the Chair or when requested by the KOTESOL President.
(b) A majority of the BORPE members shall constitute a quorum for a meeting. A decision of the BORPE shall be considered valid with the concurrence of a majority of the members present at the meeting. But a BORPE member involved as an author of the work under investigation shall not be permitted to participate in the meeting as a BORPE member.
(c) The meeting shall be held in a closed-door session. The author suspected of misconduct shall be asked to appear at the BORPE meeting if the BORPE deems it to be necessary.
(d) When resolution of a case appears relatively simple and thus does not appear to require intense discussion and deliberation, opinions and suggestions of the BORPE members may be rendered in writing (e.g., via email) when so requested by the Chair, and in lieu of an in-person or virtual meeting. A final written resolution shall be based on the written opinions and suggestions of the BORPE members.
 
Section 4. Author’s Obligation to Cooperation.
An author suspected of a breach of the Standards shall be obliged to cooperate fully and faithfully with the BORPE in its investigation into that possible breach of the Standards. The author’s cooperation shall include, but not be limited to, submission of requested documents and appearing before the BORPE (virtually, if necessary) if called upon to do so.
 
Section 5. Investigation of Misconduct Allegations.
(a) If there is an allegation of a possible violation of the research and publication ethics as set forth herein, the BORPE shall begin an investigation as expeditiously as possible and give the author ample opportunity to respond to allegations within a time period set at up to three (3) months from the date of notification to the author.
(b) The BORPE shall have the right to request that the author provide ample clarification with respect to alleged misconduct or violations of research and publication ethics.
(c) The BORPE shall scrutinize the author’s clarifications and judge if the author’s provided clarifications are satisfactory. If they are not deemed satisfactory, the BORPE shall ask for further information in order to make a proper judgement with respect to the allegations.
(d) The BORPE shall conduct investigation of misconduct and violation of research and publication ethics in accordance with the procedures set forth by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) in its guidelines for journals and publishers (https://publicationethics.org/).
(e) The BORPE shall finalize any investigation and review as expeditiously as possible within a period of not more than six (6) months.
(f) The BORPE shall not disclose the identity of an author or informant involved in an allegation of misconduct until a final decision has been made in the matter. But, the sharing of information shall be allowed if
ㅡ (i)  there is no response from the author,
ㅡ (ii) the response from the author is inadequate as determined by the BORPE chair,
ㅡ (iii) more than one publication is thought to be affected,
ㅡ (iv) disclosure of such information is necessary to enact the resolution recommended by the BORPE (see, e.g., Section 6(d)).
(g) The BORPE shall report to the President their findings in an investigation of allegations of misconduct along with a description of their rationale and dissenting arguments, and any suggested resolution or remedy to be imposed on the violator(s).
 
Section 6. Punitive Action
(a) In a case where the BORPE recommends a punitive action of light severity, the President may decide to accept and implement the punitive action or bring it before the National Council for consideration.
(b) In a case where the BORPE recommends a punitive action of considerable severity, the President shall bring it before the National Council for consideration.
(c) In a case brought before the National Council, the Council, taking the recommendations of the BORPE into consideration, is the final arbiter of the matter, determining an appropriate response by a simple majority vote of the Council members present.
(d) The President shall be able to take punitive action ranging from a warning to suspension or revocation of KOTESOL membership of an author found to be in violation of the Standards as set forth herein. The President shall also have the right to notify other organizations or individuals of the punitive action taken. A typical example of a punitive action would be the following: If misconduct is proven, a manuscript already accepted for publication in the Korea TESOL Journal shall be rejected, and in the case where the research is already published in the Korea TESOL Journal, the research shall be removed (in the case of digital publication) or notification shall be made of cancellation of the research (in the case of print publication). The author of the research shall not be allowed to make a submission to the Journal for three (3) years following the punitive action.

ARTICLE VII. COPYRIGHT.

Section 1.  A KOTESOL publication may protect its published material with a copyright, a statement of which is conspicuously displayed within the published material.

Section 2.  A KOTESOL publication may enter into a copyright agreement with the author of a work to be published by the publication, an agreement in which both parties are bound to uphold the conditions of the agreement.

Section 3a. In case a dispute should arise between a KOTESOL publication and an author who have entered into a copyright agreement, the onus is on the publication and author to resolve the dispute.

Section. 3b. If however a satisfactory resolution to the copyright agreement dispute cannot be reached by the publication and the author, the case may be brought before the BORPE for resolution following the procedure set forth in Article VI.

 
ARTICLE VIII. PROMOTION OF RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION ETHICS.
 
KOTESOL shall make a concerted effort to make conspicuously available not only these Standards but also materials that an author may use prior to submission of a work to aid in ensuring that research and publication ethics are not breached.
 
ARTICLE IX. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS.
 
Terms used in this document shall be defined as follows:
1. Author shall refer to any individual(s) submitting a manuscript for review to a KOTESOL publication, submitting a proposal for review for an oral presentation, and/or making an oral academic presentation.
2. Work shall refer to any manuscript submitted for review/evaluation, any summary or abstract submitted for review/evaluation, any proposal submitted for review/evaluation, or any oral academic presentation and their accompanying materials.
3. Publication shall refer to any listed item in Article I, Section 2.
4. Editorial Panel shall refer to the individual(s) designated by a publication to render a decision on acceptance/rejection of a work for publication.
5. Publication Chief shall refer to the individual of a publication holding the topmost decision-making powers.
6. Reviewer shall refer to any individual(s) selected by a publication chief to evaluate the quality of a work.
 
ARTICLE X. AMENDMENT OF THE STANDARDS.
 
The Standards may be amended in accordance with protocol set forth for amendment of the KOTESOL Policy and Procedures Manual.
 
SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS.

• These Standards shall take effect as of May 24, 2020.
• Amended September 27, 2020, by the Korea TESOL National Council.
   

These Ethical Standards are available in PDF format below.