Table of contents

• 1. Purpose
• 2. Researcher Ethics
• 3. Research Ethics Council
• 4. Role of the Council
• 5. Administration of Research Ethics Violation

1. Purpose

The purpose of these regulations is to establish and observe research ethics for research papers submitted to the Journal of the Korean Ophthalmological Society.

2. Researcher Ethics

1. Researchers should be honest about their research. Researchers need to have a high ethical standard at all times during the research, in areas such as receiving funds for research, publishing research results, and fairly compensating participants. More specifically, research papers that are forged, altered, plagiarized, overlapped, and/or dishonest cannot be published either online or in journals and are not eligible for research funds.

1) Plagiarism, Forgery, Alteration,
The theme, subjects, size of the study, selection of control group, and method of collecting samples should be in accordance with research ethics.

• (1) Plagiarism: using others' ideas, research (process and contents), and/or results without proper authorization or citation.
• (2) Forgery: making up data or research results that do not exist.
• (3) Alteration: fabricating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing/deleting research results intentionally to distort research contents or results.

2) Multiple Publication or Redundant Publication

• (1) Definition of Terms - Multiple Publication: Same study being published more than one journal. Same study refers to have identical material (subject) more than half and methods used in the study.
  - Redundant Publication: When a published work (or substantial sections from a published work) is/are published more than once (in the same or another language) without adequate acknowledgment of the source/cross-referencing/justification, or when the same (or substantially overlapping) data is presented in more than one publication without adequate cross-referencing/justification, particularly when this is done in such a way that reviewers/readers are unlikely to realize that most or all the findings have been published before.
• (2) Authors should not submit the same manuscript, in the same or different languages, simultaneously to more than one journal. The rationale for this standard is the potential for disagreement when two (or more) journals claim the right to publish a manuscript that has been submitted simultaneously to more than one journal, and the possibility that two or more journals will unknowingly and unnecessarily undertake the work of peer review, edit the same manuscript, and publish the same article. The bases of this position are international copyright laws, ethical conduct, and cost-effective use of resources. Duplicate publication of original research is particularly problematic because it can result in inadvertent double-counting of data or inappropriate weighting of the results of a single study, which distorts the available evidence.

2. If a research object is human, researchers should follow the Declaration of Helsinki (http://www.wma.net). Details are as follows:

• (1) Researchers should fully explain the purpose and methods of research as well as any possible mental and physical harm that could occur during research participation. If he/she is to publish the research results, he/she has to indicate that on the paper.
• (2) Researchers cannot write down participants' names or initials. In case of possible disclosure of participants' identification through pictures of face or anything similar, researchers should receive written informed consent from the participants or their guardians.
• (3) Researchers should receive an approval from Institutional Review Board and indicate it on the paper if one wishes to publish the research results.
• (4) Any research that deals with clinical trial should be registered to the primary national clinical trial registration site such as http://ncrc.cdc.go.kr/cris, or other sites accredited by WHO or International Committee of Medical Journal Editor.

3. If a research object is animal, researchers should follow these general rules:

• (1) Researchers should indicate what he/she did to minimize the pain or discomfort that experiment subjects went through.
• (2) The approval by the appropriate Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee is recommended.
• (3) The study protocols should adhere to the Association for Research in Vision Ophthalmology (ARVO) Statement for the Use of Animals in Ophthalmic and Vision Research.

4. Conflict of interests or financial support should be indicated on the paper.

3. Research Ethics Council

• 1. For consideration of research ethics and related issues, the journal operates a Research Ethics Council (the Council hereafter).
• 2. Chairperson of the Publication Committee of Korean Ophthalmological Society is the chair of the Council. The constitution of the Council is decided by the Publication Committee of the Journal of the Korean Ophthalmological Society.
• 3. Operation of the Council follows separate regulations decided by the Council.

4. Role of the Council

The roles of the Research Ethics Council are as follows.

• 1. The Council reviews research ethics issued from the publication of the Journal and related papers (original articles, review articles, and others).
• 2. The Council reviews any forgery, alteration, plagiarism, wrongful research paper author indication, or multiple or duplicate publication allegations for published papers and brings the results to the Executive Committee of the Journal of the Korean Ophthalmological Society.

5. Administration of Research Ethics Violation

• 1. When research ethics violations occur, the chair of the Council should call a meeting immediately to review the situation, and report the results to the executive committee.
• 2. The Council should keep any investigation of ethics violations confidential, and should not oppose the interests of the Journal.
• 3. Upon completion of the investigation, the Council decides the level of punishment appropriate for the violator (author or corresponding author) based on the level of violation – the Council can prohibit publication to the Journal for a specified time or exclude the violator permanently.
• 4. The Council keeps a record of the investigation and the results of ethical misconduct.
• 5. If the Council confirms ethical misconduct in a paper, the executive committee announces the case and disapproves the publication of the paper in the Journal. If the paper is already published in the Journal, the paper will be deleted from the paper list of the Journal and this will be announced to the members of the Journal, as well as to related academic institutions.

Any other cases that are not indicated in this regulation should follow the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication (http://www.icmje.org).