Research and Publication Ethics

 

Enacted August 5, 2020
Revised July 26, 2022

Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea (PNIE) adheres to the ethical guidelines for research and publication described in Guidelines on Good Publication (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines) and the ICMJE Guidelines (http://www.icmje.org).

1. Authorship

PNIE follows the recommendations for authorship by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE; http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/). Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; 2) drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 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. Authors should meet conditions of 1, 2, 3, and 4. After the initial submission of a manuscript, any changes whatsoever in authorship (adding author(s), deleting author(s), or rearranging the order of authors) must be explained by a letter to the editor from the authors concerned. This letter must be signed by all authors of the paper. Copyright assignment must also be completed by every author.

 • Corresponding author and first author: PNIE does not allow multiple corresponding authors for one article. Only one author should correspond with the editorial office and readers for one article. PNIE does accept notice of equal contribution for the first author when the study was clearly performed by co-first authors.

 • Correction of authorship after publication: PNIE does not correct authorship after publication unless a mistake has been made by the editorial staff. Authorship may be changed before publication but after submission when an authorship correction is requested by all of the authors involved with the manuscript.

2. Review Process

PNIE is a peer-reviewed (single-blind peer review) journal and the manuscripts are reviewed by two referees with abundant research experience in the relevant fields of the submitted manuscript, and the final editorial decision is made by the Editorial Committee, based on the referees’ evaluations.

After reviewing, the manuscript is returned to the corresponding author for revision, the revised manuscript must be re-submitted within one month. If it is not submitted within the designated period without any special reasons, such manuscript is deemed to be withdrawn from evaluation voluntarily.

3. Ethical Aspects

The author should not use ideas, research or records of others without quoting them. The corresponding author is responsible for all the contents of the manuscript. Authors must deposit data, strains or other materials in scientific collections (e.g., culture collections, herbaria, GenBank, etc.) to make it possible to repeat the experiments and perform future research. Research published in the PNIE must have been conducted in accordance with institutional, national and international guidelines concerning the use of animals in research and/or the sampling of endangered species. For the policies on research and publication ethics that are not stated in these instructions, the Guidelines on Good Publication (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines), Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations. pdf) and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (http://doaj.org/bestpractice).

4. Conflict of Interest Statement

The corresponding author must inform the editor of any potential conflicts of interest that could influence the authors’ interpretation of the data. Examples of potential conflicts of interest are financial support from or connections to pharmaceutical companies, and academically related issues. In particular, all sources of funding applicable to the study should be explicitly stated.

5. Secondary Publication

It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the conditions of secondary publication of the ICMJE Recommendations (http://www.icmje.org/urm_main.html).

6. Originality, Plagiarism and Duplicate Publication

All submitted manuscripts should be original and should not be under consideration by other scientific journals for publication at the same time. No part of the accepted manuscript should be duplicated in any other scientific journal without the prior permission of the Editorial board. Submitted manuscripts are screened for possible plagiarism or duplicate publication by Similarity Check upon arrival. If plagiarism or duplicate publication is detected, the manuscripts may be rejected, the authors will be announced in the journal, and their institutions will be informed. There will also be penalties for the authors. Submission of a manuscript implies that: 1) the work description has not been published; 2) it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; and 3) its publication has been approved by all co-authors.

7. Process for Managing Research and Publication Misconduct

When the journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, changes in authorship, an undisclosed conflict of interest, ethical problems with a submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and so on, the resolution process will follow the flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The discussion and decision on the suspected cases are carried out by the PNIE Editorial Board and Research Ethics Committee of the National Institute of Ecology (https://www.nie.re.kr/nie/main/contents.do?menuNo=200189).

8. Process for Handling Article Correction, Retraction, and Editorial Expression of Concern

Cases that require editorial expressions of concern or retraction shall follow the COPE flowcharts available from: http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts. If correction needs, it will follow the ICMJE Recommendation for Corrections, Retractions, Republications and Version Control available from: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/corrections-and-version-control.html as follows: Honest errors are a part of science and publishing and require publication of a correction when they are detected. Corrections are needed for errors of fact. Minimum standards are as follows: First, it shall publish a correction notice as soon as possible detailing changes from and citing the original publication on both an electronic and numbered print page that is included in an electronic or a print Table of Contents to ensure proper indexing; Second, it shall post a new article version with details of the changes from the original version and the date(s) on which the changes were made through K-Mark; Third, it shall archive all prior versions of the article. This archive can be either directly accessible to readers; and Fourth, previous electronic versions shall prominently note that there are more recent versions of the article via K-Mark.

9. Editorial Responsibilities

The Editorial Board will continuously work to monitor and safeguard publication ethics: guidelines for retracting articles; maintenance of the integrity of the academic record; preclusion of business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards; publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed; and excluding plagiarism and fraudulent data. The editors maintain the following responsibilities: responsibility and authority to reject and accept articles; avoiding any conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject or accept; promoting publication of corrections or retractions when errors are found; and preservation of the anonymity of reviewers.

10. Copyright Information

PNIE is an Open Access (OA) journal and authors retain copyright of their work through a Creative Commons attribution license (CC) that clearly states how readers can copy, distribute, and use their attributed research, free of charge. All of which helps make articles available to the widest audience, and contributes to the furthering of research in ways that would have seemed impossible before. PNIE adapts CC-BY-NC license that lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

PNIE has an author self-archiving policy (Blue : Post-print) and can self-archiving in compliance with the following.

Public place: All or part of the thesis is posted on the author's personal website, the website of the institution or organization to which the author belongs, the website of the organization that supported the research fund, etc.

Disclosure Conditions: For personal and educational purposes, compliance with CC-BY-NC regulations, insert hyperlinks in publications, and post prints and publications after review.

11. Archiving

It is accessible without barrier from KoreaScience (https://koreascience.or.kr/) or National Library of Korea (http://nl.go.kr) in the event a journal is no longer published.