The Code of Research Ethics of the International Association of Central Asian Studies

Established on March 2, 2008

Article 1 (Name) This Code is referred to the ‘Code of Research Ethics of the International Association of Central Asian Studies’.

Article 2 (Purpose) The purpose of this Code is to define the detailed matters on ethics on studied undertaken through the International Association of Central Asian Studies’ and the procedure of sanction upon violation to prevent any illicit research activity, protect intellectual property rights, and upon finding the illicit action in research, it goes through authentic verification in setting forth the basic matters to establish the research ethics.

Article 3 (Subject of Application) This Code will be applicable to all researchers who subscribe and submit their papers for review and publication by the subject International Association of Central Asian Studies’ and the 『International Journal of Central Asian Studies』 as the subjects for application.

Article 4 (Scope of Illicit Activities in Research) Any “illicit activity on research” means the falsification, alternation, plagiarism, incorrect thesis author indication, repetitive publishing or duplicate publishing of research outcome and presentation of research result and others and the definitions are shown as follows.

1. “Falsification” means an act of falsely generating data or research result and record or report the same.

2. “Alteration” means an act of modifying or deleting data, research process that may result in presenting an inappropriate research finding.

3. “Plagiarism” means use of an idea, research process and research result of someone else’s without due acknowledgement of source or act of making the dishonest presentation of research.

4. “Unjust author indication” means an act of not granting qualification due to an author who has made academic contribution to research content or research result without grounds or granting of author’s qualification to a who has not made academic contribution to research content or research result based upon preferential treatment or something similar to it.

5. “Divulging” means an act of proving act of provide information to this Association or research funding institution with a fact or relevant evidence of illicit activity (it includes the case where the research funding institution informing of same fact to this Association.

6. “The party” means the person who is the subject of investigation (excluding the witness or reference person in the investigation process) illicit activity as revealed by the disclosed information to this Association or as presumed to have participated in the illicit activity during the process of investigation.

7. “Interference of investigation an illicit activity” means the act to harm the information provider or intentionally interfering with the investigation on the accusation of illicit activity of itself or someone else and/or propose, coerce or threat to undertake the an illicit activity.

Article 5 (Organization of the Research Ethics Committee) In the event that there is any information disclosed or suspicion of any illicit activity, a Research Ethics Committee will be formed Research Ethics Committee (hereinafter referred to as the “Committee”) to investigate or determine the fact on the nature of accusation.

1. The Committee shall be comprised with the Commissioner and Committee Members as nominated by the chairperson.

2. The Commissioner shall be nominated by the chairperson and the terms for the Commissioner and the Committee Members shall be terminated with the conclusion of the investigation

3. The Commissioner may commission a Special Advisory Body to complement the opinion of the Committee.

Article 6 (Investigation and Decision of Illicit Activity) In the event that there is an information disclosure or exists substantial suspicion, the Committee shall investigate the presence of any illicit activity.

1. The Committee shall determine if the research of the investigated party would constitute an illicit activity within 90 days from the time of commencing the investigation of the matters arising from the information disclosure.

2. The presence of any illicit activity shall be determined by the majority attendance of Ethics Committee Members and the majority consent of the attending Committee Members.

3. In the event that the investigated party admits the facts of illicit activity in writing or by presenting himself to the Committee, the Committee Member shall conclude the investigation after going through the confirmation action thereof.

4. The Commissioner shall report the chairperson with the investigation result of the illicit activity in writing and the chairperson shall notify the same to the informer, investigated party and pertinent parties without delay.

Article 7 (Authorities and Responsibilities of the Research Ethics Committee) In the investigation process, the Commissioner may require the informer, investigated party, witness and reference parties to attend and submit required.

1. In the event that the investigated party refuses to attend or submit data without due cause, it may be assumed the party admits the facts of accusation.

2. The Commissioner may undertake certain action to prevent the loss, damage, concealing, alteration and others of the research records or evidence.

Article 8 (Removal, Exclusion and Avoidance) Definitions of removal, exclusion and avoidance are shown as follows.

1. When there is any situation involving conflicts of interests in relation to a Committee Member, the investigated party or the informer may apply for replacement of the member by disclosing the cause thereof. In this case, the Committee Member in question may be excluded from the process of investigation..

2. The party having direct conflict of interests to the applicable investigation shall not be involved in review, resolution and investigation of the matter concerned.

3. Any investigation Committee Member that determines the cause under Paragraph 1 or Paragraph 2 may apply for the exclusion.

4. The chairperson may suspend the qualification of the Committee Member in relation to the matter under investigation with respect to any Committee Member who has the conflict of interests in the agenda.

Article 9 (Guarantee of Opportunity to Testimony) The Committee has to grant the opportunity to the investigated party to submit its opinion or opportunity to rebut the fact of investigation and decision.

Article 10 (Action Taken on Illicit Activities and Others) The chairperson shall render the sanction as follows depending on the circumstance of the illicit activity for the investigated party determined as undertaken on the matters informed. In this case, two or more sanctions may be rendered simultaneously.

1. Any thesis presented to academic journal that is determined as violated the Code of Research Ethics shall be determined as ‘not permitted to publish’.

2. Any researcher who violated the Code of Research Ethics shall not be allowed to make presentation for 3 years thereafter or place the thesis on the academic journal for 3 years.

3. Any researcher who violated the Code of Research Ethics shall lose its membership qualification for 3 years thereafter.

4. With respect to the thesis cancelled from publication, the author name, thesis name, volume of thesis, year and date, date of cancellation, cause of cancellation and others are notified to the National Research Foundation of Korea, its University or pertinent institution and notify the fact to the homepage of the Association.

Article 11 (Notice of Result) The Commissioner shall prepare the decision of the Committee on the result of inverstigation in writing and notify the same to the informer, investigated party and pertinent parties without delay.

Article 12 (Re-review) Code on the re-review shall be shown as follows.

1. In the event that the investigated party or informer decides not to accept the decision of the Committee, it may request for re-review to the Committee in writing that contains the grounds for appeal within 30 days from the date of receiving the notice under Article 11.

2. In the event that the request for review is received, the Commissioner shall instruct the Committee to hold the re-review within 10days and notify the result to the applicant for appeal.

Article 13 (Obligations of Confidentiality) The obligations of confidentiality shall be shown as follows.

1. The Committee shall protect the informer and make effort not to unjustly interfere with the honor of the investigated party.

2. All matters related to information, investigation, review, resolution and proposal shall be kept confidential, but if there is a substantial need for disclosure, it may be disclosed through the resolution of the Committee.

3. Any Committee Member and party directly and indirectly participating in the investigation shall not unjustly disclose any information acquired in the process of review, resolution, investigation and other process.

Article 14 (Support of Expenses) The Association may support the required expenses for the operation of the Committee within the scope of its budget.

Supplementary

This Code shall be implemented from March 3, 2008.