Principles for Ethical Research: The Global Institute for Japanese Studies, Korea University
Established on March 2nd, 2007

1. General Rules

(1) (Purpose) The purpose of the regulations of Border Crossings: The Journal of Japanese-Language Literature Studies is to establish research ethics for publication and to provide a set of standards for verifying possible research misconduct. It aims to prevent research misconduct and define regulations for the Research Ethics Committee if such occasions arise.

(2) (Affected Parties) All parties associated with Border Crossings: The Journal of Japanese-Language Literature Studies, including the author, editorial committee, and review committee, must comply with the standards of ethical behavior.

(3) (Scope) The regulations apply to all matters from the establishment of research ethics relevant to the field of humanities and social sciences to the verification of the integrity of research.

(4) (Term Definitions)
① Research misconduct refers to plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate and concurrent publications found in the process of proposing, performing, reporting, and presenting the research.
② Whistleblowers refer to those who make an allegation of research misconduct or expose relevant evidence that is deemed unethical.
③ Respondents refer to those who are suspected of research misconduct by the editorial committee or presumed to be involved in the act of research misconduct during the investigation. References and/or witnesses are not to be involved in the investigation process.

2. Ethics Regulations

All parties associated with Border Crossings: The Journal of Japanese-Language Literature Studies, including the author, editorial committee, and review committee, must comply with the following ethics regulations stated below.

(1) Authors
Authors must not commit the offenses from ① to ⑤ listed below and must adhere to ⑥ and ⑦.

① Plagiarism
This refers to an act of reporting research findings and claiming someone else’s research outcomes or ideas as one’s own original work without appropriately referencing its source and is thus a form of research misconduct.
② Fabrication
This refers to an act of making up research data and findings that do not exist and is thus a form of research misconduct.
③ Falsification
This refers to an act of manipulating research results by altering and distorting research materials and processes and is thus a form of research misconduct.
④ Duplicate / Concurrent Publication
This refers to an act of publishing manuscripts describing the same research in more than one journal and is thus a form of research misconduct.
⑤ Inappropriate Authorship
This refers to an act of including a person who has no significant role or excluding a person despite his/her contribution to the research on the author list of the research paper.
⑥ Citations and References
Authors are obliged to strictly cite or quote publicly accessed academic sources and present them on the reference list.
⑦ Obligation to the Ethics Committee
Authors are obliged to address the requirements of the Research Ethics Committee.

(2) Editorial Committee

① Members of the Editorial Committee are to provide a fair and unbiased review of the quality and intellectual content of the manuscript based on the review guidelines within the proposed time-frame. Members should not be influenced by the gender, age, affiliation of the author or the editor’s personal acquaintance with the author.
② Members of the Editorial Committee are not to disclose any information regarding the author nor his/her manuscript before the submitted manuscript has been officially accepted for publication.
③ Members of the Editorial Committee are to respect the author’s traits and his/her independence as a researcher. Rejected manuscripts should be kept confidential.

(3) Review Committee

① Members of the Review Committee are to provide a fair and unbiased review of the quality and intellectual content of the manuscript based on the review guidelines within the proposed time-frame. Members should not be influenced by the gender, age, affiliation of the author or the reviewer’s personal acquaintance with the author.
② Members of the Review Committee are to fairly evaluate the manuscript and report the review results to the Editorial Committee within the proposed time-frame.
③ Members of the Review Committee are not to disclose any information of the manuscript and should not cite the contents before the submitted manuscript has been officially published by the journal.
④ Members of the Review Committee are to respect the author’s academic independence and provide detailed reasons if a manuscript needs revision.

3. Ethics Committee

(1) Organization

① The Editor-in-Chief is appointed as the chair of the Ethics Committee.
② The Ethics Committee is composed of the chair along with more than three members from the Editorial Committee.

(2) Management

① The Ethics Committee will review the issues concerning the breach of research ethics regulations and call a meeting according to the chair’s discretion when necessary.
② The Ethics Committee will conduct an investigation with objectivity and fairness on the reported issues that breach the research ethics regulations. Members who are directly or indirectly related to the issue of concern cannot take part in the deliberation.
③ Until a final judgment is made concerning the breach of research ethics regulations, any information on the relevant researcher should not be disclosed externally.
④ The Ethics Committee will provide the alleged author an opportunity to defend him/herself in fully clarifying and explaining his/her stance on the results of the deliberation.

4. Disciplinary Action for Misconduct

① When proven guilty of committing research misconduct, the following actions can be taken: deleting the research paper from the journal, revising and invalidating the research results, forbidding manuscript submission for more than three years, and reporting the misconduct to the research administrative and affiliated institution.
② Based on the committee’s deliberation, when a person is found not to have violated the research ethics, the committee will drop the defendant’s alleged charges and take appropriate steps accordingly.

5. Others

(1) Issues not stated in the above regulations shall be handled by the Research Ethics Committee.

(2) The regulations of Border Crossings: The Journal of Japanese-Language Literature Studies shall enter into effect beginning on the second issue published on June 30, 2015.

The Journal adheres to the guidelines and best practices published by professional organizations, including Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (joint statement by COPE, DOAJ, WAME, and OASPA; https://doaj.org/bestpractice).