Research and Publication Ethics
Publication Standards of Ethical Approvals and Conduct
The Korea Multimedia Society (KMMS) in the name of International Journal of Multimedia Information System (JMIS) serves the multimedia engineering community and society in several ways, among them by publishing papers and other relevant technical articles that present current engineering and scientific researches and practices. Every editor, author, reviewer of the society journal has the responsibility to maintain high ethical guidelines relating to the submittal, review, and publication of manuscripts.
For the policies on the research and publication ethics not stated in this instructions, the journal adheres to the ethical guidelines for research and publication described in Guidelines on Good Publication (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines).
Ethical Obligations of Editors
1. The primary responsibility of a JMIS editor is to give unbiased consideration and fair review process to submitted manuscripts, and without regard to religion, sex, race, nationality, seniority or the social status of the author(s) to establish and maintain high standards of technical and professional quality. Criteria of quality will be judged on the basis of the originality of approach, concept and/or application, profundity, and relevance to the multimedia engineering professions.
2. An editor shall deal with manuscripts submitted for publication in a timely manner and shall reveal no information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone. The exceptions may apply for those from whom professional advice regarding the publication of the manuscript is sought. The names of reviewers shall not make public by the editors.
3. An editor on the conditions that submits manuscripts to the journal, shall not review that work. If after publication, the editor-author's work merits ongoing scientific debate within the journal, the editor-author shall accept no editorial responsibility in connection therewith.
4. An editor shall avoid conflicts of interest and/or the appearance thereof. An editor shall not show a manuscript to reviewers who are known to have personal bias with the author(s) or the subject of that manuscript.
5. Before publication, any areas of information, arguments, or interpretations in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be treated in the research of an editor or associate editor, or otherwise disseminated except with the consent of the author(s).
6. If an author is given convincing evidence that any parts of a manuscript such as, conclusions, references or other materials published in JMIS are found erroneous, the editor, after notifying the author(s) and receiving corrections in writing, shall expedite immediate publication of an erratum.
7. If an editor is given convincing evidence that a manuscript or published paper contains plagiarized material or falsified research data, the editor shall report such evidence to the editorial manager for investigation by the Research Ethics committee.
Ethical obligations of Authors
1. A submitted manuscript shall provide public sources of information with details and references to permit the author's peers to repeat the work or otherwise verify its accuracy.
2. Information privately owned by an author, through conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties shall not be used or reported in the author's work without direct permission from whom the information was obtained. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, shall be treated in the same confidential manner.
3. The submitted manuscript shall not involve plagiarized material or falsified research data. JMIS defines plagiarism as the use of the ideas or words of another person without giving appropriate credit to that source. The society views any similar misappropriation of intellectual property, which may include data or interpretation, as plagiarism.
4. It is inappropriate for an author to submit his or her paper which has shown in the same research or project to more than one journal of primary publication.
5. Scholarly criticism of a published paper may sometimes be allowable; however, personal criticism is never accepted.
6. To protect the integrity of authorship, only persons who have significantly contributed to the research or project and manuscript preparation shall be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author attests to the fact that any co-authors have seen the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication.
7. It is inappropriate to submit manuscripts with an obvious commercial intent.
8. It is inappropriate for an author either to write or co-author a discussion of his or her own manuscript, except in the case of a rebuttal or closure to criticism or discussion offered by others.
Ethical Obligations of Reviewers
1. If a reviewer feels unqualified or a limited time from the reviewer's perspective has been assigned to fairly judge the work reported, the reviewer should immediately notify the editor and promptly send back the manuscript.
2. A reviewer shall unbiasedly judge the quality of a manuscript on its own merit and shall respect the intellectual independence of the author(s). Personal criticism is, in any cases, strictly prohibited.
3. A reviewer shall avoid conflicts of interest and/or the appearance thereof. If a manuscript being soon underway into the reviewing process potentially presents some conflict of interest or the reviewer has a personal bias, the reviewer shall send back the manuscript promptly.
4. Before publication, any areas of information, arguments, or interpretations in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be treated in the research of an editor or associate editor, or otherwise disseminated except with the consent of the author(s).
5. A reviewer shall keep a manuscript as confidential as possible while being reviewed and shall neither disclose nor discuss it with others except, if necessary, with persons from whom specific advice may be sought.
6. A reviewer shall call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published manuscript or any manuscript submitted concurrently to another journal.
7. A reviewer shall not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a manuscript while being processed, except with the consent of the author(s) and with appropriate attribution.
8. If a reviewer has convincing evidence that a manuscript contains plagiarized material or falsified research data, the reviewer shall promptly notify the editor and report the evidence to the reviewer's manager for investigation by International Journal of Multimedia Information Systems (JMIS) managing committee.
Duplicate Publication
Any manuscripts submitted to the Journal must be original and the manuscript, or substantial parts of it, must not be under consideration by any other journals. All manuscripts submitted to the journal are checked for possible plagiarism or duplicate publication by CrossCheck’s plagiarism detection. Any suspected cases of covert duplicate manuscript submission will be handled and the editor may contact the authors’ institution. Before reviewing, all submitted manuscripts are inspected by Similarity Check powered by iThenticate (https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/), a plagiarism-screening tool.
Authorship
An 'author' is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. According to the ICMJE guidelines (https://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf), authorship credit should be based on:
1) Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, and/or analysis and interpretation of data; AND
2) Drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
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 wishing to make any changes to authorship will be asked to make and submit an official letter to the editor. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.
Conflicts of Interests
The Journal requires authors to declare all competing interests including financial or non-financial support related to their work. If the authors have conflicts of interest, the paper should clearly state which conflicts they have. The editor may ask for further information relating to competing interests.
Statement of Human and Animal Right
Clinical research should be done in accordance of the Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects, outlined in the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (revised 2013), available from: https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/. Clinical studies that do not meet the Helsinki Declaration will not be considered for publication. Human subjects should not be identifiable, such that patients’ names, initials, hospital numbers, dates of birth, or other protected healthcare information should not be disclosed. For animal subjects, research should be performed based on the National or Institutional Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and the ethical treatment of all experimental animals should be maintained.
Statement of Informed Consent and Institutional Review Board Approval
Copies of written informed consents should be kept for studies on human subjects. For the clinical studies with human subjects, there should be a certificate, an agreement, or the approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the author's affiliated institution. If necessary, the editor or reviewers may request copies of these documents to resolve questions about IRB approval and study conduct.
Care and Use of Animals
Experimental research on vertebrates or any regulated invertebrates must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and where available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. The manuscript must include a statement of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) compliance that should appear as the first item in the section of materials and methods. If necessary, the editor or reviewers may request an official number of IACUC approval. The Journal maintains the right to reject any manuscripts on the basis of unethical conduct or misconduct of animal studies.
Managing Research and Publication Misconduct
When the journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as a redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, an ethical problem discovered with the submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and other issues, the resolving process will follow the flowchart provided by COPE (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The Editorial Board will discuss the suspected cases and reach a decision. The journal will not hesitate to publish errata, corrigenda, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
Adopted on June 1, 2014
Revised on October 25, 2013