Established: July 1, 2021

Article 1. Purpose

The purpose of these regulations is to stipulate the procedures of prevention and treatment for research misconduct related to the papers submitted to the “Quality Improvement in Health Care” (hereinafter referred to as the “Journal”) published by the “Korean Society for Quality in Health Care”(hereinafter referred to as the “Society”).

Article 2 Definitions

• 1. “Forgery” refers to the act of falsifying, recording, or reporting raw research data, research data, or research results that do not exist.
• 2. “Alteration” refers to the act of distorting the contents or results of research by artificially manipulating research materials, equipment, and processes or by arbitrarily modifying or deleting raw research data or research data.
• 3. “Plagiarism” refers to the act of using the original ideas or creations of others that is not general knowledge, without appropriate source indication, and making a third party perceive the creation as one’s own.
• 4. “Unfair indication of authorship” refers to not granting the author qualification to a person who has contributed to the research content or results without a justifiable reason, or granting author qualification to a person who did not contribute for reasons of appreciation or courtesy.
• 5. “Unfair duplicate publication” refers to an act of obtaining unfair profits by publishing work that is identical or substantially similar to previous research results without an indication of the source to receive research funds or have the work recognized as a separate research achievement.
• 6. “Multiple submission” refers to the act of submitting the same research results to two or more academic journals at the same time and undergoing review simultaneously.
• 7. “Research misconduct” refers to acts that are seriously outside of the generally accepted range, including forgery, alteration, plagiarism, unfair indication of authorship, unfair duplicate publication, and multiple submission.

Article 3 Scope of Application

This regulation applies to all researchers, reviewers, editors, and academic societies who submit research manuscripts to the journal.

Article 4 Research and Publication Ethics of the Researcher

• 1. The researcher must comply with the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki when the research subject of the submitted manuscript is human, and must state that the approval of the Institutional Review Board and the consent of the research subjects have been obtained. If the submitted manuscript is an experimental animal study, the experimental process must meet the standards of the Institutional Review Board or the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.
• 2. The researcher is responsible for sufficiently contributing to the establishment of the basic concept and design of the research, data collection, analysis and interpretation, writing or revising the manuscript, approving the final manuscript based on the accuracy and truthfulness of the manuscript, and answering questions about the manuscript.
• 3. Researchers must not include those who have not contributed to the actual research process, such as those who donated research funds or heads of related departments.
• 4. If there are individuals who did not qualify as researchers but contributed to the research and presentation of the submitted manuscript, their contributions should be included in an acknowledgement. For this, the researcher must notify the relevant contributors of the relevant content and obtain prior consent.
• 5. When submitting the manuscript, the researcher must submit it to the journal after going through the plagiarism verification procedure using the thesis plagiarism prevention system.
• 6. When submitting the manuscript, the researcher must inform the Society of any conflict of interests, such as personal closeness with the reviewer or the editorial board, that may affect the review results of the manuscript, and all financial support related to the conduct of the research.
• 7. Secondary publication, such as in an academic journal for readership in a different language, etc. without making an unreasonable duplicate publication, shall be approved by the editors of both sides, and the paper shall specify in a footnote on the cover of the second publication manuscript that all or part of the manuscript has already been published so that readers and reviewers know that it has been published.
• 8. When submitting a manuscript, the researcher must submit a “Research Ethics Self-Checklist (Attachment 1)” that stipulates that the manuscript does not violate the ethical regulations such as plagiarism or unfair indication of authorship.
• 9. When a researcher finds a serious error in his or her submitted manuscript, he/she must revise the research content or request withdrawal of publication, and immediately notify the Society of any errors found after being published in the journal.

Article 5 Composition of the Research Ethics Committee

• 1. The Research Ethics Committee is operated as a non-standing committee to verify research misconduct, and the chairman of the committee shall be the editor-in-chief.
• 2. The committee consists of approximately five members, including one chairperson, and at least one expert in the field of research subject to investigation for research misconduct.
• 3. The chairperson shall not include any person who is judged to be in danger of harming the fairness in the investigation for research misconduct as a member.
• 4. The chairperson shall appoint one secretary for the operation of the committee and maintenance and management of records.

Article 6 Procedure for Research Misconduct Investigation

• 1. The chairman may investigate the research misconduct of a manuscript submitted to the journal, and the outcome shall be determined through convocation and verification of the Research Ethics Committee.
• 2. The chairperson may take measures such as written warning, notice for revision, prohibition of publication, or publication cancellation, depending on the degree of research misconduct after the verification process is concluded.
• 3. The chairperson may notify the researcher of the results of the investigation and the outcome of the decision, and if there is an objection, the chairman may re-investigate through the Research Ethics Committee.
• 4. The meeting minutes of the research misconduct investigation are kept for five years

Self-Checklist for Research and Publication Ethics

Research Title
Name of Researcher
Category	Details	Yes	No
General Items	Were the selection of subject matter of research, research subject, scale, control group, and method of data collection conducted in compliance with the research ethics?	□	□
Informed Consent	For research in human, was the fact that an informed consent form was obtained from subjects included in the research method?	□	□
Bioethics	For research in human and animal subjects, does the research method indicate that an approval or an exemption from an Institutional Review Board was obtained?	□	□
Conflict of Interest	Were all conflict of interests and financial support related to the research indicated?	□	□
Unfair Indication of Authorship	Did all of the researchers make sufficient contribution to the establishment of the basic concept of the research, research design, data collation, analysis, interpretation, writing of the manuscript, and revision?	□	□
	I have not included any author who made no contribution (input) to the study content or results, and I have not unfairly excluded any author who provided contribution (input) to the study.	□	□
	No student’s thesis has been published or presented under an adviser’s name alone.	□	□
Forgery	The original and current research data and the research results have not been forged, falsely documented, or reported.	□	□
Alteration	The study content and results have not been distorted through artificial manipulation of research materials, equipment, or procedures, or by arbitrarily modifying or deleting original or current research data.	□	□
Plagiarism	When other people’s research content or original ideas were partially or entirely used in the study, the sources have been clearly indicated without omission.	□	□
	When other people’s literature was used through translation or by partially changing the structure of words and sentences, the sources have been clearly indicated without omission.	□	□
Unfair Duplication Publication	When literature was used that has the same or similar results to an author’s previous research, the sources have been clearly indicated without omission	□	□
	I have not received unlawful profits such as research funds or acknowledgment as a separate research achievement for a literature that has the same or similar results to an author’s previous research.	□	□
Multiple Submission	The same research results have not been submitted and will not be submitted to another journal even after the submitted manuscript becomes accepted.	□	□
Ethical Verification	Are you aware of the fact that the publication of the manuscript can be refused in case violation of research ethics is suspected for the submitted manuscript?	□	□
I hereby confirm that I have faithfully checked the items above to comply with the research and publication ethics in the process of writing and publishing this research report. Name of researcher:            (seal)