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Academic Ethics Statement

Academic Ethics Statement of Chung Cheng Chinese Studies

Chung Cheng Chinese Studies is committed to publishing research papers in academic fields such as Chinese literature, history, and philosophy.  The published papers are all through public solicitation and professional reviews. The papers published in this journal must comply with publication ethics. Chung Cheng Chinese Studies refuses to accept papers involving plagiarism, multiple submissions (repetitive submissions), falsified materials, writing by others, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and so on.  Chung Cheng Chinese Studies refers to the guidelines of publishing ethics by Elsevier B.V. (https://www.elsevier.com/editors/publishing-ethics) as well as the best practice guidelines (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines) for Journal Editors by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).  To clarify the obligations of editors, reviewers, and authors (contributors), below are the compiled and revised principles concerning judgement and handling of unethical behaviors.

Guidelines for Editors

1. Peer review and publication decision

Papers submitted to this journal must be reviewed anonymously by at least two experts and scholars in related fields.  The review criteria include the research quality, importance, originality, novelty, relevance, and fluency of the submitted papers.  Based on the results of peer reviews, editors may decide whether to publish the article or not, according to the research topic or the importance of the paper to other researchers and/or readers.  Editors must comply with the editorial guidelines of relevant journals and legal principles.  Editors may authorize the reviewers to exercise the right to decide on publication of the submitted paper.

2. Fair competition

Editors need to review the content of the paper and must not use non-content conditions such as race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, and political beliefs as the reviewing criteria.

3. Principle of confidentiality

Editors and related personnel shall not disclose any information about the manuscript to the authors, reviewers, editorial advisors, or publishers.

4. Principle of Disclosure

(1) Without the consent of the authors, editors must not use the unpublished content of the paper for personal research purposes.

(2) Relevant revision suggestions and information provided by peer reviewers must comply with the principle of confidentiality and must not be used for personal research.

(3) When the editor believes that he/she constitutes a conflict of interest, such as competition, cooperation, or other associations with the author(s), companies or organizations, he/she must avoid reviewing the manuscript and find other qualified reviewers who meet the conditions of reviewing the manuscript.

(4) Editors need to request all paper contributors who submit papers to disclose relevant conflict of interest information.  If a conflict of interest is revealed after publication, necessary measures such as issuing a correction statement, issuing a revocation of publication or a statement of interest must be taken.

5. Conflict of interest

(1) It is necessary to ensure that the relevant sponsorship or subsidy does not incur special treatment in the process of peer review, and that the review requirements are the same as other papers.

(2) Relevant sponsorships or subsidies must be fully in line with the purpose and the value of academic uses rather than commercial interest considerations.

(3) If the published paper has no peer review, it must be clearly disclosed.

6. Participation of investigation

When finding or receiving information about the academic ethics violations committed by the submitted paper, editors, the publisher, and the distribution and printing party shall take appropriate measures, including contacting the author(s) or related units and notifying the possible wrongdoings.  Once the violation of academic ethics is verified, the journal must take measures to immediately correct, withdraw, send out the clarifying statement.  Any behavior that violates publication ethics must be thoroughly investigated, and published papers that violate academic ethics still face the effect of retroactive adjustment.

Guidelines for Reviewers

  1. Reviewing capability

If the appointed reviewer thinks that he/she is not suitable or unable to complete the review in time, he/she must notify the editorial board or the editor in charge and actively request to decline to review the paper.

  1. Principle of confidentiality

The reviewer must treat the manuscript of the reviewed paper as a confidential document and shall not disclose any information to anyone other than the editor.

  1. Objective standard

The reviewer must exclude personal opinions, conduct review work fairly and objectively, provide constructive comments and precise examples for the places that he/she criticizes.

  1. Source notification

The reviewer must be able to identify the uncited references and provide clear relevant examples.  Any monitoring, investigation or content conducted by previous researchers shall be cited properly.  The reviewer must also inform the editor to pay attention to any similarities or partial overlaps in the paper with other works.

5. Principles of disclosure and conflict of interest

The reviewer shall not embezzle the unpublished materials in the manuscript for his/her own use without obtaining the consent of the author.  When the reviewer believes that there is a conflict of interest, such as competition, cooperation, or other associations with other authors, companies and organizations, he/she must take the initiative to decline to review the manuscript.

[Guidelines for Contributor (Author)]

1. Paper standards

The author needs to present clear research materials and important details objectively and accurately in the paper, as well as the accuracy of the relevant research data, in order to facilitate the follow-up research of others.  There should not be any illegal or unethical behavior, such as deceiving, misleading, incorrect, or untrue statements, etc.

2. Data usage and retention

Authors need to retain the original research data, provide the reviewer for review, and provide the data for public use after publication.

3. Originality and plagiarism

Authors should ensure that the whole paper is original.  If authors have used other authors’ discourses, they have to be clearly cited.  Immoral and illegal acts such as plagiarism and copying, including unauthorized usage of others’ research conclusion for own results, copying or re-explaining the essences of other works, and counterfeit others’ works for own works, are prohibited.

4. Manuscripts that are compounded, repeated or published simultaneously

Authors are not allowed to simultaneously publish essentially the same research papers or reports in multiple journals or publications or submit the same manuscript to different journals.  These are improper behaviors that are inconsistent with publication ethics.  In principle, the research results published by the author(s) may not be submitted to another journal.  However, secondary publication can be carried out under certain conditions, provided that the author agrees with editors of the original journal and the republished journal and the republished materials and discourses must be consistent with the original journal articles, and the original article must be cited and listed on the reference section in the republished paper.

5. Notification of information sources

The author must fully accept the responsibility of citing other people's works, and should list all factors that affect the nature of the research.  Undisclosed private information, such as conversations, letters, third-party discussions, etc., should not be used for publication if there is no clear written authorization letter from the source of the data.  Information obtained from reviewing other people's works (papers or project grant applications, etc.) should not be used or published without the written authorization of the original author.

6. List of the paper’s authors

All important contributors to the paper, such as conception, design, implementation, or clarification, must be listed as coauthors, and those who have participated in the relevant research project must also be listed in detail.  Corresponding authors must ensure that all contributing coauthors are listed in the author list, and those who have not contributed to the paper should not be listed.  Corresponding authors must confirm that each coauthor has completed the review of the final submission document before submitting the manuscript and agrees to submit the manuscript.

7. Hazardous objects and experimental subjects of humans and animals

If the research involves chemicals, research processes, or equipment that can cause serious hazards, the authors need to explain in detail.  If the research work involves experimental subjects such as humans or animals, authors must elaborate on the process in the paper and ensure that it complies with relevant laws and regulations.  For the study that involves human subjects, authors must declare in the paper the right of consent to conduct human subjects, and the privacy rights of human subjects must be permanently protected.

8. Conflict of interest

Authors are required to publicly state any conflict of interest that may be deemed to affect the research results or interpretation of the results, including funding subsidies, project subsidies, employment relationships, consultants, ownership of materials, remuneration, expert testimony fees, patent application/registration, or donation authorization, etc.  If there is any relevant information about possible conflicts of interest in the future, the information must also be provided as soon as possible.

9. Errors in research content

When the author discovers that the research content contains errors or incorrect information, he/she should promptly and proactively notify the editor to take relevant measures such as withdrawing the paper or modifying the content.  If the editor learns from a third party that the research paper contains major errors, the author needs to provide the editor with correct information in addition to the above measures.

  1. During reviewing, compiling and publishing, the editor in chief, members of the editorial board and the publisher all need to follow the guidelines of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://www.elsevier.com/authors/journal-in the authors/Policies-AND- ethics), namely, Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers, to ensure that there is no violation of publishing ethics and there is not any improper publication.

Judging and Handling Unethical Acts

  1. Whenever this journal’s reviewer, chief editor, chief editor for the special issues, editorial board member, or any member of the editorial team finds out there is a violation of academic ethics, he/she should remind the chief editor or the editorial board to promptly deal with it.
  2. The criteria of misconducts should include, but are not limited to, the above-mentioned ethics statement.
  3. When knowing any acts of violation of academic ethics, the chief editor and the editorial board should work together to collect enough information and evidence, investigate, and discuss.  All allegations should be taken seriously and handled with the same standards until an appropriate decision or conclusion is reached.

Methods of Investigation

• The chief editor shall determine the preliminary investigation policy and seek the suggestions of the editorial board members at an appropriate time.

• Without alerting non-related persons, sufficient and appropriate evidence should be collected.

• Holding an editorial board meeting to discuss and reach a resolution and asking the author(s) to provide an explanation.

Disciplinary measures

Regarding the severity of violating academic ethics, the submitted paper that is not accepted by this journal will be sent back to the author(s).  Disciplinary measures of a published paper, which is found unethical, in this journal are based on the Elsevier policy, which divides into: withdrawal, retraction, removal, and replacement.  The editorial board will take one or more measures, in the above-mentioned cases, by following these disciplinary items:

• The relevant unethical record will be kept in the field of Chinese literature, history, and philosophy.  Moreover, according to the severity of the circumstances, or the author(s) may be prohibited from submitting papers within certain allotted time or refused to submit manuscripts indefinitely in the future.

• A formal letter about the unethical conduct and investigation results may be sent to the affiliation or school department of the person who violates the ethical code.

• This journal will post the facts of the unethical conduct.

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