Asia Pacific Journal of Language, Culture, and Education
(e-ISSN 2733-8096)
[Research Ethics Regulations]
Enacted: January 8, 2026
Article 1 (Purpose) The purpose of these regulations is to define the principles and standards of research ethics that members of this Society must observe.
Article 2 (Enactment and Application) These regulations are based on Chapter 2 of the Society’s Bylaws and are intended to concretize Article 16 (Prohibition of Plagiarism and Duplicate Publication) of the Editorial Board Regulations. These regulations apply to all members of this Society.
Article 3 (Responsibilities and Obligations) Researchers submitting to this journal must be fully aware of these regulations and submit only research results that ensure research integrity. They must actively cooperate with necessary procedures and requests to verify the integrity of their research results.
Article 4 (Prohibition of Research Misconduct) “Research misconduct” refers to all fraudulent acts committed during the research process and in the resulting work, including plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, unjustified authorship attribution, and duplicate use of data.
1. Plagiarism: Any act of presenting research or arguments that one did not perform as one’s own results or arguments, or misappropriating another person’s research results without specifying the source, including:
① Using all or part of the research content of another person’s work without citing the source. ② Modifying parts of words or sentence structures from another person’s work without citing the source. ③ Using another person’s original ideas and expressions without citing the source. ④ Translating and using another person’s work without citing the source.
2. Fabrication: The act of creating false research results by manipulating data that does not exist in the experiment or analysis results.
3. Falsification: The act of distorting research content or results by artificially manipulating research materials, equipment, or analysis processes, or by arbitrarily modifying or deleting research results.
4. Unjustified Authorship Attribution: The act of not granting authorship to a researcher who has contributed to the content or results of the research without a justifiable reason, or granting authorship to a person who has made no academic contribution.
5. Duplicate Use of Data: The act of using already published data or research results without citing the source, or publishing the same work twice without the prior consent of the academic society.
Article 5 (Prohibition of Duplicate Submission and Publication) Researchers shall not submit their work to two or more academic journals simultaneously. Papers published in this journal, APJLCE, cannot, in principle, be published elsewhere. However, in cases where the paper is a condensed version of a thesis/dissertation or a revised version of a paper presented at an academic conference, this fact must be explicitly stated.
Article 6 (Ethics Regulations for Review) Reviewers of this journal shall observe the following ethical regulations:
1. Duty of Reviewers: Reviewers shall faithfully review the manuscripts requested by the Editorial Board in accordance with the review regulations established by the Society and notify the Editor-in-Chief of the results. If a reviewer deems themselves unqualified to review the requested manuscript, they may notify the Editorial Board of this fact and be excused from the review.
2. Fairness of Review: Reviewers shall evaluate manuscripts fairly based on objective criteria, setting aside personal academic beliefs or private relationships with the author.
3. Notification of Research Misconduct: If a reviewer discovers that a requested manuscript has already been published in another journal or identifies issues constituting research misconduct, they must immediately notify the Editorial Board.
4. Confidentiality of Content and Results: Reviewers shall not disclose matters regarding the manuscript under review to others. Furthermore, they must not quote the content of the manuscript or disclose the review results without the author’s consent before the journal containing the manuscript is published.
Article 7 (Ethics Committee Regulations) The general regulations regarding the Society’s Ethics Committee are as follows:
1. Composition: The members shall consist of the Editorial Board members, and the Chairperson shall be the Editor-in-Chief.
2. Function: The Committee manages all matters regarding research ethics and deliberates and decides on member conduct that violates these regulations.
3. Convocation and Decision: Meetings are convened by the Chairperson. The Chairperson shall convene the Committee upon the request of the President or at least three members. Decisions are made by the attendance of a majority of current members and the affirmative vote of a majority of those present.
4. Deliberation Procedure: When a Committee member or an informant submits a violation case, the integrity of the research result in question shall be verified according to the following procedures:
① Upon receipt of a report, the Committee shall be convened immediately to allow members to review the reported documents and collect opinions on the possibility of misconduct. ② The Committee shall notify the member subject to deliberation of the reported content and grant them a sufficient opportunity to explain and defend themselves. ③ The Committee shall review the reviewer’s opinion, the informant’s objection documents, and the researcher’s defense documents in their entirety to determine whether the ethics regulations have been violated.
5. Reporting of Deliberation Results: The Committee shall report the results of the investigation into the violation of research ethics regulations to the Standing Board of Directors, including the following items:
① Details of the violation of research ethics regulations ② Deliberation procedure ③ Basis for the deliberation decision and relevant evidence ④ The explanation/defense provided by the member subject to deliberation and the result of the processing ⑤ Other necessary materials
6. Disciplinary Procedure and Scope: If there is a disciplinary recommendation from the Committee, the President shall convene the Standing Board of Directors to make a final decision on whether to impose disciplinary action and the details thereof. If a paper published in this journal is proven to be plagiarism, or if a paper published in another journal is found to have been republished here, the paper in question shall be deleted. Furthermore, the submitter of the paper shall be prohibited from submitting papers for a period of at least five years.
Addendum These Research Ethics Regulations shall enter into force on January 8, 2026.