Current status and demand for educational activities on publication ethics by academic organizations in Korea: a descriptive study

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the following overarching issues: the current status of research and publication ethics training conducted in Korean academic organizations and what needs to be done to reinforce research and publication ethics training.Methods: A survey with 12 items was examined in a pilot survey, followed by a main survey that was distributed to 2,487 academic organizations. A second survey, which contained six additional questions, was dispatched to the same subjects. The results of each survey were analyzed by descriptive statistical analysis, content analysis, and comparative analysis.Results: More than half of the academic organizations provided research and publication ethics training programs, with humanities and social sciences organizations giving more training than the others (χ2=11.190, df=2, P=0.004). The results showed that research and publication ethics training was held mostly once and less than an hour per year, mainly in a lecture format. No significant difference was found in the training content among academic fields. The academic organizations preferred case-based discussion training methods and wanted expert instructors who could give tailored training with examples.Conclusion: A systematic training program that can develop ethics instructors tailored to specific academic fields and financial support from academic organizations can help scholarly editors resolve the apparent gap between the real and the ideal in ethics training, and ultimately to achieve the competency needed to train their own experts.