Comprehensive
2024.06.20
Regarding inappropriate conduct by faculty members in research activities
June 20, 2024
Regarding inappropriate conduct by faculty members in research activities
Asia University President Kengo Nagatsuna
(Chief Management Officer for Fraud Prevention)
An incident has occurred that appears to have been inappropriate research activity by a faculty member at our university. We would like to explain the details of the incident and our response as follows.
1. Facts
It was pointed out that two papers published by faculty members of our university may have been "duplicate submissions." After an investigation, the following facts were discovered.
(1) In May 2022, a faculty member of our university published a paper on an external news site operated by a private company. (Note that the writing of this paper was not supported by any external funding.)
(Not used.)
(2) In March 2024, the faculty member published a paper in another journal with almost identical content to the above paper (hereinafter referred to as the "later paper").
He made no mention at all of his own paper that was published on the news site.
He made no mention at all of his own paper that was published on the news site.
(3) During the investigation, the faculty member in question denied that he had intentionally submitted two papers at the same time (to inflate his academic record, etc.), but stated that:
2) that it was my fault for not mentioning the existence of the paper published on the news site in the later paper
He admitted and apologized.
2. University's response
(1) Since the individual acknowledges that the two papers are almost identical, we have decided to ask the individual to withdraw the later paper.
(2) Although there is room for debate as to whether the news site constitutes an "academic journal, bulletin, journal article, etc." as defined in the University's regulations (Article 2, Item 1 of "Detailed Regulations Concerning Double Submission in research Activities")
However, there is a fact that even if it is on the website, it is a publication in the form of an academic paper.
research However, the fact is that the article was published in the form of a paper, even though it was published on a website.
I have no choice but to say that this is a very inappropriate act in terms of our activities. We have decided to issue a strict warning from President in this regard.
Prevention of recurrence
Every year, the University conducts on-demand ethics training at research and requires all faculty members, including Graduate School students, to watch the training. In recent years, we have pointed out the problem of "double posting" in detail. We regret that such inappropriate research behavior occurred in spite of this and deeply apologize to all concerned.
In order to prevent a recurrence, we will ask all faculty members to further raise their awareness of research ethics and, in particular, to take a strict attitude toward double posting, self-plagiarism, and self-plagiarism.
Please refer to the following page for details of the University's "research activities for the prevention of misconduct".