Journal of Kim Il Sung University: Information Science (김일성종합대학학보. 정보과학 / Kim Il Song Chonghap Taehak Hakpo. Chongbo Kwahak)
Journal of Kim Il Sung University: Information Science
김일성종합대학학보. 정보과학 / Kim Il Song Chonghap Taehak Hakpo. Chongbo Kwahak
Translation and backgrounder by Stephen Mercado
A quarterly journal of science and technology related to the retrieval, storage and processing of information, published by the Publishing House of Kim Il Sung University.
Journal Title: The journal title has various renderings. Journal of Kim Il Sung University: Information Science is the name in English. Its name in a simplified version of the standard McCune-Reischauer (M-R) transliteration system and the actual title in Korean are listed above. Its full M-R transliteration, as used in catalogs of the Library of Congress and other major libraries, is Kim Il-sŏng Chonghap Taehak hakpo. Chŏngbo kwahak. The actual title and its English version both appear on the journal’s front cover and at the top of the first page of each article. The actual title also appears atop the Korean table of contents (TOC); the English version appears at the bottom of the English TOC and on the copyright line in the publishing information section.
Author Information: The research papers show author names but lack other information common to science papers, such as academic or professional affiliation, academic titles, areas of research or author biography. The journal’s title suggests that authors are likely affiliated with a relevant academic department of Kim Il Sung University (KISU). Indeed, certain authors show such affiliations when they cite works of theirs published abroad. For example, Kong Yong Su, cited a work of his published in 2014 in the journal Vehicle System Dynamics, which identified him as affiliated with the KISU Department of Electronics and Automation.
Subject Matter: The articles have to do with developments in such fields as computer science, information security and machine translation.
References: Authors publishing in this journal tend to cite domestic, Chinese and Western monographs and journal articles. Domestic citations include the Journal of Kim Chaek University of Technology and the 2022 Publishing House of Kim Il Sung University book 로보트공학 [Robot Engineering]. Cited Chinese journals include 计算机工程 (Computer Engineering) and 计算机与数字工程 (Computer and Digital Engineering). Among the referenced Western journals are many of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), including the IEEE periodicals Control Systems Letters, Photonics Technology Letters, Transactions on Signal Processing, and Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.
Sections: Each issue comprises a front cover; a TOC in Korean; the articles; a TOC in English; the publishing information; and the back cover. Regime messages/propaganda appear throughout the journal.
The front cover shows a slogan over the journal title, under which is the name of the publisher, and the issue number and year of issue. The TOC in Korean shows article titles without sections. Following the articles is a TOC in English. Next, there is the publishing information, and the back cover shows the periodical publication number.
Publisher: The publisher’s name, in English, is the Publishing House of Kim Il Sung University. It is the Kim Il Song Chonghap Taehak Chulpansa in simplified M-R and 김일성종합대학출판사 in Korean. The publisher’s name appears in Korean on the journal’s cover and in English at the end of the English version of the TOC and on the copyright line in the publishing information section.
The publisher has been publishing an issue each quarter, starting in March 2018, for a total of four issues per year. The journal is one of six—the others are Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Life Science, and Geoenvironmental Science and Geology—issued in place of the university’s journal Natural Science / 자연과학, which ceased publication in late 2017. Issue 3 (September), 2022, Volume 68, Issue 3, was cumulative issue number 647. The publishing information page also indicated that there was an editorial committee (no members named), the publisher was the Publishing House of Kim Il Sung University, the place of printing was the Kim Il Sung University Printing Plant, the date of printing was 30 August Juche 111 (2022), and the date of issue was 10 September Juche 111 (2022). The copyright line was © Publishing House of KIM IL SUNG University 2022, DPR Korea. The international standard serial number (ISSN), email address and fax numbers were missing from the publishing information section, while the telephone number, not found in the original journal, was included.