ETHICAL RULES

HOMEROS is committed to meeting and upholding standards of ethical behaviour at all stages of the publication process. It strictly follows the general ethical guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). Depending on these  principles and general publication requirements, editors, peer reviewers, and authors must take the following responsibilities in accordance to professional ethic and norms. The proper and ethical process of publishing is dependent on fulfilling these resposibilities.

1.The Responsibilities of Editors

1.1. The General Responsibilities

  • Editors should be accountable for everything published in their journals.
  • The editor should make the efforts to improve the quality of and contribute to the development of the journal.
  • The editor should support authors’ freedom of expression.

1.2. Relations with Readers

  • Readers should be informed about who has funded research or other scholarly work and whether the funders had any role in the research and its publication and, if so, what this was.
  • The editor should ensure that the non-peer-reviewed sections of the journal (letters, essays, announcements of conferences etc.) are clearly identified.
  • The editor should make efforts to ensure that the articles published align with the knowledge and skills of the readers.

1.3. Relations with Reviewers

  • The editor should match the knowledge and expertise of the reviewers with the manuscripts submitted to them to be reviewed ensuring that the manuscripts are adequately reviewed by qualified reviewers. 
  • The editor should require reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.
  • The editor should provide necessary information about the review process to the reviewers about what is expected of them.
  • The editor must ensure that the review process is double blind and never reveal the identities of the authors to the reviewers or vice versa.
  • The editör encourage reviewers to evaluate manuscripts in an objective, scientific and objective language.
  • The editor should develop a database of suitable reviewers and update it on the basis of reviewer performance and timing
  • In the reviewer database; It should be attentive to scientists who evaluate the manuscripts objectively, perform the review process on time, evaluate the manuscirpt with constructive criticism and act in accordance with ethical rules.

1.4. Relations with Authors

  • The editor should provide clear publication guidelines and an author guidelines of what is expected of them to the authors and continuously review the guidelines and templates.
  • The editor should review the manuscript submitted in terms of guidelines of the journal, importance of the study, and originality and if the decision to reject the manuscript is made editor should explain it to the authors with clear and unbiased way. If the decision is made that the manuscript should be revised by the authors in terms of written language, punctuation, and/or rules in the guidelines (spacing, proper referencing, etc.) the authors should be notified and given time to do the corrections accordingly.
  • The authors should be provided with necessary information about the process of their review (at which stage is the manuscript at etc.) complying with the rules of double blind review.
  • In the case of an editor change, the new editor should not change a decision taken by the previous editor unless it is an important situation.

1.5. Relations with Editorial Board Members

  • Editor should provide publication policies and guidelinesto the editorial board members and explain what is expected of them.
  • Editor should ensure that the editorial board members have the recently updated publication guidelinesand policies.
  • Editor should review the editorial board members and include members who can actively contribute to the journal’s development.
  • Editorial board members should be informed about their roles and responsibilities such as
    • Supporting development of the journal
    • Accepting to write reviews in their expertise when asked
    • Reviewing publication guidelinesand improving them consistently
    • Taking responsibility in journal’s operation

2.The Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

  • The reviewers must only agree to review manuscripts which align with their expertise.
  • The reviewers must make the evaluation in neutrality and confidentiality. In accordance with this principle, they should destroy the manuscripts they examine after the evaluation process, but use them only after they are published. Nationality, gender, religious belief, political belief and commercial concerns should not disrupt the neutrality of the assessment.
  • The reviewers must only review manuscripts which they do not have any conflict of interests. If they notice any conflict of interest they should inform the editor about it and decline to be a reviewer to the related manuscript.
  • Reviewers must include the Manuscript Evaluation Form for the manuscripts they evaluate without indicating their names to protect the blind review process. And they should include their final decision about the manuscript whether or not it should be published and why.
  • The suggestions and tone of the reviews should be polite, courteous and scientific. The reviewers should avoid including hostile, disrespectful, and subjective personal comments. When these comments are detected they could be reviewed and returned to the reviewer to be revised by the editor or editorial board.
  • The reviewers should respond in time when a manuscript is submitted to them to be reviewed and they should adhere to the ethical responsibilities declared hereby.

3.The Ethical Responsibilities of Author(s)

  • Submitted manuscripts should be original works in accordance with the specified fields of study.
  • Manuscripts sent for publication should not contradict scientific publication ethics (plagiarism, counterfeiting, distortion, republishing, slicing, unfair authorship, not to mention the supporting organization).
  • The potential conflicts of interest of the author(s) should be stated and the reason should be explained
  • The bibliography list is complete and should be prepared correctly and the cited sources must be specified.
  • The names of the people who did not contribute to the manuscript should not be indicated as an authors, they should not be suggested to change the authors order, remove the author, or add an author for a manuscript that is submitted for publication. Nevertheless, they should identify individuals who have a significant share in their work as co-authors. A study cannot be published without the consent of all its authors.
  • Author(s) are obliged to transmit the raw data of the manuscript to the editor upon request of journal editors.
  • The author(s) should contact the editor to provide information, correction or withdrawal when they notice the error regarding the manuscirpt in the evaluation and early view phase or published electronically.
  • Author (s) must not send manuscripts submitted for publication to another journal at the same time. Articles published in another journal cannot be resubmitted to be published in the HOMEROS.
  • In a manuscript that has reached the publication stage, the authors should fill in the "Copyright Transfer Form” and forward it to the editor.

4.The Ethical Responsibilities of Publisher

  • The publisher acknowledges that the decision making process and the review process are the responsibility of the editor of HOMEROS
  • The publisher is responsible for protecting the property and copyright of each published article and keeping a record of every published copy.
  • The publisher is obliged to provide free access to all articles of the journal in electronic environment.

Plagiarism and unethical behavior

All manuscripts submitted to HOMEROS are reviewed through iThenticate software before publishing. The maximum similarity rate accepted is 20%. Manuscripts which exceed these limits are analyzed in detail and if deemed necessary returned to the authors for revision or correction, if not they could be rejected to be published if any plagiarism or unethical behavior is detected.

Following are some of the behaviors which are accepted as unethical:

  • Indicating individuals who have not intellectually contributed to the manuscripts as authors.
  • Not indicating individuals who have intellectually contributed to the manuscripts as authors.
  • Not indicating that a manuscript was produced from author’s graduate thesis/dissertation or that the manuscript included was produced from a project’s data.
  • Salami slicing, producing more than one article from a single study.
  • Not declaring conflicting interests or relations in the manuscripts submitted.
  • Unveiling double blind process.