ETHICAL RULES

Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

Ethical Principles

In scientific studies containing the following issues, the documents showing the permission of the ethics committee should be submitted to the journal and the necessary information should be given in the article;

  • All kinds of research studies carried out with quantitative or qualitative approaches such as interview techniques, experiment, focus group work, questionnaire, observation and interview, where data is collected from the participants.
  • The use of humans and animals, including materials and data, for experimental or other scientific purposes
  • Human clinical studies
  • Studies involving animal experiments
  • Retrospective studies in accordance with the personal data protection law

However, information about signing the informed consent/consent document in case reports should be included in the article. For the use of content such as photographs, scales, and surveys that do not belong to the authors of the article, the permission of the owners of these content should be obtained and stated in the article. In case of use of intellectual and artistic works, it is obligatory to comply with copyright regulations.

Below are the features and rules for the editors, and some important ethical committees for the Authors and Reviewers:

 

Features and Responsibilities of Editors:

  • It gives importance to freedom of thought.
  • It strives to improve the journal and to ensure that the studies to be published are of higher quality.
  • Acts transparently when corrections and clarifications are required.
  • It pre-evaluates the articles within the scope of the journal, unless there is a significant problem.
  • It prevents problems that may occur during the closed inspection process.
  • Makes a selection according to the subject in the assignment of referees related to the study.
  • Provides the information needed by the referees and guides them.
  • It does what it takes to avoid any conflict of interest between the referee and the author.
  • Keeps the identity information of referees and authors confidential.
  • It enables referees to evaluate articles with an objective attitude in the context of impartiality and scientificity.
  • It ensures that the referee pools are constantly updated and wide.
  • Communicates effectively with all those involved in the publishing process, and holds meetings with members of the editorial board at certain times.
  • Considers the expertise of the board member in the articles to be sent to the board members for evaluation.
  • Decisions to be taken should be independent of the publisher and the journal owner.
  • It ensures the execution of a fair process based on the principle of impartiality in the evaluation of the articles sent to the journal and the completion of the evaluation in a timely manner.
  • It protects the individual data of readers, referees and authors.
  • It ensures the protection of human and animal rights in the event that human and animal experiments are carried out in the articles. In such studies, if the approval of the ethics committee and the necessary permissions are not documented, the article is rejected.

 

Ethical Rules Regarding Referees

  • In the evaluation of the article, constructive comments based on courtesy should be avoided and derogatory comments should be avoided.
  • It should perform an objective evaluation and should not go beyond the scope of the study. Although closed review, that is, blind arbitration, is carried out, it should not allow matters such as religion, language, race, political views and commercial concerns to affect the evaluation.
  • It should complete the process on the basis of impartiality and confidentiality.
  • Before the article goes to the review stage, if it realizes a possible conflict of interest, it should not review the publication and inform the editor.
  • If the study falls outside of his/her specialty, he/she should refuse evaluation.
  • Should respond positively or negatively to the evaluation invitation, and conclude the article for which he/she accepted the evaluation in a timely manner.
  • After evaluating the article, the document related to the article should be destroyed.
  • Should respond positively or negatively to the evaluation invitation, and conclude the article for which he/she accepted the evaluation in a timely manner.

 

Ethical Rules for Authors

  • When submitting an article to a journal for evaluation, it should not simultaneously submit the same publication to another journal.
  • It should be sure that the article to be sent to the journal is original.
  • The results of a research should be published as a single article without compromising the integrity and quality of that research.
  • Regardless of the stage of the article (evaluation, early edition, published), when it sees an error in the article, it should inform the editor in order to correct it or withdraw it.
  • In case of situations that require data usage right permission, research permission, ethics committee permission, participant approval in the article, the necessary documents and statements regarding these should be submitted.
  • They should not add people who are not included in the study as authors, and should not make requests such as adding or removing authors and changing the order of authors during the evaluation process and publication phase.
  • He/she should cite the sources he/she used in the article correctly and should do this within the framework of ethical principles.
  • In articles for which ethics committee permission is not required, it should be stated on the last page and/or method section of the article that this permission is not required.
  • The contributions of the authors of the article to the article should be written in an explanatory way in the section reserved in the article writing guide.