Ethical Rules and Publication Policy 

Statement on Publication Ethics and Publication Abuse

Inonu University Journal of African Studies is an international academic journal by Inonu University Journal of African Studies Center. The content of a published article does not reflect the views of Inonu University Journal of African Studies Center or Inonu University Journal of African Studies.

PUBLISHER’S DUTIES

Publication Principles

Inonu University Journal of African Studies is an international academic and peer-reviewed journal published twice a year. Submitted articles are first put into the plagiarism program. Every article that passes the plagiarism program is subject to preliminary evaluation by the Editorial Board of Inonu University Journal of African Studies. The articles that are found suitable for the appointment of a referee are submitted to the referee's opinion and presented to the opinion of two referees by blind refereeing. If both referees give a positive opinion, the article is published in case the corrections and changes proposed by the referees are made. If one referee rejects, the article is sent to a third referee; when the opinion of the third referee is also negative, the article is not published, when it is positive, the article is published on the condition that the corrections and changes proposed by the referees are made.
The final publication decision of the articles sent to Inonu University Journal of African Studies with a request for publication is made by the Editorial Board of Inonu University Journal of African Studies.

Honesty and Impartiality

Articles submitted for publication are evaluated entirely according to academic and scientific criteria. In the evaluation of the articles, gender, religion, race, ethnicity, citizenship, political views, and institutional relations of the authors are not accepted as criteria in any way.
Confidentiality
The editorial team does not inform anyone other than the author, reviewers, prospective reviewers and editorial members about any submitted article.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

The contents of the articles sent to the Inonu University Journal of African Studies and disclosed but not published, cannot be used by the editor and the members of the Editorial Board without the consent of the authors.

DUTIES OF REFEREES

Contribution to the Editorial Decision Process

The opinions of the referees make a great contribution in deciding whether the submitted manuscript will be published or not by the Editorial Board of Inonu University Journal of African Studies. The revision requests of the referees are forwarded to the authors and they are assisted in increasing the academic quality of the article. However, the Editorial Board of Inonu University Journal of African Studies has its own responsibility to decide whether an article will be published or not. A correction that the Editorial Board does not find sufficient according to the publication criteria of the journal Inonu University Journal of African Studies may be the reason for the rejection of the article.

Punctuality

The referees are given 15 days to evaluate the article. If there is no evaluation within the 15-day period, an additional evaluation period of one week is given, limited to two times. The referees who think that they are not qualified to evaluate the article submitted to them for evaluation or the referees who think that they cannot complete the evaluation within the time given to them, should inform the editor of Inonu University Journal of African Studies without delay.

Confidentiality

Articles submitted to reviewers for evaluation should be considered confidential. The article cannot be shared with others and cannot be discussed without the permission and consent of the Editorial Board of Inonu University Journal of African Studies. The contents of unpublished articles cannot be used by the referees in their own studies without the permission of the author.

Impartiality Standards

Referee reviews should be objective and constructive. The academic adequacy of the manuscript is taken as a basis and criticisms against the personalities of the authors are not considered appropriate. Referees should provide explanations and evidence to support their assessments. Inonu University Journal of African Studies does not evaluate biased and personalized evaluations and unjustified approvals and rejections and re-reviews the articles in this situation.

Citing Sources and Identifying Possible Plagiarism

The referees should identify the studies that were not cited by the authors in the articles they evaluated. Statements, observations or evidence that have not been somehow cited should be cited by the footnote method. The referees should draw the attention of the editor to the similarities or overlaps that may be found between the article evaluated in this framework and a previously published work.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Privileged information and ideas obtained through peer review are kept confidential and cannot be used for personal benefit. Referees do not accept to evaluate articles that may result in conflicts of interest with authors, companies, institutions, etc., which are related to the article they are evaluating due to competition, cooperation or any other kind of relationship.

AUTHOR'S DUTIES

Reporting Standards

Authors of original research reports should provide accurate information about the work performed and should provide an objective discussion of the importance of the work. Authors should accurately cite the raw material they use and provide sufficient detail and citation for other researchers. Deliberately presenting false information is unacceptable and immoral.

Authenticity and Plagiarism

Authors must ensure that they are making a completely original work; if they have benefited from the work of others, they should most appropriately cite that work. Any form of plagiarism is a very serious moral problem and is a crime, including improper transmissions in one's own publications. Articles found to contain plagiarism are excluded from evaluation for publication. If it is detected after publication, information is given to the responsible authorities.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publishing

An author should not publish an article containing the same research as content in more than one place. Submitting a previously published article for republishing and simultaneously sending the same article to more than one journal with a request for publication is unethical publication behavior and is unacceptable.

Identifying Resources

In an article, it has to indicate all the works that have been used. Authors must cite a publication that is in any way influential in the submitted article.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

All authors must disclose in their research paper any financial or other conflicts of interest that is thought to affect the results or interpretation of that article. All sources of financial support received for the study should be clearly stated.

Fundamental Errors in Published Studies
When an author discovers a serious error or mistake in a published article, he must immediately notify the editor and the Editorial Board. In this case, the author is responsible for cooperating with Inonu University Journal of African Studies in retracting or publishing a correction to the article.

Ethical Rules

Authors

The submitted article must be original and research-based, contributing to academic fields.
The responsibility for ethical violations of the article belongs to the author.
Authors who submit articles to the journal should read and apply the publication and writing principles of the journal, as well as complete citation and bibliography.
Authors must take into account the Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Instruction, which is also stated by the Council of Higher Education.

Referees

Referees should act with the awareness that they are the main determinants of the academic quality of the article to be published in the journal and should evaluate with the responsibility of increasing the academic quality.
Reviewers should only accept to referee articles for which they have the necessary expertise to perform appropriate evaluation, can respect the confidentiality of blind peer review, and keep the details of the article confidential at all times.
After the article review process, any information about the reviewed article should not be shared with others in any way.
Reviewers should only evaluate the accuracy of the content of the articles and their compliance with academic criteria. The fact that the opinions expressed in the article are different from the opinions of the referee should not affect the evaluation.
Referee reports should be objective and measured. Insulting, condescending and accusatory expressions should definitely be avoided.
Reviewers should avoid superficial and vague statements in their evaluation reports. In evaluations with negative results, the missing and flawed points on which the result is based should be shown in a concrete way.
The referees should evaluate the articles within the time allotted to them. If they are not going to review, they should notify the journal within a reasonable time.

Editors

Editors should accept articles that will contribute to the relevant areas specified in the journal policy for the evaluation process.
Editors should not have any conflict of interest/relationship with accepted or rejected articles.
Editors have full responsibility and authority to accept or reject an article.
It is the editors' responsibility to keep the names of the referees and authors mutually confidential.
Editors should make the necessary effort to scan the articles submitted for publication for plagiarism and thus prevent ethical violations.
It is the duty of the editors to complete the preliminary review, refereeing, editing and publishing processes of the articles submitted to the journal in a timely and reliable manner.
Editors should prioritize academic concerns and criteria when accepting articles to the journal.