AKSOS strives to follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) standards and subscribes to its principles in order to maintain the widely accepted standards of publication and tackle acts of research misconduct if need be, thereby committing to investigate allegations of misconduct to ensure the integrity of research. The responsibilities of all parties involved in the submission, review, and publication processes are as follows:

EDITORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Publication Decisions

The editor-in-chief and relevant field editors are responsible for deciding which of the papers submitted to the journal will be published. All articles submitted to AKSOS will be evaluated based on scientific merit and only if they are considered ethically sound in the judgment of the editor-in-chief and field editors. The editor will oversee the editorial process without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The decision will be based on the scientific merit of the submitted work and its relevance to the journal’s scope. Legal issues regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism should also be considered.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff do not disclose any information about a submitted work to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, another editorial adviser.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the editor or the members of the editorial board for their own research purposes in any case.

REVIEWERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Contribution to editorial decisions

The peer-reviewing process assists the editor and the editorial board in making editorial decisions and may also serve the author in improving the paper.

Promptness

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and withdraw from the review process.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be disclosed to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. Referees are expected to express any ethical concerns regarding possible research misconduct including misuse or maltreatment of animals, misdirection of human participants, or any kind of discriminatory discourse such as hate speech, racism, sexism, ableism, etc.

Acknowledgment of sources

Reviewers should identify cases in which relevant published work referred to in the paper has not been cited in the reference section. They should point out whether observations or arguments derived from other publications are accompanied by the respective source. Reviewers will notify the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the papers.

AUTHORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Reporting standards

Authors of original research reports should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data access and retention

Authors could be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the paper for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable.

Originality, plagiarism, and acknowledgment of sources

Authors will submit only entirely original works, and will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work should also be cited.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication

In general, papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Submitting the same paper to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Manuscripts that have been published as copyrighted material elsewhere cannot be submitted. In addition, manuscripts under review by the journal should not be resubmitted to copyrighted publications. However, by submitting a manuscript, the author(s) retain the rights to the published material.

Authorship of the paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors.

The corresponding author ensures that all contributing co-authors and no uninvolved persons are included in the author list. The corresponding author will also verify that all co-authors have approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Author(s) must declare any conflicting or competing interests relating to a given article. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

ETHICS COMMITTEE PERMISSION

AKSOS requires authors to obtain Ethics Committee Permission from the relevant committees of their universities for all research that features the following characteristics;

- All kinds of research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from the human participants by using survey, interview, focus group work, observation, experiment or interview techniques,
- The use of humans and animals (including material/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,
- clinical studies on humans,
- Animal studies
- Retrospective studies under the law on the protection of personal data,

Author(s) must submit the “informed consent form” taken from human participants.

Author(s) must obtain and specify permission for the use of scales, questionnaires, photographs, etc. from the respective owners.

THE RIGHTS OF THE AUTHOR(S) IN THE REVIEW PROCESS

Authors who want to appeal the editorial decision of the journal during the double-blind review and evaluation process of a manuscript submitted to AKSOS JOURNAL, can reach the online publishing office of the journal with a letter of objection and clearly state the reason for the objection.

In the appeal letter, the author can detail why he disagrees with the decision. Authors applying for objections are expected to give specific responses to the comments of the editor and/or referees who contributed to the rejection decision.

The author is responsible for providing new information or data that the journal wishes to consider.

If the author(s) believe that a reviewer has made technical errors in the evaluation process, they must provide evidence.

If the author(s) believes that they may have a conflict of interest with a referee, they may provide evidence.

After receiving the objection, the editor of the journal may reconsider the objection application in collaboration with the field editors and the advisory board, depending on the nature of the application.