PUBLISHING ETHICS

The ethical duties and responsibilities outlined below have been prepared taking into account the guidelines and policies published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as open access.

Authors submitting to Bitlis Eren University Academic Reflection Journal are expected to adhere to ethical responsibilities and all partners are expected to bear the following ethical responsibilities within the scope of publishing ethics.

AUTHORS' ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES

It is expected that the studies submitted by the author(s) are original. If the author(s) use other studies or sources, they must cite and/or quote them completely and accurately.

Individuals who do not contribute to the content of the study from an intellectual perspective should not be listed as authors.

If there are any situations or relationships that may constitute a conflict of interest, they should be disclosed for all studies submitted for publication.

During the evaluation process, authors may be requested to provide raw data related to their articles. In such a case, authors should be prepared to submit the expected data and information to the publication and scientific board.

The author(s) must have the rights to use the data used and have the necessary permissions for the research/analysis, or have the consent of the subjects in the experiment.

If the author(s) notices a mistake or error in their published, preprint or evaluated work, they have an obligation to inform the journal editor or publisher, and collaborate with the editor in correction or retraction procedures.

Authors cannot submit their work to multiple journals simultaneously. Each application can be started after the completion of the previous application.A study published in another journal cannot be sent to Bitlis Eren University Academic Projection Journal.
Changing the author responsibilities of a work whose evaluation process has begun (such as adding an author, changing the order of authors, removing an author) cannot be proposed.
EDITORS' ETHICAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

General duties and responsibilities

Editors are responsible for every publication in Bitlis Eren University Academic Projection Journal. In this context of responsibility, editors carry out the following roles and obligations:

-Making efforts to meet the information needs of readers and authors,
-Ensuring the continuous development of the journal,
-Managing the processes aimed at improving the quality of the works published in the journal,
-Supporting freedom of thought,
-Ensuring academic integrity,
-Continuing the business processes without compromising intellectual property rights and ethical standards,
-Demonstrating clarity and transparency in terms of publication in matters requiring correction and explanation.

Relationship with readers

Editors should decide by taking into account the information, skill, and experience expectations of all readers, researchers, and practitioners. They should pay attention to the contribution of published works to the reader, researcher, practitioner, and scientific literature and their originality. In addition, editors are obliged to take into account the feedback from readers, researchers, and practitioners, and provide explanatory and informative feedback.

Relationship with authors

The duties and responsibilities of editors towards authors are as follows:

-Editors should make a positive or negative decision based on the importance, original value, validity, clarity of expression, and the objectives of the journal.
-They should take the pre-evaluation stage for studies that are appropriate to the scope of publication and do not have a serious problem.
-Editors should not ignore positive referee recommendations unless there is a serious problem with the study.
-New editors should not change the decisions made by the previous editor(s) about the studies unless there is a serious problem.
-"Blind Peer Review and Evaluation Process" must be published, and editors must prevent deviations that may occur in the defined processes.
-Notification and feedback should be provided to the authors in an explanatory and informative manner.

Relationship with referees

-Editors should determine referees according to the subject of the study.
-They are obliged to provide referees with the information and guidance they will need in the evaluation stage.
-Editors must monitor whether there is a conflict of interest between authors and referees.
-In the context of blind refereeing, they should keep the referees' identities confidential.
-Editors should encourage referees to evaluate the study in an impartial, scientific, and objective language.
-They should determine the practices and policies that increase the performance of referees.
-They should take necessary steps for the dynamic updating of the pool of referees.
-They should prevent impolite and unscientific evaluations.
-They should take steps to ensure that the pool of referees consists of a wide range of referees.

Relationship with the publication board

Editors should ensure that all publication board members carry out the processes in accordance with publication policies and guidelines. They should inform publication board members about publication policies and keep them informed about developments.

Owner and publisher relations

The relationship between editors and publishers is based on the principle of editorial independence. According to the written agreement between editors and publishers, all decisions made by the editors are independent of the publisher and the journal owner.

Editorial and blind peer review processes:

Editors are responsible for implementing the "Blind Peer Review and Evaluation Process" policies included in the journal’s publication policies. In this context, editors ensure that the fair, impartial, and timely evaluation process of each work is completed.

Quality assurance:

Editors are responsible for ensuring that every article published in the journal is published in accordance with the journal's publication policies and international standards.

Protection of personal data:

Editors are responsible for protecting the personal data of subjects or visuals involved in the evaluated studies. They are obliged to reject studies unless the explicit consent of individuals used in the studies is documented. Additionally, editors are responsible for protecting the individual data of authors, reviewers, and readers.

Ethics committee, human and animal rights:

Editors are responsible for protecting human and animal rights in evaluated studies. In cases where there is no ethical committee approval or experimental research permissions regarding the subjects used in the studies, editors are responsible for rejecting the study.

Prevention of possible abuse and misuse of duty:

Editors are responsible for taking precautions against possible abuse and misuse of duty. In addition to conducting a thorough and objective investigation to determine complaints regarding this situation, sharing the findings related to the issue is also among the responsibilities of the editor.

Ensuring academic publishing integrity:

Editors should ensure that errors, inconsistencies, or misleading judgments in the works are corrected quickly.

Protection of intellectual property rights:

Editors are responsible for protecting the intellectual property rights of all published articles and defending the rights of the journal and author(s) in case of possible violations. Additionally, editors are responsible for taking necessary precautions to ensure that the contents of all published articles do not violate the intellectual property rights of other publications.

Constructiveness and openness to discussion:

Editors should take persuasive criticisms of published works into account and show a constructive attitude towards these criticisms. They should also give the authors of criticized works the right to reply. Editors should not ignore or exclude studies that contain negative results.

Complaints:

Editors are responsible for carefully examining and responding in an explanatory and informative manner to complaints received from authors, reviewers, or readers.

Political and commercial concerns:

The journal owner, publisher, and no other political or commercial factor influence the independent decision-making of editors.

Conflict of interests:

Editors ensure that the publication process of the studies is completed independently and impartially by taking into account conflicts of interest between authors, reviewers, and other editors.

The Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

The evaluation of all works through "Blind Peer Review" directly affects the quality of the publication. This process ensures trust through objective and independent evaluation of the publication. The evaluation process of Bitlis Eren University Academic Projection Journal is carried out with the principle of double-blind peer review. Reviewers cannot directly communicate with authors; evaluations and comments are transmitted through the journal management system. In this process, reviewer comments on evaluation forms and full texts are transmitted to the author(s) through the editor. In this context, it is expected that the reviewers evaluating the work for Bitlis Eren University Academic Projection Journal have the following ethical responsibilities:
• They should only accept evaluations related to their field of expertise.
• They must evaluate in a neutral and confidential manner.
• If they think they are faced with a conflict of interest in the evaluation process, they should inform the journal editor by refusing to review the work.
• They must destroy the works they have reviewed after the evaluation process due to the confidentiality principle. They can only use the final versions of the works they reviewed after they are published.
• They must evaluate objectively only regarding the content of the work. They should not allow nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political beliefs, and commercial concerns to affect the evaluation.
• They must make the evaluation in a constructive and kind language. They should not make derogatory personal comments containing hostility, defamation, or insult.
• They must perform the work they have accepted for evaluation in a timely and in accordance with the above ethical responsibilities.

The Ethical Responsibilities of Publishers

The Bitlis Eren University Academic Projection Journal Editors and Publication Board act with awareness of the following ethical responsibilities:
• Editors are responsible for all processes of the works submitted to the Bitlis Eren University Academic Projection Journal. In this framework, the decision-making persons, regardless of economic or political gains, are editors.
• They commit to the creation of independent editorial decisions.
• They protect the ownership and copyright of every article published in the Bitlis Eren University Academic Projection Journal and assume the obligation to keep the record of every published copy.
• They are responsible for taking any measures related to scientific misconduct, citation fraud, and plagiarism related to editors.

If You Encounter an Unethical Situation

If you encounter an unethical behavior or content beyond the ethical responsibilities mentioned above at the Bitlis Eren University Academic Projection Journal, please report it via email.

Journal Policy

Open Access Policy

As a journal aware of the necessity of easy access to information for the advancement of scientific studies, Bitlis Eren University Academic Projection Journal supports the initiative of open access in peer-reviewed journal literature as stated in the Budapest Open Access Initiative and presents all published articles in an environment where everyone can read and download them free of charge. In this declaration, open access is used to mean "the accessibility, readability, recordability, copyability, printable, scannable, full-text linkable, indexable, transferable to software as data, and available for any legal purpose without financial, legal, and technical barriers via the Internet for scientific literature." Considering the role of knowledge sharing in the advancement of science, open access is crucial for researchers and readers. Therefore, the articles in this journal are available as long as the author and original source are cited. No permission is required from authors or publishers. Articles in this journal can be accessed through search engines, websites, blogs, and other digital platforms.

Fee Policy

No fee is charged for article publication and article processing in the journal.

Evaluation Process

The studies sent to the journal for publication are initially evaluated by the editor for compliance with the aim and scope of the journal, compliance with writing rules, and adherence to the proposed draft. In this stage, studies that are not compliant with the aim and scope of the journal are returned to the authors. Studies that do not comply with writing rules and draft formatting are returned to the authors for correction and re-submission.
All studies are expected to be original and unique, not previously published in any medium. During the evaluation stage, the articles are reviewed through the Ithenticate similarity scanning and plagiarism detection program. The similarity index value of the articles must be below 20%. Articles with a similarity index value above this limit are rejected without evaluation.
The studies found appropriate by the editor are referred to the relevant section editor according to their subject matter and quality.
The section editor initiates the peer-review process of the study by determining two referees suitable for the subject matter and quality of the study.
The referees selected for the first step evaluation process are given 30 days for the evaluation process. Referees who do not complete their evaluations or upload their evaluation reports at the end of this period are terminated from their duties, and new referees are appointed.
Studies deemed inappropriate for publication according to the referee evaluation are returned to the authors. Authors are informed about the studies accepted for publication, and the study is published in the next issue.
Authors are given 30 days to make the necessary corrections for studies requested by referees. Corrections must be made and uploaded to the journal system within this period. If this period is exceeded, the process of the study is terminated, and it must be uploaded as a new article from the beginning. In this case, the first step evaluation process is restarted if required.