Bezgek Journal Publication Ethics Principles

Bezgek Journal Publication Ethics Principles have been prepared by the Committee on Publication Ethics (Committee on Publication Ethics/COPE Code of Conduct) by combining the COPE guidelines in 1999, the ethical principles developed in 2003 and the best practice guidelines developed in 2007 and finalized at the meeting on March 7, 2011 (http://publicationethics.org) in line with the opinions of the editorial board members of Bezgek Journal.

The persons responsible for the publication of Bezgek Journal (authors, editors, referees, journal managers and other officials) must comply with these ethical principles.

Duties and Responsibilities of Editors

The editor-in-chief and field editors of Bezgek Journal have responsibilities such as taking into account the needs of readers and authors, ensuring that the studies to be published in the journal are of high quality, not allowing business or commercial needs to override intellectual and ethical standards, correcting, explaining and apologizing when appropriate and when needed, and continuously improving the journal.

To improve the journal, editors should seek the views of authors, readers, reviewers and the editorial board, follow research on peer review and publishing, re-evaluate the journal in the light of new data, evaluate the effects of journal policy on authors and reviewers, revise policies when necessary, encourage responsible behavior and prevent unethical behavior.

Relations with Readers

Readers should be informed about who financially supported the research and their role in the research and publication.

Editors should ensure that manuscripts published in the journal are evaluated by peer reviewers who are experts in the subject area.

Care should be taken to ensure that research reports, including technical sections, are clear, complete and accurate.

The list of authors or contributors should be made accurately and unethical behaviors such as fictitious authors and guest authors should be prevented.

Relations with Authors

Editors should decide whether to accept or reject an article for publication based on criteria such as its importance, originality, validity and relevance to the journal.

Editors should evaluate manuscripts based on their intellectual content without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnicity, nationality or political views.

The editor and a member of the editorial board should not disclose information about a manuscript submitted to the journal to anyone other than the author, referees, other editors and the publisher.

Editors should not reject a submission unless there are serious problems with the manuscript.

The peer review process should be published on the journal website and editors should explain any significant deviation from the defined process.

Editors should prepare and publish a guideline that explains everything that is expected of authors. This guideline should be updated regularly and a link or reference to it should be provided.

Editors should explain the standards that authors should meet.

For submission manuscripts, reviewers should be selected who are qualified to evaluate the manuscript and who do not have conflicts of interest.

Dates of submission and acceptance of manuscripts should be published.

Authors' Tasks

Authors submitting their manuscripts to Bezgek Journal leave their copyrights to the journal unless the article is rejected as a result of the evaluations and the author withdraws it before publication.

Authors submitting their manuscripts to Bezgek Journal must declare that their manuscripts are original, unpublished and have not been submitted elsewhere for publication. In other words, authors must declare that their manuscripts are their own, have not been copied or plagiarized from elsewhere, and disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest related to their work. If authors decide to withdraw their submissions during the review process, they should inform the journal editor and obtain the editor's approval before submitting their work elsewhere.

Authors should submit a letter explaining the following issues with their manuscript submission:

The candidate article has not been published anywhere before (except in the form of an abstract from a thesis) and is not under evaluation for publication,

That the publication has been approved by all authors,

If the study is accepted, it cannot be published elsewhere in English or any other language, including an electronic copy, without the approval of Bezgek Journal,

The nominated paper is free of plagiarism, self-plagiarism (such as copying material from the author's previously published work), dishonesty or other ethical issues,

The statement “All authors approve the final version of the article” should be included.

Ethically, it is important that all authors make a tangible contribution to the research or preparation of the manuscript.

Authors are expected to avoid plagiarism, fraud, pseudoscience and other unethical behavior in the candidate article. The originality of the article is examined with the iThenticate program, and articles with a similarity rate above a certain rate (15%) are not evaluated.

Authors should not include their credentials in the article; they can refer to themselves, but when they refer to themselves in the main text, they should do so as “author, year” (such as Author, 2013) or “Author et al., year” (such as Author et al., 2013) regardless of the number of authors or the actual order of the names.

During the manuscript review and publication process, all communications should be conducted only with the corresponding authors.

Authors should accurately present the data and findings of an original study. Inaccurate or false statements and explanations are unethical and unacceptable.

Authors should ensure that their work is entirely original, and if they have used the work and statements of others, they should cite or refer to them appropriately.

References should be provided for works cited in the article.

Authorship should be limited to making a significant contribution to the conceptualization, design, conduct and interpretation of the study. All significant contributors should be listed as co-authors. If there are individuals who made significant contributions to specific aspects of the research, they should be mentioned or cited as contributors. All co-authors should be clearly identified during manuscript submission.

All authors should disclose whether they have any financial or other significant conflicts of interest that may affect the findings and interpretations of the study. All financial support for the project should be disclosed.

If an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in a published manuscript, he/she must notify the journal editor or publisher immediately and either withdraw the manuscript or have it published with an appropriate correction statement.

Relations with and Expectations from Reviewers

Editors should explain what is expected of reviewers, including maintaining the confidentiality of the submitted manuscript. The guide containing these expectations should be regularly updated and linked. Reviewers should read the Bezgek Journal review guidelines and follow the Bezgek Journal application criteria in their own reviews.

Editors should ask reviewers to declare any conflicts of interest before accepting a manuscript for review.

Editors should keep the identity of reviewers confidential.

If the referees are not in a position to evaluate a study sent to them due to reasons such as not being in their field of expertise or not being able to make the evaluation within the given time, they should inform the editor and ensure that the article is sent to another referee.

The manuscript sent for evaluation should be kept confidential and should not be shown or given information to others without the authorization of the editor.

The evaluation should be made objectively. Reviewers should express their views impartially, clearly and in a way that supports their decisions.

Reviewers should identify studies that the authors do not cite in the text and ask for references. If reviewers notice a significant similarity or overlap between the article under review and another published article, they should bring this to the attention of the editor-in-chief.

Privileged information and ideas obtained as a result of peer review should be kept confidential and should not be used for personal benefit.

Reviewers should comment on ethical issues and research and publication misconduct (unethical research design, inadequate information on participant consent or participant protection, inappropriate use and presentation of data) in the manuscript.

Reviewers should comment on the originality of the manuscript and be alert to plagiarism.

Reviewers' evaluations and comments should be sent to the authors in their entirety, unless offensive or critical language is used.

Referees' contributions should be acknowledged by sending a referee certificate and thanking them.

Reviewers' performance should be monitored and measures taken to keep standards high.

A database of referees suitable for the journal should be created and updated according to the performance of the referees.

Candidate manuscripts should not be sent to referees who constantly behave unkindly, evaluate poorly, and delay in the evaluation process.

The referee database should reflect the target audience of the journal and new referees should be added when needed.

A wide range of methods should be used to identify new reviewers, such as author suggestions, bibliographic databases, and not just personal contacts.

Relations with Editorial Board Members and Expectations from Editorial Board Members

Editors should explain to new members of the editorial board what is expected of them and inform existing members about new policies and developments.

The evaluation of manuscript submissions from editorial board members should be done in an unbiased manner.

The composition of the editorial board should be reviewed regularly.

The editorial board should be informed about the functions and duties expected of them, such as representing, developing and supporting the journal; considering (searching for) the best authors and the best work; encouraging article submissions to the journal; reviewing submissions; attending and contributing to editorial board meetings.

Periodic (e.g. annual) consultations should be held with editorial board members to assess their views on the functioning and direction of the journal, to inform them about changes in journal policy, and to identify future challenges.

Relations with Journal Owner and Publisher

Editors should be independent in their relations with the journal owner and publisher.

Editors should make the decision to publish articles based on their quality and suitability for the journal, without the influence of the journal owner.

Editorial Board and Referee Evaluation Process

Editors should endeavor to ensure that peer review in their journals is fair, unbiased and timely.

Editors should respect the principle of confidentiality in the evaluation process of the manuscript submitted to the journal.

They should adopt peer review methods that are most appropriate for the journal and the research community it addresses.

They should regularly review their peer review practices for improvement.

Editors should follow the necessary steps to ensure the quality of the articles they publish.

Personal Data Protection

Editors must respect the rules of confidentiality within their jurisdiction. They should always protect personal information obtained during research or professional interactions (such as those between a patient and a doctor). For this reason, written informed consent must almost always be obtained from participants for publication. Personal information may be published without specific consent if the public interest outweighs the potential harm, consent is impossible to obtain and the individual does not object to publication.

The journal policy on publishing personal data should be clearly explained to authors and published.

Editors should expect ethical behavior in human and animal studies and ensure that studies published in the journal are conducted according to internationally accepted guidelines.

Editors should seek assurance that all research has been approved by an appropriate board/organization, such as an ethics committee, institutional ethics review board. However, editors should keep in mind that such approval does not guarantee that the research is ethical.

They should therefore seek ethics committee approval and ask the authors to explain how they obtained participant consent.

In the case of unethical behavior, editors should not only reject the article but also investigate the ethically alleged situation.

Editors should first seek the views of those involved in the suspected behavior, and if this is not sufficient, they should ask the relevant employer, institution, or appropriate organization.

Editors should use all reasonable means and take all reasonable steps to investigate the allegation of unethical behavior appropriately.

Intellectual property

Editors should be sensitive to intellectual property issues and work with their publishers to deal with violations of intellectual property laws and treaties.

They should use a plagiarism program to determine the plagiarism rate of candidate manuscripts submitted to the journal and should not consider manuscripts with similarity above a certain percentage (15%).

Support authors whose copyright has been violated or who are victims of plagiarism.

They should act with their publishers to defend the rights of authors and pursue offenders, regardless of whether the journal owns the copyright or not (such as asking to remove or retract material from the website)

Reference

Committee on Publication Ethics (2011). Code of conduct and best practice guidelines. Available at: https://academic.oup.com/DocumentLibrary/journals/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_1.pdf