PUBLICATION POLICY

International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education (IJATE) is an open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal published electronically and quarterly. The journal aims to improve the research culture and help knowledge spread rapidly in the academic world by providing a common academic platform. All responsibility for the scientific content and statements in an article published in the journal belongs to the authors.

IJATE is available online for free at https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/ijate. All manuscripts published in the journal are licensed under CC BY 4.0 (Creative Commons license).

IJATE follows strict ethical standards for publication to ensure high-quality scientific publications and trust in research findings. Our publication ethics policy is mainly based on the "Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

IJATE also adheres to the "Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing" jointly published by COPE, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). Ethical standards summarized below provide guidelines for editors, reviewers, and authors who contribute to IJATE. For more detailed information on ethical issues, please see the COPE's guidelines.

IJATE uses a double-sided blind review system. Submissions that are deemed eligible are forwarded to two or three referees who operate in related fields. The referees' names are kept private, and the referee reports are archived. If one of the referee reports is favourable and the other is critical, the article may be sent to a third referee for further review, or the Editorial Board may come to a decision depending on the three reports' nature. The authors are accountable for amending their articles in light of the referees' and Editorial Board's comments and suggestions. If they feel uncomfortable with any points, they may object by stating their reasoning properly.

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

We expect all authors to read and understand our publication policy before submitting to our journal. This is by our commitment to the prevention of ethical misconduct, which we recognize to be a growing problem in academic and professional publications. It is important to note that most incidents of plagiarism, redundant publication, copyright infringement or similar occur because of a lack of understanding, and not through fraudulent intent. Our policy is one of prevention and not persecution. If you have any questions, please contact the editorial office.

Submission of a manuscript to IJATE implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content and that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s policies.

Ethics Approval

Human participants, human material, or human data must have been used in conformity with the Declaration of Helsinki, and an appropriate ethics committee must have authorized the study. All articles reporting such research must include a statement clarifying this, including the name of the ethical commission and, when applicable, the reference number, after the article. If a study has been excluded from the need for ethics approval, this should be noted in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption). On request, additional material and documentation should be made accessible to the Editor. If the Editor believes the research was conducted outside of an appropriate ethical context, the manuscript may be rejected. In exceptional cases, the Editor may contact the ethics committee for further information.

Retrospective Ethics Approval

If an ethics committee has not approved a study before it begins, retrospective ethics approval is usually impossible to get, and the article may not be considered for peer review. In such circumstances, the Editor has the final say on whether to proceed to peer review.

COMPETING INTERESTS

All competing interests regarding an author's work must be declared to the IJATE. All submitted manuscripts must include a ‘competing interests’ section at the end of the manuscript listing all competing interests (financial and non-financial). Where authors have no competing interests, the statement should read “The author(s) declare(s) that they have no competing interests”. The Editor may ask for further information relating to competing interests.

Editors and reviewers are also required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists.

What constitutes a competing interest?

Financial or non-financial competing interests may exist. When the authors' discussion of the findings or dissemination of knowledge is influenced by, or believed to be affected by their personal or financial relationship with other individuals or organizations, there is a competing interest. Authors should declare not just any financial conflicting interests, but also any non-financial competing interests that could cause humiliation if they became known after the manuscript was published.

Financial competing interests

Among the competing financial interests, there are (but are not limited to):
• Getting reimbursements, fees, funds, or a salary from an organization that stands to profit or lose money by the manuscript's publication, now or in the future.
• Owning stock or shares in an organization that stands to profit or lose money as a result of the manuscript's publication, either now or in the future.
• Having, or currently filing for, patents related to the manuscript's content.
• Getting reimbursements, fees, funds, or a salary from a company that owns or has filed for patents related to the manuscript's content.

Non-Financial Competing Interests

Political, personal, religious, ideological, academic, and intellectual competing interests are examples of non-financial competing interests. After reading these criteria, if you are uncertain as to whether you have a competing interest, please contact ijate.editor@gmail.com

DUPLICATE PUBLICATION

The manuscript, or substantial portions of it, must not be under consideration by any other journal when it is submitted to IJATE. We need transparency from authors in any scenario where there is the possibility of overlap or duplication. Authors should declare any potentially overlapping publications on submission. Any overlapping publications should be cited. Any ‘in press’ or unpublished manuscript cited, or relevant to the Editor’s and reviewers' assessment of the manuscript, should be made available if requested by the Editor. IJATE reserves the right to judge potentially overlapping or redundant publications on a case-by-case basis. In essence, the manuscript should not have been previously published in any journal or in any other form that can be cited.
All instances of publication malpractice are taken seriously by the IJATE. Any suspected cases of covert duplicate manuscript submission will be dealt with in accordance with the COPE rules, and the Editor may notify the authors' institution (see Misconduct policy for more information). The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) policies against overlapping publications are adopted by the IJATE.

EDITORS' RESPONSIBILITIES

Publication decisions

The editor is in charge of determining which of the submitted papers will be published in the journal. The editor will consider manuscripts regardless of the writers' color, gender, sexual preference, religious beliefs, ethnicity, nationality, or political ideology. The significance, novelty, and transparency of the manuscript, as well as the study's validity and relevance to the journal's scope, will be considered in making the decision. Current constitutional standards for libel, copyright laws, and plagiarism should be taken into account as well.

Confidentiality

Other than the corresponding author, reviewers, possible reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate, the editor and any editorial staff must not reveal details about a submitted manuscript to anyone.

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 research purposes without the author's explicit written consent.

PEER REVIEW

All research articles and other article categories, published in IJATE, are subjected to rigorous peer review. This usually involves a review by two independent peer reviewers.

Peer Review Policy

The editor evaluates all submissions to the IJATE journal and determines whether they are acceptable for peer review. In cases when the editor is on the author list or has a conflicting interest in a submission, another member of the Editorial Board will be appointed to oversee peer review. Submissions that the Handling Editor believes are worthy of consideration are sent to independent scientists for peer review. The reviewers' reports will be forwarded to the authors simultaneously with the editorial decision on their manuscript. Authors should be aware that even if one reviewer's assessment is good, another reviewer's objections may fundamentally undermine the study and lead to the manuscript being rejected.

Contribution to editorial decisions

The peer-reviewing process helps the editor and editorial board make editorial judgments, and it can also help the author improve their manuscript.

Promptness

Any referee feeling inadequate to examine the research described in a paper or understanding that prompt review will be impossible should inform the editor and pull back from the review process.

Confidentiality

All manuscripts submitted to IJATE will be treated with confidentiality by the editors. COPE's Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers are followed by IJATE. Reviewers must therefore maintain the peer review process's confidentiality and not disclose information about a manuscript or its review, either during or after the peer review process, beyond what the journal has released. Reviewers should first get permission from the journal before involving a colleague in the review process. When the report is returned, the Editor should be notified of any people who contributed to the review process.

Except in circumstances of suspected misbehaviour, the IJATE will not share manuscripts with third parties.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should look for instances where relevant published work cited in the manuscript is not cited in the reference section. They should specify if insights or findings borrowed from other publications are accompanied by a reference to the source. Any significant resemblance or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published material about which the reviewers have personal information will be reported to the editor.

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.

AUTHOR'S DUTIES

Reporting standards

Authors of original research papers should give an accurate overview of the work done as well as a critical analysis of its importance. The paper should appropriately portray the underlying data. A paper should include adequate information and references to allow others to duplicate the work. False or willfully inaccurate statements are unethical and must be avoided at all costs.

Data access and retention

Authors may be required to submit their study's raw data along with their publication for editorial review, and they should be willing to make the data publicly available if possible. In any case, authors should make such data accessible to other qualified professionals for at least ten years after publication (preferably through an organisational or subject-based data repository or other database servers), assuming that the participants' confidentiality can be guarded and that constitutional rights to proprietary data do not inhibit their release.

Originality, plagiarism and acknowledgement of sources

All papers submitted to the International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education (IJATE) should fulfil the expectations regarding the authenticity of the paper. If plagiarism is identified, the COPE guidelines on plagiarism will be followed. There is a zero-tolerance policy towards plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) in our journal. Manuscripts are screened for plagiarism before, during, and after publication, and if found they will be rejected at any stage.

This journal requests intihal.net similarity report. When the full text file is uploaded in step 3, it will be forwarded to intihal.net. Preparation of the report may take time. Therefore, an e-mail will be sent to you when the process is completed. In the last step, you can complete the article submission according to the final report or go back to step 3 and repeat the process. When you upload more than one file and receive similarity report, all reports will be forwarded to the editor. Click to get information about intihal.net. The plagiarism rate of the accepted manuscript must not exceed the rate of 15%.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication

Papers that describe substantially the same study should not be published in more than one publication in general. Submitting the same work to many journals is unethical and improper publication behaviour. Manuscripts that have been previously published as copyrighted content are not acceptable for submission. Furthermore, papers that are currently being reviewed by the journal should not be resubmitted to copyrighted journals. 

Authorship of the paper

Only individuals who made a major contribution to the study's concept, organization, implementation, or analysis should be listed as authors. Co-authors can be anyone who has made a substantial contribution. The corresponding author assures that the author list includes all contributing co-authors and no uninvolved individuals. The corresponding author will also ensure that all co-authors have signed off on the final version of the work and approved its publication.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All authors should provide a declaration revealing any financial or other substantial conflicts of interest that could be perceived as influencing their manuscript's results or interpretation. All kinds of funding for the project should be made public.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author identifies a serious error or inconsistency in his or her own published work, it is the author's responsibility to contact the journal editor or publisher as soon as possible and to collaborate with the editor in having the manuscript withdrawn or updated in the form of an erratum.

MISCONDUCT

All claims of potential misbehaviour are taken seriously by the IJATE. The IJATE will adopt the COPE principles for dealing with allegations of misconduct.
It may be required for the Editor to share manuscripts with third parties in cases of suspected research or publication misconduct, such as the author(s)' institution(s) and ethics committee (s).
A notice of alleged ethical standards violations in the peer review system may be put in the bibliographic record of the author and article.

Research misconduct

All human research (including human data and human material) must follow a set of ethical guidelines. The Editor may decline a manuscript and notify third parties, such as the author(s)' institution(s) and ethics committee, if there is a suspicion that research was conducted outside of an adequate ethical framework (s).
Publications may be withdrawn in circumstances of confirmed research misconduct regarding published articles, or when the scientific credibility of the article is seriously harmed.

Data falsification and fabrication

Manipulation of research data with the goal of creating a false impression is referred to as data falsification. Image manipulation, deleting anomalies or "bothersome" results, modifying, inserting, or deleting data points, and so on are all examples. The term "data fabrication" refers to the fakery of study findings.
Any queries about data quality that arise during or after peer review will be directed to the Editor. The Editor may ask the author(s) for (anonymized) underlying study data for examination or confirmation. The manuscript may be refused or, in the instance of a published article, withdrawn if the original data cannot be produced. Any suspected misbehaviour will be reported to the institution(s) of the author(s).

Publication misconduct

IJATE will follow the COPE guidelines outlining how to deal with cases of potential publication misconduct.

CORRECTIONS and RETRACTIONS

Corrections or retractions of works published in IJATE may be essential on rare occasions to maintain the academic record's integrity. Corrections or retractions of published articles shall be made by publishing a bi-directionally linked Correction or Retraction note to the original article. The note will detail any changes made to the original article. The original article will stay in the public domain, and the Correction or Retraction that follows will be widely indexed. If anything is found to infringe on intellectual property rights or to be defamatory, we may be forced to delete it from our site and archive sites.
Authors, readers, or organizations who become cognizant of inaccuracies or ethical issues in a published paper should notify the journal directly using the contact information provided on the journal's website. The Editors will review all reports, and further expert opinions may be asked before deciding on the best course of action.

Corrections

Amendments to published articles that impact the interpretation and conclusion of the article but do not completely invalidate it will be rectified at the editors' discretion by publishing a Correction that is indexed and bidirectionally connected to the original article.

Retractions

Occasionally, when an article's interpretation or conclusion is seriously questioned, it may be essential to retract published papers. In such instances, the IJATE will adhere to the COPE guidelines. Retraction notices are indexed and connected to the original article bidirectionally. The title is altered to include the prefix "Retracted article:" and the original article is watermarked as retracted.

Removal of published content

IJATE retains the authority to withdraw an article from its web platforms in exceptional situations. Such measures may be taken if I IJATE has been informed that content is false and misleading, infringes on a third party's intellectual property right, privacy rights, or other constitutional right, or is otherwise illegal; (ii) a court or government order has been issued, or is likely to be issued, mandating the removal of such content; or (iii) content poses an immediate and severe risk to health if operated. The removal may be temporary or permanent. Bibliographic metadata (for example, title and authors) will be kept, along with a statement clarifying why the item was removed.

APPEALS and COMPLAINTS

Appeal against a rejection

If you would like the Editor or the Editorial Board to review a manuscript rejection, you should first get in touch with the Editor via the guidelines on the journal's website. These are termed as appeals, and they must take a backseat compared to the normal workload, according to policy. This implies that appeal judgments are frequently delayed for many weeks. Each manuscript only allows for one appeal. The Editor or the Editorial Board Member in charge of the paper shall make the final judgment on appeals. An appeal against a manuscript rejection decision will generally be accepted only if:

• If the authors can show that during the review, a referee or the Editors made an error influencing the final judgment
• or if important supplementary data can be given
• or if a persuasive case of bias in the process can be proven

Authors who want to appeal an editorial decision should contact the journal editorial office and send a proper letter of appeal that includes the manuscript reference number in the email subject line and the appeal letter.

Authors will be provided advice on how to proceed if their appeals are approved. If the Editor believes that an appeal is worthy of further consideration, the Editor may send the authors' reply as well as the revised manuscript out for peer review.

Complaints

Complaints about our procedures or publication ethics will be addressed first to the journal's editor. If you have a complaint about the Editor, please contact the editing and publication management team at ikara@pau.edu.tr

When it comes to complaints about processes, such as the length of time it takes for a review to be completed, the Editor will investigate and react to the complainant's worries. This information will be shared with key stakeholders to foster improvements in processes and procedures.

The Editor shall follow COPE guidelines for complaints concerning publishing ethics or scientific content. On difficult or sophisticated matters, the Editor may seek advice from the Editorial Board. The Editor then decides on a plan of action and informs the complainant of his or her decision.

If the complainant is still unhappy with how their complaint was handled, it will be reported to the journal's editorial and publishing management staff for further inquiry. If no publication contact is provided, send the query to ikara@pau.edu.tr

OPEN ACCESS STATEMENT

The International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education (IJATE) adheres to the Budapest Open Access Initiative and defines its Open Access policy according to the definition developed in the original BOAI:
By “open access” to [peer-reviewed research literature], we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited. [see, http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/boai-10-recommendations]

IJATE views open access to academic publications and research as an immutable part of academic endeavour. The publisher recognizes the essence of public good provided by the journal and hence accepts its responsibility as a public service to academic and intellectual betterment.

The publisher is committed to open access to all academic endeavours and as such, accepts its duty to make published content permanently available and freely accessible by all sections of the worldwide academic community. The publisher does not charge any pecuniary fees for the processing, submission, and publication of manuscripts. The publisher commits to free and universal access to its published content in perpetuity.

The publisher via its host-providing institution Dergipark uses Lockss for the archiving and preservation of its online content.

All articles published on IJATE are licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license and the journal does not require a transfer of copyright.

COPYRIGHT

In addition to being available on IJATE, authors are encouraged to post any version of their manuscript in their institutional repositories or on their websites at any stage of the pre- and post-publication process. As an open-access journal, the copyright of the published article belongs to its author under CC BY 4.0 license.

ARCHIVING POLICY

IJATE is accessed via the Dergipark platform which utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration.

REFERENCES

Our publication ethics and publication misconduct statement is mainly based on the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (Committee on Publication Ethics, 2011). Retrieved from http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf

PUBLICATION LANGUAGE

International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education publishes articles written only in English.

PUBLICATION FREQUENCY

The International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education is published "online" four times a year (quarterly) in March, June, September and December. If the Editorial Board finds it appropriate, a Special Issue can also be published.

Licensing


The copyright of the published article belongs to its author under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.