1. General Principles and Malpractice Statement
• Publication processes of Troia Medical Journal are based on producing, developing and sharing knowledge evenhandedly within scientific methods. On this basis, Troia Medical Journal is peer-reviewed open access scientific journal. It is aimed to carry out scientific production in accordance with ethical principles by editors, referees, authors and all stakeholders.
• The ethical task and responsibilities below, has been prepared considering the guidelines and policies, published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors have been adopted by all editors and scientific board. The journal's publication processes are executed in accordance with the guides, International Medical Journals Editors Board (ICMJE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), Council of Science Editors (CSE), Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), European Association of Science Editors (EASE), National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and DOAJ-Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.
• The compliance of the article with ethical rules is the responsibility of the authors. The Editorial Board of the journal handles all appeal and complaint cases within the scope of COPE guidelines. If there is a citation from the previously published articles, the author of the article must have the right to publish the article and have written consent from the authors and state it in the article. The consent document must be sent to the editorial board along with the article.
• The manuscripts are scanned by the journal using the iThenticate program for determination of plagiarism and non-ethical situations. Troia Medical Journal will immediately reject manuscripts with plagiarism.
• The owner of the journal, any other political or economic factors do not influence the independent decision-making mechanism of the editors.
• Authors can withdraw their manuscript before the beginning of peer-review process with a letter to the journal editors stating that they want to retract their manuscript. Unless the retraction request is approved by the editorial board, authors cannot send their articles to another journal for evaluation.
• At any stage of the journal's publishing process or after the article has been published, no fee or donation for evaluation, publication, printing, or disseminating processes can be requested from any author.

 Publication Ethics and Research Misconduct Policy
Troia Medical Journal is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards in the publication of research. We adhere to the principles and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and expect all authors, reviewers, and editorial staff to do the same.

Unethical Behavior: Unethical behavior is unacceptable and Troia Medical Journal does not tolerate plagiarism, data fabrication, image manipulation, authorship misconduct, or any other form of deceit.Prevention of Research Misconduct. The editors and publishers will take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct, including but not limited to plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, has occurred.
No Tolerance for Research Misconduct
Under no circumstances will Troia Medical Journal or its editors encourage or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that Troia Medical Journal 's publishers or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to an article published in Troia Medical Journal , the publisher or editor will take appropriate action according to COPE guidelines or equivalent policies.
Reporting and Handling of Allegations
Anyone who believes that research misconduct has occurred should contact the editor-in-chief of Troia Medical Journal with detailed information about the suspected misconduct. All allegations will be taken seriously and treated confidentially. Appropriate actions will be taken in accordance with COPE guidelinesor or equivalent policies. Upon identification of unethical behavior, the editors will follow COPE guidelines or equivalent policies, and actions may include:
Retraction of the article
Notification to institutional authorities
A published statement detailing the nature of the ethical breach
Barring of the authors from future publication in Troia Medical Journal.

Handling of Complaints and Appeals
Any complaints or appeals regarding a submitted or published article should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief. The journal follows the guidelines outlined by COPE for handling complaints and appeals.
Policies on Conflicts of Interest / Competing Interests
All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships that could influence their work. The journal may require further information or publish disclosures alongside the published article.
Policy on Ethical Oversight
Ethical approval from an appropriate ethics committee is required for all studies involving human or animal subjects. The journal reserves the right to reject any submissions that do not meet these ethical standards.
Policy on Intellectual Property
All articles published in Troia Medical Journal are protected by copyright, which is retained by the authors. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-ND 4.0), allowing for maximum dissemination and re-use of the work while ensuring proper attribution to the authors.
Options for Post-publication Discussions and Corrections
Post-publication comments can be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief. If corrections or retractions are deemed necessary, they will be published in line with COPE guidelines.

Journal and Article Availability
Troia Medical Journal is fully committed to making research freely available to scholars, practitioners, and the general public. All articles published in our journal are:
Fully open access: Freely accessible online, immediately upon publication
No subscription or registration required: Readers can access all articles on our website without any need for subscription or registration
Cost to Authors and Readers
Troia Medical Journal is a completely free journal both for authors and for readers. We do not charge any submission fees, publication fees, or any other costs to authors. Readers are also not charged for accessing any of our content.

Policies on Data Sharing and Reproducibility
Authors are encouraged to share their research data and methods in line with the FAIR data principles. Where applicable, data sets should be deposited in an appropriate public repository.

The Troia Medical Journal has an open repository policy that allows authors to deposit versions of their work in an institutional or other repository of their choice. This policy is designed to enable authors to archive and provide wide access to their published works. It encourages transparency and the free circulation of scientific knowledge. Authors are permitted to deposit the accepted final version (post-print) or the published version (publisher's version) of their articles in institutional or subject-specific repositories. Our policy offers flexibility to authors in disseminating their work to a broader audience and is tailored to meet the needs of the scientific community. 

Plan for Journal Continuity
In the unlikely event that Troia Medical Journal ceases publication, we have taken measures to ensure the long-term preservation and accessibility of all published articles.
Electronic Backup: All content is securely backed up on multiple servers to prevent data loss.
Content Preservation and Public Availability: We have partnered with Dergipark to ensure the long-term preservation of Troia Medical Journal. In case the journal is no longer published, the archived content will be publicly available through this platform.

Transparency in Funding
Troia Medical Journal maintains full transparency in its operations, including its revenue sources and business model.
Revenue Sources and Business Model
Institutional Support: Troia Medical Journal is a journal affiliated with the medical faculty of Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University. Our operations are funded exclusively by institutional support from the university.
Editorial Independence:We want to emphasize that our sole funding source does not influence our editorial decision-making process. Submissions are assessed purely on the basis of academic merit and relevance to our scope.
Open Access and Costs to Authors and Readers: Troia Medical Journal is a fully open-access and free journal. No fees are charged to authors for submission or publication. Likewise, all articles are freely accessible to everyone, with no subscription fees.
Advertising Policy
No Advertising: Troia Medical Journal does not plan to accept any form of advertising at this time or in the foreseeable future.

Direct Marketing Policy
Ethical and Targeted Marketing: Any direct marketing efforts conducted on behalf of Troia Medical Journal aim to be well-targeted, appropriate, and unobtrusive. We strive to connect with professionals, academics, and other individuals who would genuinely benefit from contributing to or reading our journal.
Truthful Information: Information provided in all marketing activities about Troia medical journal and its publisher will be accurate and transparent, in order not to mislead potential authors, reviewers, or readers.
Solicitation of Manuscripts: When soliciting manuscripts, we will provide complete and truthful information about the journal’s editorial processes, scope, and any associated fees, ensuring that potential authors have all the information needed to make an informed decision about where to submit their work.

2. Copyright and License
Troia Medical Journal requires each submission to be accompanied by a Copyright Agreement and Acknowledgement Of Authorship Form. By signing this form, authors retain the copyright of their work and full publishing rights without restrictions and agree that the article, if accepted for publication by the Troia Medical Journal will be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-ND 4.0) which permits third parties to share, copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially by giving the appropriate credit to the original work.
Under the CC BY-ND 4.0 license terms: when you make attribution, you must give an appropriate credit and provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

Permissions for Repository Posting
Authors are permitted to post the final accepted version or the published version of their articles in third-party repositories, subject to the following conditions:
Attribution: Authors must properly cite the article and provide a link back to the article published in Troia Medical journal.
No Derivatives: The article may not be altered, transformed, or built upon.
Commercial Use: The article can be used for commercial purposes.
Embargo Period
There is no embargo period for posting the final accepted or published versions of the article.
Citation Requirements
When posting on third-party repositories, authors are required to include the following citation:
[Author(s)], "[Title of the Article]", [Troia Medical Journal], [Volume and Issue], [Year], [DOI].
Updates and Corrections
In case of corrections or retractions, authors are required to update the article on third-party repositories to reflect changes made in Troia Medical Journal.
User Rights
Users who access the articles from third-party repositories have the right to read, download, and share the article but may not modify it.

• The publisher undertakes to have an independent editorial decision made.
• The publisher protects the intellectual property rights of all the articles published in Troia Medical Journal and holds the responsibility to keep a record of each unpublished article.
• The publisher bears all the responsibility to take the precautions against scientific abuse, fraud and plagiarism.
• If there are situations that require correction of errors in the articles, the corrections are presented in the contents page, have links to the original article.
• If there is scientific fraud in a published article, the journal publishes a retraction letter. As an alternative to retraction, the editor may choose to publish a statement of concern about the work. The retraction or concern statement appears on a numbered page in a particular section of the journal, and is listed on the table of contents, and includes the title of the original article in its introduction, as well as in its online version. The reason for the retraction of the article is explained in the retraction text.
• Reviews of referees cannot be published or disclosed without the permission of the author and editor.
• Care should be taken to keep the identity of the referees anonymous. In some cases, with the decision of the editor, the comments of the referees on the article can be sent to other referees who interpret the same article to clarify comments.
• In case of encountering a situation or content that does not comply with the ethical principles regarding the editors, referees, authors in the content of Troia Medical Journal, it should be reported to the e-mail address of the journal.


4. Ethical Responsibilities of Editors
The Editorial Board is formed by academicians who have proven their scientific competence, and who have committed to work for the journal without any interest. Members of the Editorial Board are appointed according to the disciplines of health sciences without time restriction. The Editor-in-Chief or Editorial Board may appoint non-editorial board members as field editor or assistant editor depending on the field of the article.
4.1. General duties and responsibilities
Editors are responsible for each study published in Troia Medical Journal. In this respect, the editors have the following roles and responsibilities:
• Making efforts to meet the demand for knowledge from readers and authors,
• Ensuring the continuous development of the journal,
• Managing the procedures aimed to improve the quality of the studies published in the journal,
• Supporting freedom of expression,
• Ensuring academic integrity,
• Following the procedures without making concessions on intellectual property rights and ethical standards,
• Being transparent and clear in issues that require correction or explanation.
Under these principles:
• Editors are responsible for all the processes that the manuscripts submitted to Troia Medical Journal will go through. Within this framework, ignoring the economic or political interests, the decision-makers are the editors.
• Editors, considering that there may be conflicting interests between reviewers and other editors, guarantee that the publication process of the manuscripts will be completed in an independent and unbiased manner.
• Editors does not share information about the articles (receipt of the article, its content, the status of the review process, the criticism of the referees or the conclusion) with anyone other than the authors or referees.
• Editors are obliged to comply with the policies of blind peer-review process. Therefore, the editors ensure that each manuscript is reviewed in an unbiased, fair and timely manner.
• Editors are responsible for publishing each article in accordance with journal publishing policies and international standards.
• Editors are supposed to protect the personal information related with the subjects or images in the studies being reviewed, and to reject the study if there is no documentation of the subjects' consent. Furthermore, editors are supposed to protect the personal information of the authors, reviewers and readers.
• Editors are supposed to protect human and animal rights in the studies being reviewed, and must reject the experimental studies which do not have ethical and related committee’s approval.
• Editors are supposed to take measures against possible abuse and malpractice. They must conduct investigations meticulously and objectively in determining and evaluating complaints about such situations. They must also share the results of the investigation.
• Editors must make sure that the mistakes, inconsistencies or misdirection in studies are corrected quickly.
• Editors are responsible for protecting the intellectual property rights of all articles published in the journal, and the rights of the journal and authors in cases where these rights are violated. Also, editors must take measures to prevent the content of all published articles from violating the intellectual property rights of other publications.
• Editors must:
o Pay attention to the convincing criticism about studies published in the journal and must have a constructive attitude towards such criticism.
o Grant the right of reply to the authors of the criticized study.
o Not ignore or exclude the study that include negative results.
o Examine the complaints from authors, reviewers or readers and respond to them in an explanatory and enlightening manner.
• The editor-in-chief first evaluates the publication ethics of an article submitted for evaluation, then examines the scientific importance, originality, scientific validity and relevance to the journal's scope, and submits the article to the field editor or referees.
• Editors can reject the article or send it back to the author in case of any negative situation.
• Editors are responsible for the selection of referees from among academicians who are experts in the field of the manuscript, and for keeping blind the referees to the authors and their institutions, and for keeping blind the authors to the referees unless the referee specifically requests otherwise.
• Editors are responsible for submitting the corrections requested by the referees to the author in an explanatory and polite language.
• Editors are responsible for the ethical and scientific maintenance of referee evaluations including special evaluations (statistical analysis, etc.) within the scope of the Article Evaluation Form, and to contribute to the authors in the preparation of the articles.
• Editors should make it clear that the articles submitted to reviewers for their peer-review are the private property of the authors, and that this is a privileged communication. Referees and editorial board members cannot discuss articles open to the public.
4.2. Relationships with the Journal's owner and publisher
The relationship between the editors and publisher is based on the principle of the independency of editors. All the decisions made by the editors are independent of the publisher and the owner of the journal as required by the agreement made between editors and publisher.
4.3. Relationships with the editorial board
Editors must:
• Make sure that the members of the editorial board follow the procedures in accordance with the publication policies and guidelines.
• Inform the members about the publication policies and developments.
• Ensure that the members of the editorial board review the manuscripts in an unbiased and independent manner.
• Select the new members of the editorial board from those who can contribute to the journal and are qualified enough.
• Send manuscripts for review based on the subject of expertise of the editorial board members.
• Regularly communicate with the editorial board.
• Arrange regular meetings with the editorial board for the development of publication policies and the journal.
4.4. Relationships with reviewers
Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with reviewers:
Editors must:
• Choose reviewers according to the subject of the study.
• Provide the information and guidance to reviewers that they may need during the review process.
• Observe whether there are conflicting interests between reviewers and authors.
• Keep the identities of reviewers confidential in blind review.
• Encourage the reviewers to review the manuscript in an unbiased, scientific and objective tone.
• Develop practices and policies that increase the performance of reviewers.
• Take necessary steps to update the reviewer pool dynamically.
• Prevent unkind and unscientific reviews.
• Make effort to ensure the reviewer pool has a wide range.
4.5. Relationships with authors
Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with authors:
• Editors must make positive or negative decisions about the studies' importance, originality, validity, clarity in wording and suitability with the journal's aims and objectives.
• Editors must accept the studies that are within the scope of publication into pre-review process unless there are serious problems with the study.
• Editors must not ignore positive suggestions made by reviewers unless there are serious problems with the study.
• New editors, unless there are serious issues, must not change the previous editor's decisions about the studies.
• Blind review process must be published and editors must prevent possible diversions in the defined processes.
• Authors should be provided with explanatory and informative feedback.
4.6. Relationships with readers
• Editors must make decisions taking into consideration the knowledge, skills and expectations of all readers, researchers and practitioners need.
• They must also ensure that the published studies contribute to literature, and must be original.
• They must take notice of the feedback received from researchers and practitioners, and provide explanatory and informative feedback.

5. Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers
• Because all manuscripts are reviewed through blind review process, reviewers do not contact with the authors directly.
• Correction suggestions for the reviewed article should be submitted to the editor through the DergiPark management system. These corrections should be prepared in a way to present the positive and negative features of the article to the editor.
• Reviewers must:
o Agree to review only in their subject of expertise.
o Review in an unbiased and confidential manner, and should not share positive or negative opinions about the content of the article before it is published.
o Inform the editor if they think that there is a conflict of interest between the author and author or between the author and referee in the article.
o Review the manuscript in a constructive and kind tone, avoid making personal comments including hostility, slander and insult.
o Review the manuscript within the specified time. If the referee will delay the evaluation process for any reason, she/he should report this failure to the editor.
o Comment on potential research or publication misconduct such as unethical research design, duplication, plagiarism, etc.
o Review the manuscript objectively and only in terms of its content.
o Ensure that nationality, gender, religious and political beliefs, and economic apprehension do not influence the review.
• Dispose the manuscripts they have reviewed after the review process. Reviewers can use the final versions of the manuscripts they have reviewed only after publication.
• Reviewers are not permitted to make copies of articles for themselves, and cannot hand over articles without the editor's permission.

6. Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Authorship Criteria
Contributions
To be listed as an author, individuals should meet the following criteria:
-Substantial contribution to conception and design, or data collection, or data analysis and interpretation.
-Drafting the article or revising it critically for intellectual content.
-Final approval of the version to be published.
Acknowledgments
Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be listed in the acknowledgments section.
Corresponding Author
The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors meet the authorship criteria and that no deserving authors have been omitted. They will also serve as the point of contact throughout the submission and review process.

• The compliance of the article with ethical rules is the responsibility of the authors.
• Articles sent to Troia Medical Journal should not have been published in another journal or sent for publication. If the abstract is presented in a congress or meeting, this should be clearly stated during the submission of the article. Authors cannot submit their studies to multiple journals simultaneously. Each submission can be made only after the previous one is completed. A study published in another journal cannot be submitted to Troia Medical Journal.
• Authors must submit original studies to the journal. If they utilize or use other studies, they must make the in-text and end-text references accurately and completely.
• All the authors will be asked to sign Copyright Transfer Form which states the following: This work is not under active consideration for publication, has not been accepted for publication, nor has it been published, in full or in part (except in abstract form). I confirm that the study has been approved by the ethics committee. All authors should agree to the conditions outlined in the form.
• All authors must have read the final version of the article. In the articles submitted for publication, each author who has signed the Copyright Transfer Form has equal responsibility regarding ethical principles.
• Authors must assure that the article is their own production, and does not contain plagiarism. All submitted manuscripts will be evaluated with the help of plagiarism detection systems such as iThenticate. The similarity rate must be below 20% after excluding of references.
• Authors should organize their articles according to the journal's writing rules.
• During the review process of their manuscripts, authors may be asked to supply raw data. In such a case, authors should be ready to submit such data and information to the editorial board.
• Authors can recommend referees to editors who they hope will contribute to the evaluation process of the article. The appointment of these referees to the article is under the initiative of editors. There should be no communication or interest relationship with the proposed referees.
• The articles submitted to the Troia Medical Journal will be deemed to have been conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of Principles, and to have received ethical and legal permissions. Troia Medical Journal accepts no liability for this.
• In all studies conducted on humans, there should be a sentence stating that the study was carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki Principles (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/) in the Materials and Methods section.
• Ethics committee approval should be obtained for all researches on humans and animals (including material and data), and this approval should be clearly stated in the article. The name of the ethics committee giving the approval, the date of authorization and the issue number must be clearly presented. If requested by the editors, it should also be documented. Articles without ethical approval will not be accepted for evaluation, and will be removed from the process at any stage.
• An Informed Consent Form must be signed by all persons or their guardians included in the study, and must be stated in this text.
• In case reports, informed consent should be obtained from patients regardless of whether the identity of the patient is revealed or not.
• Information and photographs that will reveal the identity of the cases are not published unless it is absolutely necessary for scientific purposes. If it will be printed, written informed consent should be obtained from the case or its guardian.
• Studies conducted on animals must comply with the guidelines for the use of experimental animals in biomedical research (WMA Statement on Animal Use in Biomedical Research). If the animal item was used in the study, the authors must state in the Material and Method section of the article that they protect the animal rights in their studies in accordance with the principles of Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (https://grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals.pdf) and that they have received approval from the ethics committees of their institutions.
• Authors must clearly declare their contribution to the article. All authors should have academic and scientific direct contribution to the submitted article. In this context, the author is someone who makes a significant contribution to the conceptualization of the research, obtaining, analyzing or interpreting the data, writing the article or critically reviewing it. Funding, data collection alone, or general supervision of the research group do not provide authorship rights. All individuals cited as authors must meet all listed criteria, and each individual meeting the above criteria should be cited as an author.
• In multi-center studies, all members of the group must meet the conditions stated above. The name order of the authors should be a joint decision. All authors must approve the author list by signing the Copyright Transfer Form. The names of all authors must be included in the application documents.
• All individuals who do not meet the criteria for authorship but contributed to the study should be listed in the Acknowledgement section.
• People who have not provide intellectual contribution to the study should not be indicated as author.
• Changing the author responsibilities of a study whose evaluation process has started (ie, adding an author, changing the order of the author, removing the author) cannot be proposed.
• In all studies, situations that may lead a conflict of interest and relationships should be explained.
• Financial and material support should be indicated.
• If there is an institution that provides direct or indirect commercial or financial support to the study, the authors must declare that they have no commercial relationship with the institution or have to report what kind of relationship (consultant, other agreements) they have.
• Authors bears the responsibility to inform the editor or publisher if they notice a mistake in their study which is in early release or publication process and to cooperate with the editors during the correction or withdrawal process.

7. Multiple Submissions and Redundant Publications
Multiple Submissions
Submissions that are under consideration by another journal will not be reviewed.
Redundant Publications
Manuscripts that are essentially the same as a publication already published in another journal will not be considered.
Conflict of Interest
Authors must declare any conflicts of interest that could influence their work.