PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENTS

All submissions to Trakya University Journal of Natural Sciences should be original studies. The authors are encouraged to follow the ethic guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All submissions undergo a plagiarism control by the Editor using the web-based iThenticate program to confirm their originality as a natural necessity to keeping rights of the authors and to meet the journals editorial responsibilities. The editor considers the report of the plagiarism control in terms of not only numerical values of the overlap but also in other ethical points that authors should pay attention in citations and then makes a decision to move the manuscript in further evaluation steps or not. 

RESPONSIBILITIES OF EDITORS AND THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Editorial Responsibilities and Independence

All editors of Trakya University Journal of Natural Sciences are independent in their evaluations and decisions in the journal. No external and/or internal factor can affect their decisions. If the editors are exposed to any kind of positive and/or negative constraints, they keep the right to take legal action against those involved in the constraint. On the other hand, editors are responsible for their decisions in the journal. The editor-in-chief is the only person responsible for journal content and on-time publishing.  

Privacy and conflict of interest

Editors and members of the Editorial Board of the journal are forbidden to share submitted materials with third parties other than section editors, statistical editors, Language editors, copy editors, design editors and ombudsman when needed, and to use the submitted materials themselves. If there is a conflict of interest among an editor and an author or institution of the author in terms of cooperation or competition, then another member of the Editorial board is assigned to manage the evaluation process.

Publishing decisions

Editors provide peer review of submitted manuscripts by assigning at least two reviewers expert in the field. Editor-in-chief is responsible in decision of publishing a manuscript considering the importance of the manuscripts for researchers and readers, reviewer reports, plagiarism and copyright infringement as legal issues. Editor-in-chief can discuss with other editors and reviewers for his/her decision.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF REVIEWERS

Contribution to editor decision

Peer-reviewing of a submitted manuscript is the control of its scientific content, scientific layout and suitability according to the principles of the journal, and delivery of the reviewer opinion for unsuitable manuscript content to ensure suitability. The reviewing process not only enables reviewers to forward their evaluations about the manuscripts to the editors but also give them the opportunity to improve the contents of the manuscripts.       

Quickness

If a reviewer assigned for evaluation of a manuscript is of expert of a field of science other than the manuscript content, is far to the subject of the manuscript, is short of time for evaluation or possess a conflict of interest, then he/she should inform the assigning editor and ask his/her withdrawal. If the content of the manuscript fits the expertise field of the reviewer, then he/she should complete the evaluation and send the report to the editor as soon as possible.     

Privacy

Reviewers assigned for evaluation of manuscripts approve in advance that the manuscripts are secret documents and do not share any information about these documents with third parties except the editors involved in the evaluation. Reviewers continue to not to share information even after the manuscripts are accepted or rejected for publication.

If it is suspected of using an idea in the manuscript that is sent for evaluation to the reviewer without permission, the flowchart of COPE “What to do if you suspect a reviewer has appropriated an author's ideas or data?” is followed.

Standards of objectivity

Reviewers should construct their criticisms on a scientific background and include scientific evidences in their statements. All comments raised by the reviewers to improve the manuscripts should be clear and direct and written in a manner far away from disturbing author feelings. Insulting and derogatory statements should be avoided.

Suitability of the cited references

Reviewers should determine quotations in the manuscripts used without citing a reference. Statements, observations, conclusions or evidences in published articles should be quoted with the citation of the related reference. Reviewers should also be sure about the reality of presence of quotations in the cited reference(s). 

Conflict of interests

If a reviewer is in a situation by being involved in one or more interests with the author(s), he/she should inform the editor the assigning editor and ask his/her withdrawal.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE AUTHORS

Reporting standards

Authors of original research articles should present the results and discuss on them in a proper way. Since the methodological contents of the articles should be reproducible, the authors should be clear in their statements and should not purposely report wrong or missing data. Authors of review type articles are not recommended to write such articles if they are not an expert of the field of their review topics or when they do not have enough background information or related former studies.   

Data accessing and retainment

Authors may be asked to present their Raw data when needed (ethical cases etc.). Therefore, raw data of the manuscripts should be kept in safety to present if needed. The storage period of raw data following publications should be at least 10 years.   

Originality and plagiarism

The authors of submitted manuscripts should be sure that their manuscripts are original or include cited references for quotations.

Multiple, repeated, unnecessary or simultaneous submissions

It is not an approved way to produce more than one publication reporting on the same research. The authors should pay attention to such cases and they should not submit the same manuscript to different journals simultaneously.  

Authorship of manuscripts

Only the following persons should be included in the manuscripts as responsible authors: i) researchers providing major contribution to concept, design, performing, data collection and/or analysis in a study, ii) researchers involved in preparation or critical revision of manuscripts, iii) researchers approved the latest version of the manuscripts and accepted its submission. Contributors other than the above list (technical assistance, helpers in writing and editing, general contributions etc.) should not be involved in the authors list but can be listed in acknowledgments section. The corresponding authors of manuscripts should provide the separate listing of contributors as authors and those to be involved in acknowledgments section.

Conflict of interests

Authors should clearly declare any kind of conflict of interests in their manuscripts. Absence of conflict of interests about the topic of the manuscripts should also be declared. The most common types of conflict of interests are financial supports, education or other types of funds, personal or institutional relations and affiliations. All sources of financial supports (with their grant or other reference numbers) of the studies should be declared. 

Acknowledgment of references

Authors should not use personally obtained information (conversations, correspondences or discussions with bystanders) unless they have the permission of their sources. Information about private documents or refereeing of grant applications should not be used without the permission of the authorities providing the related service.   

Peer-Review

Authors are obliged to be involved in the peer review process and should cooperate by responding raw data, evidence for ethical approvals, patient approvals and copyright release form requests of editors and their explanations. Authors should respond either in positive or a negative way to revision suggestions generated by the peer review process. They should be sure to include their counter views in their negative responses.  

Basic errors in published manuscripts.

Authors should contact with the journal editor or the publisher for an erratum when they notice an important error or mistake in their published manuscripts. If the editor notices the error, he/she starts the process about erratum on or withdrawal of the published manuscripts. 

EXPLOITATION ENQUIRY AND COMPLAINTS

All kinds of exploitation doubts and complaints about manuscripts, either published or in the publication process, are evaluated by the Editorial Board. The Editorial Board strictly follows the directives of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) during the evaluations. An ombudsman who has no connection with the parts in any stage of the complaint is appointed and a decision is made. Complaints can be sent to the editor in chief by sending an e-mail to tujns@trakya.edu.tr.

POST-PUBLICATION CHANGE AND WITHDRAWAL OF A MANUSCRIPT

Changes in author ordering, removal or addition of a new author in and withdrawal of a published manuscript can be realized by sending an application to tujns@trakya.edu.tr. The application e-mail should include the reason of the requested change with the evidences. The reasons and the evidences are discussed and finalized by the Editorial Board. Further submissions of authors of a formerly accepted manuscript undergoing a change process are automatically sent back to the authors until the final decision of the manuscript in process.

DISCLAIMER

Editor or members of the editorial board are not responsible for the author opinions and manuscript contents. Authors are responsible for the ethical originality of and possible errors in their manuscripts. They are also responsible for all errors based on page editing before their proofreading. On the other hand, errors taking place after proofreading are in responsibility of the journal directors.