Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

Artvin Coruh University International Journal of Social Sciences (ISSN: 2458-8385) is an academic journal that complies with international standards. The journal has published scientific articles in print and electronic since 2015, and only in electronic platforms with the 2017 December issue.) It shares national and international studies in the fields based on social and human sciences (involving history, sociology, philosophy, literature, philology, geography, sports management, recreation, archeology, art history, law, political science, international relations, economics, business, psychology, fine arts, etc.) with open access logic.

Submitted articles are scanned by a double-blind peer-review method and published electronically with free access. Below are the ethical responsibilities, roles, and duties of the authors, journal editor, reviewers, and publisher. The ethical principles and rules below have been prepared following the "Committee on Publication Ethics - COPE " guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/)."

In addition, knowledge concerning the situations regarded as plagiarism and unethical behaviors was given in Artvin Coruh University International Journal of Social Sciences.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

• The articles submitted to Artvin Çoruh University International Journal of Social Sciences are based on social and human sciences; history, sociology, philosophy, literature, philology, geography, sports management, recreation, archeology, art history, law, political science, international relations, economics, business, psychology, and fine arts, etc. There should be original studies in the fields.
• All sources employed in articles (authors, online pages, personal interviews, etc.) should be documented accurately and adequately.
• It should be mentioned that the articles sent to the journal were not sent to another journal, and the Copyright Form should be filled out.
• The author(s) should present a plagiarism report concerning their article. If the study needs ethics committee approval, they should accept it from the appropriate units and send it to our journal. Suppose the article is a study that does not demand ethics committee approval. In that case, it should fill in the appropriate form on our journal page and upload this file on the ethics committee approval download page.
• Persons who do not contribute intellectually to the article should not be mentioned as authors.
• Conflicts of interest regarding the submitted article should be reported, and the reason should be clarified.
• Authors may be demanded to submit raw data regarding their work to the editorial board while in the peer review process, in which case the authors are supposed to share their raw data with the editorial board.
• Authors are obliged to hold the data of a published article for five years.
• When authors notice an error in their work, they should declare the editor and the editorial board and cooperate in the correction or withdrawal process.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

Double-blind refereeing; means keeping the authors confidential from the referees and the referees from the authors to ensure an impartial, objective, and independent evaluation process. Double-blind peer-review evaluates all articles submitted to Artvin Coruh University International Journal of Social Sciences. Articles are sent to the referees from the journal management system for evaluation.
The ethical responsibilities and roles of the referees of Artvin Coruh University International Journal of Social Sciences are as follows:
• Referees are only demanded to referee articles related to their field of expertise.
• Reviewers are expected to agree to referee articles that do not have conflicts of interest. When reviewers recognize any conflict of interest, they should inform the editor and reject to referee the article.
• Reviewers should assess the articles impartially and objectively.
• Referees are demanded to fill in the Referee Evaluation Form for the articles they evaluate.
• In this form, the referees are required to state their decision on whether the article they are evaluating is publishable or not and the reasons for their decision.
• The style used by the referees in their suggestions should be polite, respectful, and scientific. Referees should detour offensive, disrespectful, and subjective personal comments. When it is determined that the referees make such non-scientific comments, they can be contacted by the editor or the editorial board to review and correct their comments.
• The referees must complete their evaluations within the given time and are expected to comply with ethical responsibilities.

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

"COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal" published by the editor's "Committee on publication ethics - COPE (https://publicationethics.org/)" Editors (https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf) and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (https://publicationethics.org/files/u2/) Best_Practice.pdf)) must comply with the ethical responsibilities listed below.

The editor is accountable for all articles published in the journal. The ethical duties and responsibilities of the editor are as follows:

General duties and responsibilities

• The editor is responsible for increasing the journal's quality and contributing to its development.

• The editor is required to support the freedom of expression of the authors.

• Relations with Readers

• The editor should ensure that the journal sections that do not require peer review (letter to the editor, invitations, conference announcements, etc.) are clearly indicated.

• The editor should match the published articles with the knowledge and skills of the journal readers.

Relationships with Reviewers

• The editor should ask the reviewers to evaluate the articles according to their knowledge and expertise. Thus, it should be ensured that the articles are evaluated appropriately by experts in the field.

• The editor must request that the referees state that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the article before evaluating an article.

• The editor must convey to the reviewers all necessary information regarding the referee evaluation process and what is expected from the reviewers.

• The editor should ensure that the peer-review process is carried out with double-blind peer review and should not disclose the referees to the authors and the authors to the reviewers.

• The editor should evaluate the reviewers according to their timing and performance.

• The editor should create a database of reviewers and update the database according to the performance of the reviewers.

• The editor should remove the reviewers who make rude and unqualified comments or return late from the reviewer list.

• The editor should continually revive and augment the list of reviewers according to the reviewers' fields of expertise.

Relationships with Authors

• The editor should regularly revise the editorial and writing guidelines and the sample template as to what is expected of the authors.

• The editor should assess the articles submitted to the journal in terms of journal writing rules, the importance of the work, and originality. If the editor decides to reject the article during the first submission process, the editor should unquestionably and impartially convey to the authors the reason for this. In this process, if it is decided that the article ought to be revised in terms of grammar, punctuation, and/or spelling rules (margins, appropriate reference, etc.), the authors should be informed about this, and they should be given time to make the necessary corrections.

• Manuscripts must include dates of submission and acceptance for publication.

• When the authors ask for information regarding the status of their articles, they should be declared the status of their articles in a way that does not disturb the double-blind peer-review process.

Relationships with the Editorial Board

• The editor should express the publishing and writing rules to the new editorial board members and explain what is expected of them.

• The editor should share the most current version of the publication and writing rules with the editorial board members.

• The editor should evaluate the editorial board members and elect members to the editorial board who will actively participate in the development of the journal.

• The editor should notify the editorial board members about their roles and responsibilities below.

• Subsidizing the development of the journal

• Writing reviews on their areas of expertise when requested

• Reviewing and improving publishing and writing rules

• To complete the required responsibilities in the operation of the journal.

Relationships with the Journal's Owner and Publisher

• Artvin Coruh University publishes the Artvin Coruh University International Journal of Social Sciences. The publisher's ethical responsibilities are as follows:
• The publisher accepts that the decision maker and the refereeing process are the editor's responsibility in publishing an article in the International Journal of Social Sciences of Artvin Coruh University.
• The publisher furnishes open, electronic, and free access to the journal on the journal's web page.

Unethical Behavior and Plagiarism

All articles submitted to Artvin Coruh University International Journal of Social Sciences are scanned with the IThenticate (http://www.ithenticate.com/) or Turnitin (https://www.turnitin.com/) software program before being printed. The similarity rate is 20%, and articles below this rate are accepted for publication. Articles exceeding this rate are concerned in detail and sent back to the authors for revision or correction. If plagiarism or unethical behavior is noticed, they are rejected for publication.

Some unethical behaviors are detailed below:
• Noting those who did not contribute intellectually to the study as authors.
• Not specifying the people who contributed intellectually to the study as authors.
• Failure to exhibit if the article was produced from the author's master's/doctoral thesis or a project.
• Slicing that is, publishing more than one article from a single study.
• Not reporting conflicts of interest regarding submitted articles.
• Deciphering the double-blind reviewing process.

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