Following the changes made by the ULAKBİM TR Index Committee to its journal evaluation criteria in 2020, it is now required that Ethics Committee Approval be obtained for all research studies conducted in all fields of science, including the social sciences. This approval must be explicitly stated and documented in the article.

According to Article 8 of the TR Index Evaluation Criteria, for studies requiring ethics committee approval and initiated in 2020 or later, the following information must be included both in the methods section and on the first or last page of the manuscript:
• The name of the ethics committee,
• The date, and
• The approval number of the ethics permit.

Accordingly, for manuscripts submitted to our journal from this point forward, the following types of research must include details of ethics committee approval and demonstrate compliance with research and publication ethics:
(1) All qualitative or quantitative studies that require the collection of data from participants through surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, experiments, or other data collection techniques;
(2) Studies in which humans or animals (including materials/data derived from them) are used for experimental or other scientific purposes;
(3) Clinical studies conducted on humans;
(4) Studies conducted on animals;
(5) Retrospective studies conducted in accordance with the Law on the Protection of Personal Data, where applicable, must also include relevant information about ethics committee approval.

For case reports (other than research articles), the following must be stated:
(1) Confirmation that informed consent has been obtained,
(2) Confirmation that permission has been obtained from the owners for the use of others’ scales, questionnaires, or photographs, and that this has been explicitly stated, and
(3) Confirmation that copyright regulations have been observed for any intellectual or artistic works used.