ETHICS POLICY

Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature, in addition to the Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive (http://www.yok.gov.tr/web/guest/ icerik/-/journal_content/56_INSTANCE_rEHF8BIsfYRx /10279/18187), Committee on “COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” (https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_ journal_editors_Mar11.pdf) and “COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” (https:/) published by Publication Ethics (COPE). /publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf) undertakes to fulfill ethical duties and responsibilities based on its guidelines; expects authors and referees to act within this framework.

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHORS

Author(s) who submit work to Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

— The works submitted by the author(s) are expected to be original. If the author(s) benefit from or use other works, they are required to cite and/or quote completely and accurately.
— People who do not contribute intellectually to the content in the creation of the work should not be listed as authors.
— All studies submitted for publication must disclose situations and relationships that may constitute a conflict of interest, if any.
— Raw data regarding their articles may be requested from the author(s) within the framework of the evaluation processes. In such a case, the author(s) must be ready to present the expected data and information to the editorial board and scientific committee.
— The author(s) must have the usage rights of the data used, the necessary permissions regarding the research/analysis, or are obliged to ensure the protection of human and animal rights in their work. They are deemed to have accepted that the study may be rejected in cases where there is no ethics committee approval for the subjects used in the studies and permissions for experimental research.
— If the author(s) notices a mistake or error regarding his/her published work, at the early appearance or evaluation stage, he/she has the obligation to cooperate with the editor in informing, correcting or retracting the journal editor or publisher.
— Authors cannot submit their works to the application process of more than one journal at the same time. Each application can be initiated following completion of the previous application. Work published in another journal cannot be sent to Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature.
— Changing the author responsibilities of a work whose evaluation process has started (such as adding authors, changing the author order, removing authors, etc.) cannot be proposed.
— It should be stated that the articles sent to the journal have not been sent to any other journal and the Copyright Agreement (https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/usbad) must be filled out. The author(s) must sign the completed form with a wet signature. The signed form must be scanned and uploaded to the Dergipark system.
— Authors must have obtained legal permissions for any copyrighted images they use in their articles. Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature is not responsible for copyright issues arising from the use of images.
— The magazine does not give any guarantee and accepts no responsibility for the features and descriptions of commercial products in the article published in the magazine for advertising purposes. If there is a direct or indirect commercial connection in the article or an institution that provides financial support for the study, the authors must declare this connection and state that there is no commercial relationship between them.

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF REFEREES

The evaluation process of all articles submitted to Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature is carried out by the "two-sided blind referee" method. Referees cannot contact the authors directly, evaluations and comments are transmitted through the journal management system. In this process, evaluation forms and referee comments on full texts are forwarded to the author(s) through the editor. In this context, referees who evaluate studies for Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature are expected to have the following ethical responsibilities:

— Must agree to evaluate only articles related to his/her field of expertise.
— Must make evaluations impartially and confidentially.
— If he/she thinks that he/she is faced with a conflict of interest during the evaluation process, he/she should not accept to review the study and should inform the journal editor.
— In accordance with the principle of confidentiality, the studies they have examined must be destroyed after the evaluation process. They can only use the final versions of the studies they review after they are published.
— The evaluation should be made objectively only in relation to the content of the study. Nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political beliefs and commercial concerns should not be allowed to influence the evaluation.
— The evaluation should be made in a constructive and polite manner. Must not make derogatory personal comments that include hostility, slander or insults.
— They must carry out the work they have agreed to evaluate in a timely manner and with the above ethical responsibilities.
— If they deem necessary, they may exchange opinions with the editor during the evaluation process.

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF EDITORS, DEPUTY EDITORS AND FIELD EDITORS

The editors and assistant editors of Akra Journal of Culture, Arts and Literature, based on the "COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" published as open access by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), follow the following ethical guidelines: Must have duties and responsibilities.

Editors and referees consider the texts sent to the journal for publication according to academic values and criteria and accept or reject them. In this process, each text is handled impartially, and the texts are evaluated with academic criteria, without discrimination based on the race, religion, language, ethnic origin, gender, political or other opinion, ownership, seniority, title, institutional relations or any other characteristic of the authors. In cases where there may be a conflict of interest, the author, referee and editor are responsible to each other. In the articles sent to the journal, if one of the components involved in the publication process (author, referee or editor) has a competing interest that may negatively affect the publication process (article submission, evaluation, editorial decisions; communication between the author, referee and editors), this interest conflict must be specified.

Editors are responsible for every publication published in Akra Culture, Art and Literature Magazine. In the context of this responsibility, editors have the following obligations.

— Must make efforts to meet the information needs of readers and authors, and in this context, the author is obliged to carefully examine complaints from referees or readers and respond in an enlightening and explanatory manner.
- Ensuring the continuous development of the magazine,
— Carrying out processes to improve the quality of studies published in the journal,
— Supporting freedom of thought,
— Ensuring academic integrity,
— Continuing business processes without compromising intellectual property rights and ethical standards,
— Showing openness and transparency in terms of publication on issues requiring correction and clarification, informing the editorial board when deemed necessary,
— Editors; The journal is obliged to apply the "two-way blind refereeing" method included in the publication policy. In this context, editors ensure that the evaluation process of each work is completed in a fair, impartial and timely manner.
The editor of the journal is responsible for ensuring that each published text is published without any problems or that it is rejected and returned to the author, and can decide whether a text should be sent to the referee or rejected without being sent to the referee. The editor may consult with the members of the editorial board and advisory board in decisions regarding the publication process.

EDITOR AND AUTHOR RELATIONSHIP

— Editors must make positive or negative decisions based on the importance of the work, its original value, validity, clarity of expression, and the aims and objectives of the journal.
— Studies that are suitable for the scope of publication should be taken to the preliminary evaluation stage unless there are serious problems.
— Editors should not ignore positive referee suggestions unless there is a serious problem with the study.
— New editors should not change the decisions made by the previous editor(s) regarding the work unless there is a serious problem.
— Authors should be notified and responded to in a descriptive and informative manner.
— The editor is responsible for protecting the individual data of authors, referees and readers.
— The editor should take into account convincing criticisms of the works published in the journal and display a constructive attitude towards these criticisms. The author(s) of the criticized works should be given the right to reply.
— The editorial process continues until the article is published, and in addition to the referees' correction suggestions, the editor may request corrections from the authors until the last stage.

EDITOR AND REVIEW RELATIONSHIP

The duties and responsibilities of editors towards referees are as follows:
— Referees should be determined in accordance with the subject of the study.
— It is obliged to provide the information and guides that the referees will need during the evaluation phase.
— It is necessary to consider whether there is a conflict of interest between authors and referees.
— In the context of blind arbitration, the identity information of the referees must be kept confidential.
— Encourage referees to evaluate the work in an impartial, scientific and objective language.
— Referees should be evaluated with criteria such as timely return and performance.
— It should determine practices and policies that increase the performance of referees.
— Must take necessary steps to dynamically update the referee pool.
— Prevent unkind and unscientific evaluations.
— Steps should be taken to ensure that the referee pool consists of a broad spectrum.
— It must ensure that judgments containing errors, inconsistencies or misdirection in the studies are quickly corrected.

EDITOR AND EDITORIAL BOARD RELATIONSHIP

Editors must inform editorial board members about publication policies and keep them informed of developments. He/she must train new editorial board members on editorial policies and provide them with the information they need.
Also editors;
— Editorial board members must ensure that they evaluate the work impartially and independently.
— The new editorial board members must be determined to be able to contribute and have appropriate qualifications.
— Editorial board members should submit studies that are in line with their area of expertise for evaluation.
— Must interact regularly with the editorial board.
— Meetings should be held at regular intervals with the editorial board for the development of publication policies and the journal.
— Special Issue and file topics are determined by the editorial board.

PEER REVIEW PROCESS

Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature uses the "two-way blind referee" method in which the identities of the author and referee are hidden (the author and the referee do not see or know each other's names) in the evaluation process of all articles taken for referee evaluation.
The editor makes it clear that articles submitted to referees for review are the exclusive property of the authors and that this is a privileged communication. Referees and editorial board members cannot discuss articles publicly. Referees cannot make copies of articles for personal use and cannot give them to anyone else without the permission of the editor. Reviewers' reviews cannot be published or disclosed without the permission of the author and editor. Care should be taken to keep the identity of the referees confidential. In some cases, by the decision of the editor, the comments of the relevant referees on the article can be sent to other referees who commented on the same article and the referees can be enlightened in this process.
Each submitted article is primarily evaluated by the editor(s). At this stage, studies that do not fall within the purpose and scope of the journal, are not deemed sufficient in terms of language and expression rules in Turkish and English or the preferred language, contain scientifically critical information errors, do not have original value and do not meet the publication policies of the journal are rejected by the editor.
Rejected manuscripts cannot be re-sent to Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature (with minor changes or just changing the name), but they can be re-submitted provided that the reasons for rejection are corrected. The editor may make suggestions to the author and request corrections before sending an article to a referee. Studies deemed appropriate are sent to two referees who are experts in their fields for evaluation. Manuscripts that receive a negative evaluation from one of the two referees are sent to a third referee. The article that receives positive approval from 2 of the 3 referees is published; if it is negative, the article is deemed rejected and removed from the publication process. Referees must evaluate the articles sent to them within 15 days. Referees may review the corrections of a work and decide on its suitability, or may request corrections more than once if necessary. Expertise and areas of interest are taken into account when sending articles to referees; therefore, the title of the author of the article and the hierarchy created by this title are not important in terms of the journal's publishing policy.
Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature is aware of its responsibility in accordance with international ethical rules in ensuring that all articles sent to the journal complete the publication process independently and impartially. If there is any conflict of interest between the author and the referees regarding the submission or evaluation of an article, this must be reported to the editor.
Plagiarism check is carried out for the articles sent to the journal through software. The matches of each work that emerge through the software are examined in depth and matches with correct references and citations are eliminated. As a result of sorting, the remaining matches are examined, errors are detected and reported to the editorial board. The editorial board makes its final decision about each study in the light of the plagiarism audit report. The authors may request that errors in the report be corrected or the study may be returned to the authors.

PLAGIARISM AND UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR

All articles sent to Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature are scanned by a plagiarism software before publication. The similarity rate is 30%. Articles with a similarity rate below are accepted for publication. Articles exceeding this rate are examined in detail and, if necessary, sent back to the authors for review or correction. If plagiarism or unethical behavior is detected, publication is rejected.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature has adopted the policy of providing open access upon publication. The journal is protected in terms of intellectual property rights. Readers of the magazine can share the magazine material, provided that they provide reference; may copy and redistribute in any media and format. However, the materials of Akra Journal of Culture, Art and Literature cannot be used for commercial purposes or be subject to legal or technological measures that limit the right of disposal of other rights holders to the extent permitted by the license. If there is a quote, text, table, picture, etc. previously published in the article. If available, the article author must obtain written permission from the copyright holder and authors and indicate this in the article. The author(s) are responsible for ensuring that the necessary permissions have been obtained.