Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

Our journal does not accept reviewer suggestions from authors for their articles. Blind peer review is essential for the quality and ethical criteria of scientific publications.

Our journal does not have an issue-specific article acceptance procedure. We cannot guarantee any issue number, reviewer, duration, or publication for articles submitted for evaluation. Publication conditions depend entirely on the completion of the peer review process, the approval of the authorised board/committee and editor, and the publication date of the appropriate issue. Our journal cannot publish more than a certain number of articles per issue. Therefore, even studies that have completed all processes await publication in the appropriate issues, and are published in the appropriate issue, prioritized first by the completion date of their processes and then by the submission date.

Publication Ethics Statement

The publication processes of Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences are based on the impartial production, development, and sharing of knowledge using scientific methods.

Peer-reviewed articles are studies that ensure the application of the scientific method and impartiality. In the realisation of scientific production, all components of the publication process—publishers, editors, authors, reviewers, and readers—must adhere to ethical principles. In this context, the publication ethics and open access policy of Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences also require all components of the publication process to comply with ethical principles, in line with the guidelines and policies published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) on open access (e.g., “COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” and “COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors”).

If manipulation, distortion, or the use of fabricated data is detected in the articles, the institution where the author works will be officially notified, and the article will be rejected. Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences reserves the right to request output files related to the analysis results from the authors based on feedback from the editor and/or reviewers.

If the work being prepared for publication is derived from a thesis, this fact must be stated in both Turkish and English on the first page of the work.

Example: This article is extracted from my doctorate dissertation entitled “…”, (PhD Dissertation, ….. University, Afyonkarahisar/Türkiye, 2020).

A maximum of one work by the same author may be published per year.

The journal complies with the Guidelines for Scientific Research and Publication Ethics of Higher Education Institutions. Click here for the guidelines

Click here for the TÜBİTAK Research and Publication Ethics Board Regulations.

General Actions Contrary to Scientific Research and Publication Ethics

a) Plagiarism: Presenting, in whole or in part, the original ideas, methods, data, or works of others as one's own without properly citing them according to scientific principles,

b) Fraud: Using data in scientific research that does not actually exist or has been falsified,

c) Distortion: Falsifying research records or data obtained, pretending that equipment or materials not used in the research were used, or manipulating or shaping research
results in line with the interests of individuals and organisations providing support.

ç) Republishing: Presenting duplicate publications as separate publications in academic appointments and promotions,

d) Slicing: Dividing the results of a research study into inappropriate parts that compromise the integrity of the research, publishing these parts multiple times, and presenting these separate publications as separate papers for academic appointments and promotions,

e) Unfair authorship: Including individuals who have not actively contributed to the work among the authors or excluding those who have, changing the author order without justification and inappropriately, removing the names of those who have actively contributed from subsequent editions, and using influence to have one's name included among the authors despite not having actively contributed,

Other types of ethical violations include:

a) Failing to acknowledge the individuals, institutions, or organisations that provided the support, as well as their contributions in publications resulting from research conducted with support,

b) Using theses or studies that have not yet been presented or defended and accepted as a source without the author's permission.

c) Failing to adhere to ethical guidelines in research conducted on humans and animals, and failing to respect patient rights in publications,

ç) Acting contrary to the relevant legislation in biomedical research and other clinical trials involving humans,

d) Sharing information contained in a work he/she has been assigned to review with others before its publication without the explicit permission of the author,

e) Using resources, facilities, equipment, and materials provided or allocated for scientific research for purposes other than their intended use,

f) Making unsubstantiated, unwarranted, and deliberate accusations of ethical violations,

g) Publishing data obtained from surveys and attitude research conducted as part of a scientific study without the explicit consent of the participants, or, if the research is to be conducted at an institution, without the permission of that institution,

ğ) In research and experiments, causing harm to animal health and ecological balance,

h) In research and experiments, failing to obtain the necessary permits in writing from the relevant authorities before commencing the studies,

ı) Conducting research and experiments in a manner that violates the provisions of legislation or international agreements to which Türkiye is a party, regarding relevant research and experiments,

i) Failure by the researchers and authorities to comply with their obligation to inform and warn those concerned about potentially harmful practices related to scientific research conducted,

j) Failing to use data and information obtained from other individuals and institutions only to the extent and in the manner permitted, and failing to respect the confidentiality and protection of this information in scientific research,

k) Making false or misleading statements regarding scientific research and publications in academic appointments and promotions, (YÖK Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Guidelines, Article 4)

In accordance with ethical guidelines, the following research require Ethics Committee Approval for consideration in the journal:

1. Any type of research conducted using qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from participants through techniques such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation, experiments, and discussions,

2. The use of humans and animals (including materials/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,

3. Clinical studies conducted on humans,

4. Research on animals,

5. Retrospective studies in accordance with the personal data protection law,

In this context, the studies to be considered in our journal must specify the following issues:

1. In case reports, it should be stated that an "informed consent form" was obtained,

2. Permission must be obtained from the owners for the use of scales, surveys, and photographs belonging to others, and this must be stated

3. It must be stated that copyright regulations have been complied with for the intellectual and artistic works used.

4. Editors ensure the protection of human and animal rights in the studies under review. Editors have the responsibility to reject a study if the topics used in the study lack ethical committee approval and no permission related to experimental research. In studies requiring ethical committee approval, information regarding the approval (committee name, date, and number) should be included in the methods section and also on the first and last pages of the article. In case reports, information regarding the signing of an informed consent form by the volunteer must be included in the article.

Stakeholder Responsibilities

Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences welcomes feedback, which can be sent to akusbder@aku.edu.tr, from stakeholders and readers of the research regarding any issues they observe concerning scientific research and publication ethics in the reviews published in the journal.

a) Editors' Responsibilities

Editors and field editors of Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences will ensure the following ethical duties and responsibilities based on the Publishing Ethics Flowcharts principles developed by COPE in case of possible misuse or violation of COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors published by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and publication ethics:

1. Impartiality and Publisher Freedom: Editors evaluate submitted manuscript proposals based on their suitability to the journal's scope and the importance and originality of the work. Editors do not consider the race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, or political views of the authors submitting manuscript proposals. No institution other than the journal's editorial board can influence the decision to revise or publish. Editors strive to ensure that published issues contribute to the reader, researcher, practitioner, and the scientific field and that they are original

2. Independence: The relationship between the editors (Editor and Associate Editors) and the publisher is based on the principle of editorial independence. According to the written agreement between the editors and the publisher, all editors' decisions are independent of the publisher and the journal owner. Editors must reject, without any influence, incomplete or erroneous research that does not comply with the journal's policy, publication guidelines, and standards

3. Confidentiality: Editors do not share information about submitted manuscripts with anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, and the editorial board. Manuscripts are evaluated using a double-blind peer review system, with at least two reviewers, and the identities of the reviewers are kept confidential.

4. Information and Conflicts of Interest: Editors and editorial board members shall not use unpublished information from a submitted article for their own research purposes without the explicit written permission of the authors. Editors must not have a conflict of interest regarding the articles they accept or reject.

5. Publication Decision: Editors ensure that all articles accepted for publication undergo peer review by at least two expert reviewers in the relevant field. Editors are responsible for deciding which submitted articles will be published based on the validity of the work, its importance to researchers and readers, the reviewers' comments, and other legal requirements. Editors have the responsibility and authority to accept or reject articles. Therefore, they must exercise their responsibility and authority appropriately and promptly.

6. Ethical Concerns: Editors will take action when ethical concerns arise regarding a submitted or published manuscript. Indeed, they continue their work processes without compromising intellectual property rights and ethical standards. Every reported unethical publishing behaviour will be investigated, even if it emerges years after publication. Editors follow COPE Flowcharts when ethical concerns arise. If ethical issues are significant, revisions, retractions, or publication of concerns in the journal may be implemented.

7.Collaboration with Journal Boards: Editors ensure that all advisory committee members proceed with processes in accordance with publication policies and guidelines. They inform advisory committee members about publication policies. They enable advisory committee members to independently evaluate the works. They may contribute to and appropriately decide on new advisory committee members. They must submit work relevant to the expertise of advisory committee members for evaluation. They interact regularly with the advisory committee. They hold regular meetings with the editorial board for publication policies and journal development.

b) Authors' Responsibilities

1. Reporting standards: The authors of the original research should ensure that the study and its results are presented accurately, followed by an objective discussion of the study's significance. The article proposal should include sufficient detail and references.

2. Data access and storage: Authors are required to store the raw data of their studies. They must submit it for editorial review if requested by the journal.

3. Originality and plagiarism: Authors must submit entirely original works, and if they have used the work or words of others, this must be properly cited. Plagiarism, in all its forms, constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. Therefore, all authors submitting articles to the journal are required to submit a similarity rate report.

4. Multiple, duplicate, redundant, or simultaneous submissions/publications: Authors should not submit an article for consideration that has already been published in another journal. Simultaneously submitting an article to multiple journals is an unethical publishing practice and unacceptable.

5. Authorship of the article: Only individuals who meet the authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the article. These criteria are: (i) having contributed to the design, implementation, data collection, or analysis phases; (ii) having prepared the article, made a significant intellectual contribution, or critically revised it; or (iii) having seen, approved, and agreed to submit it for publication. The corresponding author must ensure that all authors (according to the above definition) are included in the author list and declare that the authors have seen the final version of the article and accepted its submission for publication.

6. Declaration and conflicts of interest: Authors should disclose conflicts of interest as early as possible (usually by submitting a disclosure form at the time of manuscript submission and including a statement in the manuscript). All sources of financial support for the study should be declared (including grant/fund number or other reference number, if available).

7. Peer review process: Authors are required to participate in the peer review process and fully cooperate by promptly responding to editors' requests for raw data, explanations, evidence of ethical approval, and copyright permissions. If an initial decision is made to require " required revision," authors must systematically revise and resubmit their manuscripts by the deadline given for reviewers' comments.

8. Fundamental errors in published works: When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their published works, they are obligated to immediately inform the journal editors or publishers and cooperate with them to correct any typographical errors (erratum) or withdraw the article from publication. If the editors or publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, they must assume the author's obligation to immediately correct or retract the article, or provide the journal editors with proof of the paper's accuracy.

c) Responsibilities of Reviewers

1. Contribution to editorial decisions: Assists editors in their decision-making and helps authors improve their articles through editorial communication. It should point out any missing information regarding other articles, works, sources, citations, rules, and so on, related to the article.

2. Speed: Any reviewer who does not feel qualified to review the submitted article or who knows that the article review cannot be completed in a timely manner should immediately inform the editors and decline the invitation to review, thus allowing for the assignment of a new reviewer.

3. Confidentiality: All submitted manuscript proposals for review are confidential documents and should be treated as such. They should not be shown or discussed with others unless authorised by the editor. This also applies to reviewers who decline the invitation to review.

4. Standards of objectivity: Comments on article proposals should be objective and offer suggestions that authors can use to improve their articles. Personal criticism of authors is inappropriate.

5. Acceptance of sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published works not cited by the authors. The reviewer should also inform the editor of any significant similarities between the paper under review and any other articles (published or unpublished).

6. Conflicts of interest: Conflicts of interest must be reported to the editor. There should be no conflict of interest between the reviewers and the stakeholders of the article under review.

If a reader notices a significant error or inaccuracy in an article published in Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences or has any complaints regarding editorial content (plagiarism, duplicate articles, and so on), they can submit a complaint by emailing akusbder@aku.edu.tr. We welcome complaints as they provide opportunities for improvement, and we aim to respond quickly and constructively.

d) Publisher's Responsibilities

Our journal holds editors accountable for all studies included in the process. The editors take necessary precautions to prevent any political or economic gain from the studies published in the journal. Our journal is committed to independence in editorial decision-making. The editors are responsible for taking appropriate measures regarding academic misconduct and plagiarism related to the process, a responsibility also under the journal's purview. Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences publishes works under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, and authors retain copyright to their works.

Special Issue Publication Policy

Our journal may publish a special issue once a year at the request of the Editorial Board. Articles submitted for inclusion in the special issue are first reviewed by the editorial board for compliance with the journal's guidelines. They are then reviewed for adherence to the journal's writing rules, and a similarity check is performed to prevent plagiarism. After these stages, they undergo a peer-review process using a double-blind peer review model. Articles submitted for the special issue will also be evaluated in accordance with the principles announced on the "review process" page.

Publication Policy

Article Acceptance

Articles submitted to Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences must either be original works that fill a gap in the field or be reviews that evaluate previously published studies and present new and noteworthy perspectives on the subject.

To be considered for publication in the journal, articles must not have been previously published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

In each issue, a maximum of 20% of the articles submitted by authors serving on the journal's editorial boards (excluding the editor-in-chief) will be accepted. Authors cannot interfere with any stage of the article evaluation and publication process.

The article title should be written in both Turkish and English; the authors' names, surnames, academic titles, affiliations, and ORCID information should be included. The authors' contact information (email addresses) should also be fully provided.

The research article should be at least 3000 and at most 10000 words long (including Turkish abstract, English abstract, and references). It must include a Turkish title, abstract (200-250 words), keywords (at least 5 concepts), an English title, abstract (200-250 words), keywords (at least 5 concepts), and a bibliography prepared using the APA Citation System (in-text).

The article must be prepared and uploaded to the system in accordance with the journal's writing rules

A maximum of one work by the same author may be published per year.
The journal, published four times a year (March-June-September-December), has the following article submission dates:
* January 1 – January 15,
* April 1 – April 15,
* July 1 – July 15 (Submissions received after these dates will not be accepted. If the journal receives a sufficient number of articles, article submissions may be stopped before these dates.)

Article Evaluation Process

All types of manuscripts submitted for publication (including symposium papers and book reviews) undergo editorial board review, preliminary check, and peer review processes.

Academic impartiality and scientific quality are the most important criteria in evaluating submitted articles.

Submissions are first reviewed by the editorial board for compliance with the journal's guidelines, and those deemed unsuitable for publication are returned to the author.

Submissions deemed suitable for processing by the editorial board undergo a Preliminary Check. During this stage, a plagiarism scan is performed using the intihal.net software. Our journal accepts a maximum similarity rate of 20%. Articles are reviewed for compliance with the journal's writing guidelines, and findings are sent back to the author for revision. During the preliminary check process, articles are reviewed once for compliance with the journal's writing guidelines; if the requested changes are not made, they are rejected and will not be processed in the same publication period.

Manuscripts that pass the Preliminary Check process are then taken into a double-blind peer review process with at least two reviewers. The names of the reviewers are kept confidential. If one reviewer's report is positive and the other is negative, the manuscript may be sent to a third reviewer, or the Editorial Board may review the reports and make the final decision. Authors are expected to consider the criticisms and suggestions of the reviewers and the Editorial Board. They have the right to object to any points they disagree with, stating their reasons.

Citation and Reference System

Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences requires the use of the APA In-Text Citation System for citations and bibliography writing.

Plagiarism Detection Policy

In plagiarism detection, the intihal.net software confirms that the articles have not been previously published and do not contain plagiarism. The maximum similarity rate accepted in our journal is 20%.

Publication and Evaluation Fee

Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences does not charge authors any fees for the article evaluation and publication process.

Conflicts of Interest

Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences guarantees authors and reviewers that the journal's publication process will be conducted independently and impartially. For multi-authored works, authors are requested to fill out and upload the author title page.

Open Access Policy

Each publication in the Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences is licensed under the Creative Commons International License (CC-BY-NC 4.0). Click here for the open access policy page.

Copyright Notice

The authors hold the copyright to their works published in Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences, and their works are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Artificial Intelligence Policy

This policy aims to establish ethical and scientific standards regarding the use of artificial intelligence in articles submitted to our journal.

The primary objective of this policy is to ensure the proper use of artificial intelligence in academic paper writing and analysis and to protect data privacy and academic integrity.

This policy will be updated as needed, depending on developments in the scope, manner, and capacity of artificial intelligence tools.

This policy adheres to the ethical principles and publication policies of Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences.

Artificial intelligence tools will only be used to check grammar, spelling errors, and style consistency in articles submitted to the journal.

Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences is committed to not using artificial intelligence tools at any stage of its article review processes.

The author must fill out the Title page indicating whether or not they used artificial intelligence.

Important Points to Consider When Using Artificial Intelligence:

1. Transparency and Responsibility (Accountability): Transparency must be ensured in every process where artificial intelligence is used. The contribution of artificial intelligence should be clearly stated, specifying which stages it is used in, how it is used, and how data is collected. Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences will present the author's statement on the cover of published articles.

2. Accuracy: The accuracy of content/information generated by artificial intelligence must be determined; the data obtained should be checked against sources and verified.

3. Responsibility: The author is solely responsible for all data generated as a result of the use of artificial intelligence. Therefore, the author must carefully examine the points where artificial intelligence is used and be aware that they bear the responsibility.

4. Impartiality: Authors should clearly state potential conflicts of interest and adhere to principles of impartiality. Regular monitoring and evaluation processes should be established to ensure the impartial use of artificial intelligence.

5. Privacy and Security: The privacy and security of personal data must be protected. Respect for the privacy of parties must be ensured during data collection, storage, and processing, and appropriate security measures must be taken.

6. Citation: Artificial intelligence should not be mentioned in footnotes or the bibliography. The use of artificial intelligence should be stated in the ethical statement.