ETHICAL POLICY
With the awareness of responsibility as the first Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Türkiye, we consider the principles of transparency, confidentiality, and accountability within the framework of ethical rules throughout the entire process of national and international dissemination of scientific knowledge. We also aim to continuously improve all processes through a quality-oriented, efficient, and competitive approach.
We expect all authors and reviewers to read and understand our ethics policy prior to submitting or evaluating a manuscript. The primary objective of this policy is to provide guidance on the ethical responsibilities of authors, editors, and reviewers.
Ankara Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi follows the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Refereed articles are studies that require scientific methods and ensure objectivity. All components of the publication process (publisher, editors, authors, reviewers, and readers) are required to comply with ethical rules for scientific production. The ethical statement of Ankara Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi is based on the principles indicated in the “COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” (http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf) and “COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” (http://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf). Authors are expected to fulfill the authorship criteria proposed by McNutt et al. (2018). The editorial and publication processes of the journal are managed in accordance with the regulations of the Council of Higher Education of Türkiye (YÖK).

General Rules
• Original research articles, reviews, case reports, and short communications in all fields of veterinary science that have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere, in whole or in part, except for abstracts not exceeding 300 words, are published in the journal.
• All manuscripts are checked using plagiarism detection software (iThenticate) and are eligible for peer review if the similarity index is ≤ 25% after excluding references.
• The Manuscript Copyright Agreement Form must be signed by all authors.
• Ankara Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi employs a double-blind peer-review process, in which both reviewer and author identities are concealed throughout the evaluation. Authors confirm compliance with the double-blind review policy upon submission.
• Authors bear full responsibility for the content of their published articles.
• Studies comparing products using commercial trade names are outside the scope of the journal.
• Any materials or products used in the study must not include commercial trade names.
• Studies involving animal experiments must include an approval statement from the relevant Ethical Committee in the relevant section.

Ethical Codes Considered
Authors, editors, and reviewers are expected to adhere to ethical standards regarding:
• Authorship
• Plagiarism (including self-plagiarism)
• Data fabrication and data falsification
• Duplicate submission
• Corrections and retractions
• Human and animal rights
• Conflicts of interest / competing interests
• Intellectual property rights

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
Authors submitting manuscripts to Ankara Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:
• Submitted works must be original and unpublished.
• Any use of other studies must be appropriately and accurately cited.
• Individuals who did not contribute intellectually to the study should not be listed as authors.
• Any potential conflict of interest must be clearly disclosed.
• Authors must be prepared to provide raw data upon request during the evaluation process.
• If an error is identified during review, early view, or post-publication, authors must promptly inform the editor and cooperate in correction or retraction procedures.
• Manuscripts must not be submitted to more than one journal simultaneously.

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of Editors
Editors and field editors of Ankara Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi adhere to the principles set out in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Editors are responsible for:
• Meeting the informational needs of readers and authors
• Ensuring continuous journal development
• Improving the quality of published manuscripts
• Safeguarding academic integrity
• Maintaining ethical standards and intellectual property rights
• Ensuring transparency in cases requiring corrections or clarifications
• Making editorial decisions based on originality, scientific validity, clarity, and relevance to the journal’s scope
• Conducting preliminary evaluations for manuscripts suitable for publication
• Respecting positive referee reports unless a substantial scientific concern exists
• Maintaining editorial continuity, unless significant issues necessitate reconsideration
• Selecting referees according to subject expertise
• Providing referees with clear guidance and necessary evaluation materials

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers
The evaluation process of Ankara Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi is conducted according to the principles of double-blind peer review. Reviewers do not communicate directly with authors, and all review reports and comments are transmitted through the journal management system. Review forms and reviewers’ comments on the full text are conveyed to the authors by the editor. Within this framework, reviewers are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities.
• Accept reviews only within their field of expertise
• Evaluate manuscripts objectively, impartially, and confidentially
• Declare any conflict of interest and withdraw if necessary
• Ensure assessments are free from discrimination or bias
• Provide constructive, respectful, and professional feedback
• Complete reviews within the designated timeframe

If you encounter any unethical situation or content related to Ankara Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi, please report it to:
vfdergi@veterinary.ankara.edu.tr

INFORMED CONSENT POLICY
Ankara Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi is committed to implementing informed consent in accordance with research ethics, based on the Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects and the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.
Informed consent and approval from the relevant ethics committee must be obtained for clinical studies involving humans, animals, or human/animal-derived specimens, and this information must be clearly stated in the related section. For studies involving human volunteers, a written informed consent form, prepared in accordance with the research protocol, must be obtained.
For studies involving case reports or personal data, all necessary written permissions must be obtained and retained by the authors for potential legal requirements. Human-related information must not be included in the manuscript without the appropriate permissions.
An Informed Consent statement indicating that participants provided consent after being fully informed about all procedures performed within the scope of the study must be included in articles reporting results obtained from studies involving human material. For experimental studies conducted on humans, a statement confirming that volunteers signed a written informed consent form, including a detailed description of the procedures performed, must be provided.
Analytical studies involving human participants must include a statement of informed consent in the related section. It is journal policy to ensure the confidentiality of participants and to protect personal identity in all cases.

JOURNAL POLICY
• Ankara Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi (Ankara Univ Vet Fak Derg) is an international, peer reviewed, and open access scientific journal published quarterly in January, April, July, and October.
• There are no submission, publication, or page charges for articles published in Ankara Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi.
• The journal applies double-blind peer review.
• At least two independent external reviewers are required.
• Two positive reviewer reports are mandatory for acceptance.
• The anticipated review period is within six months, excluding author revision time.
• All published content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
• The submission and publication of content created by artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies is discouraged, unless part of formal research design or methods, and is not permitted without clear description of the content that was created and the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacturer. Authors must take responsibility for the integrity of the content generated by these models and tools.

Additional information for authors:
AI Used in Manuscript Preparation
When traditional and generative AI technologies are used to create, review, revise, or edit any of the content in a manuscript, authors should report in the Acknowledgment section the following:
Name of the AI software platform, program, or tool
Version and extension numbers
Manufacturer
Date(s) of use
A brief description of how the AI was used and on what portions of the manuscript or content
Confirmation that the author(s) take responsibility for the integrity of the content generated
Note this guidance does not apply to basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references, and similar.
AI Used in Research
When AI (eg, large language model [LLM] or natural language processing [NLP], supervised or unsupervised machine learning [ML] for predictive/prescriptive or clustering tasks, chatbots, or similar other technologies) is used as part of a scientific study, authors should:
Follow relevant reporting guidelines for specific study designs when they exist and report each recommended guideline element with sufficient detail to enable reproducibility.
Avoid inclusion of identifiable patient information in text, tables, and figures.
Be aware of copyright and intellectual property concerns - if including content (text, images) generated by AI, and indicate rights or permissions to publish that content as determined by the AI service or owner.
Also address the following:
Methods Section
Include the study design and, if a relevant reporting guideline exists, indicate how it was followed, with sufficient detail to enable reproducibility.
Describe how AI was used for specific aspects of the study (eg, to generate or refine study hypotheses, assist in the generation of a list of adjustment variables, create graphs to show visual relationships).
For studies using LLMs, provide the name of the platform or program, tool, version, and manufacturer; specify dates and prompt(s) used and their sequence and any revisions to prompts in response to initial outputs.
For studies reporting ML and algorithm development, include details about data sets used for development, training, and validation. Clearly state if algorithms were trained and tested only on previously collected or existing data sets or if the study includes prospective deployment. Include the ML model and describe the variables and outcome(s) and selection of the fine-tuning parameters. Describe any assumptions involved (eg, log linearity, proportionality) and how these assumptions were tested.
Indicate the metric used to evaluate the performance of the algorithms, including bias, discrimination, calibration, reclassification, and others as appropriate.
Indicate the methods used to address missing data.
Indicate institutional review board/ethics review, approval, waiver, or exemption.
Describe methods or analyses included to address and manage AI-related methodologic bias and inaccuracy of AI-generated content.
Indicate, when appropriate, if sensitivity analyses were performed to explore the performance of the AI model in vulnerable or underrepresented subgroups.
Provide a data sharing statement, including if code will be shared.
Results Section
When reporting comparisons, provide performance assessments (eg, against standard of care), include effect sizes and measures of uncertainty (eg, 95% CIs) and other measurements such as likelihood ratios, and include information about performance errors, inaccurate or missing data, and sufficient detail for others to reproduce the findings.
Report the results of analyses to address methodologic bias and population representation.
If examples of generated text or content are included in tables or figures, be sure to indicate the source and licensing information, as noted above.
Discussion Section
Discuss the potential for AI-related bias and what was done to identify and mitigate such bias.
Discuss the potential for inaccuracy of AI-generated content and what was done to identify and manage this.
Discuss generalizability of findings across populations and results of analyses performed to explore the performance of the AI model in vulnerable or underrepresented subgroups.