All correspondence will be sent to the first-named author unless otherwise specified. Manuscpript is to be submitted online via https://dergipark.org.tr/login that can be accessed at https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/bel and it must be accompanied by a Title Page specifying the article category (i.e. research article, review etc.) and including information about the manuscript (see the Submission Checklist). Manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word 2003 and upper versions. In addition, Copyright Agreement Form that has to be signed by all authors must be submitted.

1. Manuscripts should be prepared using the Article Template. Due to double blind peer review, manuscript file must not include any information about the author.

2. A title page including author information must be submitted together with the manuscript. The title page is to include fully descriptive title of the manuscript and, affiliation, title, e-mail address, ORCID, postal address, phone, mobile phone and fax number of the author(s) (see The Submission Checklist).

3. Before the introduction part, there should be an abstract of 120-200 words both in the language of the article and in English. An extended abstract in English between 600-800 words, summarizing the scope, the purpose, the results of the study and the methodology used is to be included following the abstracts. If the manuscript is in English, extended abstract is not required. Underneath the abstracts, 5 keywords that inform the reader about the content of the study should be specified in the language of the article and in English.

4. The manuscripts should contain mainly these components: title, abstract and keywords; extended abstract, sections, references, tables and figures.

5. Article Types

Research Article: Original research articles report substantial and original scientific results within the journal scope. Original research articles are comprised of Abstract, Key Words, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References and Figures, Tables and Graphics.

Abstract: The abstracts in the language of the article and in English must be between 120- 200 words and state aim, method, result and conclusions of the study. If the article is in Turkish, German, French or Italian, an extended abstract of 600-800 words in English must be written as well following the abstracts.

Introduction: This section must contain a clear statement of the general and specific objectives as well as the hypotheses which the work is designed to test. It should also give a brief account of the reported literature. It should clearly state the primary and secondary purposes of the article. Only, the actual references related with the issues have to be indicated and data or findings related with the current study must not be included in this section.

Methods: This section must contain explicit, concise descriptions of all procedures, materials and methods (i.e. data sources, participants, scales, interviews/reviews, basic measurements, applications, statistical methods) used in the investigation to enable the reader to judge their accuracy, reproducibility, etc. This section should include the known findings at the beginning of the study and the findings during the study must be reported in results section.

Results: The results should be presented in logical sequence in the text, tables, and figures, giving the main or most important findings first. The all the data in the tables or figures should not be repeated in the text; only the most important observations must be emphasized or summarized.

Discussion: The findings of the study, the findings and results which support or do not support the hypothesis of the study should be discussed, results should be compared and contrasted with findings of other studies in the literature and the different findings from other studies should be explained. The new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them should be emphasized. The data or other information given in the Introduction or the Results section should not be repeated in detail.

Conclusions: Conclusions derived from the study should be stated.. The conclusions should be linked with the goals of the study but unqualified statements and conclusions not adequately supported by the data should be avoided. New hypotheses should be stated when warranted, but should be labeled clearly as such.

Figures, Tables and Graphics: Figures, tables and graphics materials should be “.jpg, .tiff or .jpeg” format and they should be submitted with the article. These materials should be min. 300 pixels and they must not be bigger than page size. The illustrations should not exceed 10 pages. All illustrations should be labelled and a list of figures with captions, legends, and credits should be provided on a separate page.

Review Article: Reviews prepared by authors who have extensive knowledge on a particular field and whose scientific background has been translated into a high volume of publications with a high citation potential are welcomed. These authors may even be invited by the journal. Review article should contain title, abstract and keywords; body text with sections, and references.

6. References should be in accordance with American Psychological Association (APA) style 6th Edition.

7. Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work submitted to the journal for publication.

References

Reference Style and Format

The Journal of Information and Documentation Studies complies with APA (American Psychological Association) style 6th Edition for referencing and quoting. For more information:
- American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: APA.
- http://www.apastyle.org
Accuracy of citation is the author’s responsibility. All references should be cited in text. Reference list must be in alphabetical order. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/journal-file/18261

Submission Checklist

Ensure that the following items are present:
• Confirm that the category of the manuscript is specifed.
• Confirm that “the paper is not under consideration for publication in another journal”.
• Confirm that disclosure of any commercial or financial involvement is provided.
• Confirm that last control for fluent English was done.
• Confirm that journal policies detailed in Information for Authors have been reviewed.
• Confirm that the references cited in the text and listed in the references section are in line with APA 6th.
● Copyright Agreement Form
● Permission of previous published material if used in the present manuscript
● Title page
• The category of the manuscript
• The title of the manuscript both in the language of the article and in English
• All authors’ names and affiliations (institution, faculty/department, city, country), e-mail addresses
• Corresponding author’s email address, full postal address, telephone and fax number
• ORCIDs of all authors.
• Grant support (if exists)
• Conflict of interest (if exists)
• Acknowledgement (if exists)
● Main Manuscript Document
• Important: Please avoid mentioning the author (s) names in the manuscript
• The title of the manuscript both in the language of the article and in English
• Abstract (120-200 words)
• Key words: 5 words
• Extended abstract in English: 600-800 words (for non-english articles)
• Body text sections
• References
• All tables, illustrations (figures) (including title, explanation, captions)

 Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

The Journal of Information and Documentation Studies is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and pays regard to Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) on https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing

The subjects covered in the manuscripts submitted to the Journal for publication must be in accordance with the aim and scope of the Journal. Only those manuscripts approved by every individual author and that were not published before in or sent to another journal, are accepted for evaluation.
Changing the name of an author (omission, addition or order) in papers submitted to the Journal requires written permission of all declared authors.
Plagiarism, duplication, fraud authorship/denied authorship, research/data fabrication, salami slicing/salami publication, breaching of copyrights, prevailing conflict of interest are unethical behaviors. All manuscripts not in accordance with the accepted ethical standards will be removed from the publication. This also contains any possible malpractice discovered after the publication.

Plagiarism

Submitted manuscripts that pass preliminary control are scanned for plagiarism using iThenticate software. If plagiarism/self-plagiarism will be found authors will be informed. Editors may resubmit manuscript for similarity check at any peer-review or production stage if required. High similarity scores may lead to rejection of a manuscript before and even after acceptance. Depending on the type of article and the percentage of similarity score taken from each article, the overall similarity score is generally expected to be less than 15 or 20%.

Double Blind Peer-Review

After plagiarism check, the eligible ones are evaluated by the editors-in-chief for their originality, methodology, the importance of the subject covered and compliance with the journal scope. The editor provides a fair double-blind peer review of the submitted articles and hands over the papers matching the formal rules to at least two national/international referees for evaluation and gives green light for publication upon modification by the authors in accordance with the referees’ claims.

Research Ethics

The Journal of Information and Documentation Studies –Bilgi ve Belge Araştırmaları Dergisi adheres to the highest standards in research ethics and follows the principles of international research ethics as defined below. The authors are responsible for the compliance of the manuscripts with the ethical rules.


- Principles of integrity, quality and transparency should be sustained in designing the research, reviewing the design and conducting the research.

- The research team and participants should be fully informed about the aim, methods, possible uses and requirements of the research and risks of participation in research.

- The confidentiality of the information provided by the research participants and the confidentiality of the respondents should be ensured. The research should be designed to protect the autonomy and dignity of the participants.

- Research participants should participate in the research voluntarily, not under any coercion.

- Any possible harm to participants must be avoided. The research should be planned in such a way that the participants are not at risk.

- The independence of research must be clear; and any conflict of interest must be disclosed.

- In experimental studies with human subjects, written informed consent of the participants who decide to participate in the research must be obtained. In the case of children and those under wardship or with confirmed insanity, legal custodian’s assent must be obtained.

- If the study is to be carried out in any institution or organization, approval must be obtained from this institution or organization.

- In studies with human subject, it must be noted in the method’s section of the manuscript that the informed consent of the participants and ethics committee approval from the institution where the study has been conducted have been obtained.

Author Responsibilities

It is authors’ responsibility to ensure that the article is in accordance with scientific and ethical standards and rules. And authors must ensure that submitted work is original. They must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere or is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere, in any language. Applicable copyright laws and conventions must be followed. Copyright material (e.g. tables, figures or extensive quotations) must be reproduced only with appropriate permission and acknowledgement. Any work or words of other authors, contributors, or sources must be appropriately credited and referenced.

All the authors of a submitted manuscript must have direct scientific and academic contribution to the manuscript. The author(s) of the original research articles is defined as a person who is significantly involved in “conceptualization and design of the study”, “collecting the data”, “analyzing the data”, “writing the manuscript”, “reviewing the manuscript with a critical perspective” and “planning/conducting the study of the manuscript and/or revising it”. Fund raising, data collection or supervision of the research group are not sufficient roles to be accepted as an author. The author(s) must meet all these criteria described above. The order of names in the author list of an article must be a co-decision and it must be indicated in the Copyright Agreement Form. The individuals who do not meet the authorship criteria but contributed to the study must take place in the acknowledgement section. Individuals providing technical support, assisting writing, providing a general support, providing material or financial support are examples to be indicated in acknowledgement section.

All authors must disclose all issues concerning financial relationship, conflict of interest, and competing interest that may potentially influence the results of the research or scientific judgment.

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published paper, it is the author’s obligation to promptly cooperate with the Editor to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.

 Responsibility for the Editor and Reviewers and Evaluation Process

Editor-in-Chief evaluates manuscripts for their scientific content without regard to ethnic origin, gender, citizenship, religious belief or political philosophy of the authors. He/She provides a fair double-blind peer review of the submitted articles for publication and ensures that all the information related to submitted manuscripts is kept as confidential before publishing.

Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication. He/She must publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.

Editor-in-Chief does not allow any conflicts of interest between the authors, editors and reviewers. Only he has the full authority to assign a reviewer and is responsible for final decision for publication of the manuscripts in the journal.

Reviewers must have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders. Their judgments must be objective.

Reviewers must ensure that all the information related to submitted manuscripts is kept as confidential and must report to the editor if they are aware of copyright infringement and plagiarism on the author’s side.

A reviewer who feels unqualified to review the topic of a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

The editor informs the reviewers that the manuscripts are confidential information and that this is a privileged interaction. The reviewers and editorial board cannot discuss the manuscripts with other persons. The anonymity of the referees must be ensured. In particular situations, the editor may share the review of one reviewer with other reviewers to clarify a particular point.

All expenses of the journal are covered by the Istanbul University. Processing and publication are free of charge with the journal. There is no article processing charges or submission fees for any submitted or accepted articles.