Publication Ethics Principles
Publication Ethics can be defined as a self-regulatory mechanism that insists on integrity on behalf of authors, reviewers and publishers to establish higher standards of editorial processing. Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public confidence in scientific findings, and respect for people's opinions.
• Honest researchers do not plagiarise.
• They do not misattribute sources.
• They do not hide objections they cannot refute.
• They do not distort opposing views.
• They do not destroy or conceal data.
Peer-reviewed studies are studies that support and realise the scientific method. At this point, it is of great importance that all parties involved in the publication process (authors, readers and researchers, publisher, referees and editors) comply with ethical principles. Our journal adheres to national and international standards in research and publication ethics. It complies with the Press Law, the Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works and the Directive on Scientific Research and Publication Ethics of Higher Education Institutions. Our journal has adopted the International Ethical Publishing Principles published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). It also undertakes to comply with the decisions of the Turkish Editors' Workshop.
• Press Law (National Legislation)
• Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works (National Legislation)
• Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive (National Legislation)
• Transparency and Best Practice Principles in Academic Publishing (International Criteria)
• Turkey Editors' Workshop Decisions (National Criteria)
Policy and Principles
• Ethics committee approval must be obtained for scientific studies submitted for publication in our journal and this approval must be documented.
• In all studies submitted for publication, it is obligatory to obtain the necessary permissions from the authors in case of using tools such as scales, questionnaires, etc. belonging to others.
• The bibliography list must be prepared completely by the author and/or authors and the cited references must be prepared in accordance with the journal format.
• Studies submitted to our journal are evaluated by double-blind referee system, and additional referee evaluation should be included by the editorial board when deemed necessary.
• Our journal accepts articles written in two languages, Turkish and English. Manuscripts submitted for publication are forwarded to referees specialised in the relevant subject after being checked by the editor. At this stage, where the double-blind referee system is used, the manuscript can also be sent to a third referee for evaluation if needed. Manuscripts deemed inadequate by the referees or containing ethical violations are rejected and the manuscript is returned to the author and/or authors. In order for the articles submitted to our journal to be published, at least two referees must make a publishable decision. Articles that pass the referee evaluation with a positive opinion are queued for publication by the journal board. The process is carried out transparently by including the article arrival date and article acceptance date information on the journal page of the articles accepted for publication. The publication process is initiated by considering the date of acceptance of the relevant studies. The average evaluation period of articles varies between 45-60 days. It should be taken into consideration that this period may vary depending on the status of the publication.
Replay
Republishing is the publication of the same article or substantially similar articles in more than one journal. The editor sends such an article back without reviewing it. Thereafter, the editor may impose an embargo for a certain period of time on the author who has attempted to republish, publicise this situation in the journal in which the author has previously published (perhaps by simultaneous announcement with the editor of the journal that published the previous article), or apply all of these measures together.
Simultaneous submission of the same work to more than one journal
Authors may not submit the same article to more than one journal at the same time. If the editor learns of possible simultaneous submission, he/she reserves the right to consult with the other editor(s) receiving the manuscript. In addition, the editor may return the manuscript without review or reject the manuscript without considering the reviews, or take this decision in discussion with the other editor(s) involved, and may decide not to accept submissions from authors for a certain period of time. It may also write to the authors' employers or take all of these measures together.
Control to Prevent Plagiarism
Plagiarism is presenting the ideas, methods, data, applications, writings, figures or works of others as one's own work in whole or in part without citing the owners in accordance with scientific rules.
Our journal scans all submitted articles to prevent plagiarism. Studies submitted for review are checked for plagiarism using Intihal.net software. The similarity rate is expected to be less than 15%. The main measure of similarity is the author's compliance with the rules of citation and citation. If the similarity rate is 1%, but citation and quotation are not done properly, plagiarism may still be in question. In this respect, citation and quotation rules should be known and carefully applied by the author.
Plagiarism, duplication, false authorship/ denied authorship, research/data fabrication, article slicing, slicing and dicing, copyright infringement and concealment of conflict of interest are considered unethical behaviours. All articles that do not comply with accepted ethical standards are removed from publication. This includes articles containing possible irregularities and non-conformities detected after publication.
Forgery
To produce data that is not based on research, to edit or change the work presented or published on the basis of unreal data, to report or publish them, to show a research that has not been done as if it has been done.
Falsifying research records and data obtained, showing methods, devices and materials that were not used in the research as if they were used, not evaluating data that do not comply with the research hypothesis, manipulating data and/or results to fit the relevant theory or assumptions, falsifying or shaping the research results in line with the interests of the persons and organisations supported.
Protection of Personal Data of Participants
Our journal requires that all research involving personal or sensitive data or materials relating to human participants that are not legally publicly available be subject to formal ethical review.
Handling Allegations of Research Misconduct
Our journal adheres to COPE's Ethical Toolkit for a Successful Editorial. Journal editors will take measures to prevent the publication of manuscripts in which plagiarism, citation manipulation, data falsification, data fabrication, and other research misconduct has occurred. In no case will journal editors knowingly allow such misconduct to occur. In the event that journal editors become aware of any allegations of research misconduct related to an article published in their journal, they will follow COPE's guidelines regarding allegations.
Correction, Retraction, Expression of Concern
Editors may consider publishing a correction if minor errors are detected in the published article that do not affect the findings, interpretations and conclusions. Editors should consider retracting the manuscript if there are major errors/violations that invalidate the findings and conclusions. Editors should consider issuing a statement of concern if there is a possibility of research or publication misconduct by the authors; if there is evidence that the findings are unreliable and the authors' institutions have not investigated the incident; or if the possible investigation seems unfair or inconclusive. COPE guidelines regarding correction, retraction or expression of concern are taken into account.
Publication of Studies Based on Surveys and Interviews
Our journal adopts the ‘Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors’ and ‘Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers’ principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in order to provide ethical assurance in scientific periodical publishing. In this context, the following points should be complied with in the studies submitted to the journal:
1) For research in all disciplines that require ethics committee approval (ethics committee approval must be obtained, this approval must be stated and documented in the article.
2) In studies requiring ethics committee authorisation, information about the authorisation (name of the committee, date and number) should be included in the method section and on one of the first/last pages of the article; in case reports, information on the signature of the informed consent/assent form should be included in the article.
Editorial Confidentiality Obligation
Our editors treat all submitted manuscripts as confidential documents, which means that they will not disclose information about a manuscript to anyone without the authors' permission. During the manuscript review process, the following people have access to the manuscripts: Editors, Reviewers, Editorial Board Members. The only situation where details about a manuscript may be passed to a third party without the authors' permission is if the editor suspects serious research misconduct.
Conflicts of Interest
A conflict of interest arises when professional judgement about a primary interest may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain or personal competition). We believe that we need to know the authors' competing interests in order to make the best judgement about how to handle an article, and that readers should know them if we publish the article.
Any interest, financial or otherwise, which may cause one to be conflicted in one's work, significantly impair one's objectivity, or give an unfair advantage in favour of any person or organisation. All sources of financial support received during the conduct of the research and preparation of the manuscript and the role of sponsors in the study should be disclosed. If there is no source of funding, this should also be indicated. Examples of potential conflicts of interest that should be disclosed include consultancies, salaries, grants. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest possible stage.
Our journal has an established process for handling submissions from editors, staff or editorial board members to ensure impartial review. Such submissions are first referred to other journals. If this is not possible, the author of the submission will be suspended from the journal. These submissions are reviewed in a double blind process.
The editor should not be involved in decisions about manuscripts written by him/herself or family members. Furthermore, such a paper should be subject to all the usual procedures of the journal. The editor should follow the COPE guidelines on disclosure of potential conflicts of interest by authors and reviewers.
Bitlis Eren Journal of Social Research is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Non-Derivative 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).