While establishing the ethical duties and responsibilities below, as open access, guidelines and policies published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) were taken into account.

It is expected that the author(s) submitting a paper to Bitlis Eren University Journal of Science comply with ethical responsibilities and all stakeholders have the following ethical responsibilities within the scope of publication ethics.

The articles submitted by the author(s) are expected to be original. If the author(s) benefit from or use other articles, they are required to cite and/ or give reference completely and accurately. Those who do not contribute to the content intellectually in the creation of the article should not be specified as the author. If any article(s) submitted for publication have situations and relationships that may constitute a conflict of interest, this must be clearly stated. Raw data regarding their articles can be requested from the author(s) within the framework of the evaluation processes. In such a case, the author(s) should be ready to present the expected data and information to the editorial board and scientific committee. The author(s) should have a document showing that they have the right to use the data benefited, the necessary permissions for the research/analysis, or the consent of the experimented subjects. If the author(s) notices an inaccuracy or error in their published, early appearance or evaluation processes of their articles, he/she is obliged to cooperate with the editor in informing the journal editor or publisher, correcting the error or withdrawing the article. Authors cannot have their article in the application process of more than one journal at the same time. Each application can be started following the completion of the previous application. An article published in another journal cannot be sent to Bitlis Eren University Journal of Science. Changing the author responsibilities of an article whose evaluation process has begun (such as adding an author, changing the order of authors, removing an author) cannot be proposed.

Editors are responsible for every article published in Bitlis Eren University Journal of Science. Within the context of this responsibility, editors have the following roles and responsibilities:

• Making efforts to meet the information needs of readers and writers,

• Ensuring the continuous development of the journal,

• Conducting processes to improve the quality of articles 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 that require correction and explanation.

Editors should make decisions by considering the knowledge, skills and experience expectations of all readers, researchers and practitioners. They should pay attention to the fact that the published articles contribute to the reader, researcher, practitioner and scientific literature and that they are original. In addition, editors are obliged to consider the feedback from readers, researchers and practitioners, and to provide explanatory and informative feedback.

The duties and responsibilities of the editors to the authors are as follows:

• Editors should make a positive or negatory decision based on the importance, original value, validity, clarity of the narrative, and the journal's goals and objectives.

• Articles that are suitable for the scope of publication should be taken to the preliminary evaluation stage unless they have serious problems.

• Editors should not ignore positive referee suggestions unless there is a serious problem with the article.

• New editors should not change the decisions made by the previous editor(s) for articles unless there is a serious problem.

• “Blind Reviewing and Evaluation Process” must be published and the editors must prevent deviations that may occur in the defined processes.

• Authors should be given feedback in an explanatory and informative way.

• should assign the referees in accordance with the subject of the article.

• is responsible for providing the information and guides that the referees will need during the evaluation phase.

• has to consider whether there is a conflict of interest between the authors and the referees.

• should keep the identity of the referees confidential in the context of blinded refereeing.

• should encourage the referees to evaluate the article in an impartial, scientific and objective language.

• should determine practices and policies that increase the performance of referees.

• should take the necessary steps to dynamically update the referee pool.

• should avoid rude and unscientific reviews.

• should take steps to ensure that the referee pool is broad.

Editors should ensure that all editorial board members follow the processes in accordance with editorial policies and guidelines. The Editor should inform the members of the Editorial Board about the editorial policies and keep them informed of the developments. In addition, editors should;

• ensure that members of the Editorial Board evaluate the article impartially and independently.

• nominate new editorial board members who can contribute and are suitable.

• submit articles suitable for the expertise of the members of the Editorial Board for evaluation.

• interact with the Editorial Board regularly.

• hold regular meetings with the Editorial Board for the development of editorial policies and the journal.

The relationship between the editors and the publisher is based on the principle of editorial independence. In accordance with the written contract between the editors and the publisher, all decisions taken by the editors are independent of the publisher and the journal owner.

Editors; is obliged to apply the “Blind Refereeing and Evaluation Process” policies included in the journal’s publication policies. In this context, the editors ensure that the fair, impartial and timely evaluation process of each article is completed.

Editors; are responsible for publishing every article published in the journal in accordance with journal publication policies and international standards.

Editors; are obliged to ensure the protection of personal data regarding the subjects or images included in the evaluated studies. They are responsible for rejecting the article unless the explicit consent of the individuals used in the studies is documented. In addition, editors are responsible for protecting the individual data of authors, referees and readers.

Editors are responsible for ensuring the protection of human and animal rights in the evaluated studies. Editors are responsible for refusing the article in the absence of ethical committee approval for the subjects used in the studies and permissions for experimental studies.

Editors are obliged to take precautions against possible abuse and misconduct. It is among the responsibilities of the editor to share the relevant findings, as well as to conduct a rigorous and objective investigation regarding the identification and evaluation of complaints regarding this situation.

Editors should ensure that judgments containing errors, inconsistencies or misdirection in studies are promptly corrected.

Editors are obliged to protect the intellectual property rights of all published articles and to defend the rights of the journal and the author(s) in case of possible violations. In addition, the editors are obliged to take the necessary measures so that the contents of all published articles do not violate the intellectual property rights of other publications.

• consider persuasive criticisms of the articles published in the Journal and should adopt a constructive attitude towards these criticisms.

• give the right of reply to the author(s) of the criticized articles.

• not ignore or exclude studies with negative results.

Editors are responsible for carefully examining and responding to complaints from authors, referees or readers in an enlightening and explanatory manner.

The journal owner, publisher and no other political or commercial factors affect the editors’ independent decision making.

The editors ensure that the publication process of the studies is completed independently and impartially, taking into account the conflicts of interest between the author(s), referees and other editors.

Evaluation of all articles with “Blind Refereeing” directly affects the quality of the publication. This process provides confidence through an objective and independent evaluation of the publication. Bitlis Eren University Journal of Science evaluation process is carried out with the principle of double-blind refereeing. Referees cannot directly communicate with authors, evaluations and comments are transmitted through the journal management system. In this process, reviewer comments on evaluation forms and full texts are forwarded to the author(s) through the editor. In this context, it is expected that the referees who evaluate the articles for Bitlis Eren University Journal of Science have the following ethical responsibilities:

• Reviewers should agree to evaluate only articles related to their field of expertise.

• They should evaluate articles neutrally and confidentially.

• If the referees think that they are facing a conflict of interest during the evaluation process, they should refuse to review the article and inform the journal editor.

• In accordance with the principle of confidentiality, the referees should destroy the articles they have reviewed after the evaluation process. They can only use the final versions of the articles they have reviewed after they are published.

• Referees should make the evaluation objectively only in relation to the content of the article. They should not allow nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political beliefs and commercial concerns to influence the evaluation.

• Referees must do the evaluation in a constructive and courteous language. They should not make derogatory personal comments that include hostility, slander or insults.

• The referees must perform the article they accept to evaluate in the allotted time and in line with the above-mentioned ethical responsibilities.

Bitlis Eren University Journal of Science Editors and Editorial Board act with the awareness of the following ethical responsibilities:

• The editors are responsible for all processes of the articles submitted to Bitlis Eren University Journal of Science. In this context, the decision makers are the editors, regardless of economic or political gains.

• Undertakes to create an independent editorial decision.

• Protects the property and copyright of every article published in Bitlis Eren University Journal of Science and undertakes to keep a record of each published copy.

• Takes precautions against all kinds of scientific abuse, citation fraud and plagiarism regarding the editors.

If you encounter any unethical behavior or content other than the above-mentioned ethical responsibilities and content in the Bitlis Eren University Journal of Science, please don’t hesitate to e-mail us.

Bitlis Eren University Journal of Science, as a journal aware of the need for easy access to information in order to advance scientific studies, supports the initiative to make peer-reviewed journal literature open access in the Budapest Open Access Declaration and presents all published articles free of charge in an environment that anyone can read and download. According to this declaration open access means “its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.” Considering the role of knowledge sharing in the advancement of science, open access is of great importance for researchers and readers. For this reason, the articles in this journal can be used as long as the author and original source are cited. No permissions from authors or publishers are required. Articles in this journal are available across search engines, websites, blogs, and other digital platforms.

No fee is charged for publishing the article and conducting the article processes in the journal.

Articles submitted to the journal for publication are primarily subjected to editorial evaluation in terms of compliance with the purpose and scope of the journal, writing rules and the proposed draft. At this stage, articles that are not suitable for the purpose and scope of the journal are returned to the authors. Articles that do not comply with the spelling rules and draft formatting are returned to the authors to be corrected and reloaded.

All articles are expected to be original and unique articles that have not been published in any medium before. In the evaluation phase, articles are reviewed through the Ithenticate similarity scanning and plagiarism detection program. The similarity index value of the articles must be below 20%. Articles above this value are rejected without being evaluated.

Articles found appropriate in the editorial evaluation are directed to the relevant field editor according to their subjects.

The field editor starts the referee evaluation process of the article by determining two referees suitable for the subject and quality of the article.

The referees selected for the first step evaluation process are given a 30-day evaluation period. At the end of this period, the duties of the referees who do not complete their evaluation or upload the evaluation report are terminated and new referees are determined.

Articles that are not deemed suitable for publication according to the results of peer-review are returned to the authors. The authors are informed about the articles accepted for publication and they are published in the next issue.

Authors are given 30 days for the articles that the referees want to be corrected. During this period, necessary corrections should be made and the corrected article should be uploaded to the journal system. If this period granted to the authors is exceeded, the process of the article is terminated and must be uploaded as a new article from the beginning. In this case, the first step evaluation process is restarted. The corrected version uploaded in the given time is directed to the referee again if necessary and the second step referee process starts. If the referee hasn’t wanted to see the corrected version of the article, the editor decides whether to publish it or not.

In the second step evaluation process, the corrections made by the authors are followed by the referees and the referees inform the editor of their final decisions about the article.

Finally, the editor informs the authors about the publication process.