ETHICAL PRINCIPLES AND PUBLICATION POLICY

Current Veterinary Science (Curr Vet Sci) supports original scientific ideas and publishes quality, follows, and implements internationally accepted ethical standards. Ethical principles and publication policy of Current Veterinary Science include the ethical standards of conduct that should be followed by who are the participants (publisher, author(s), all editor(s), reviewers, and readers) of this action.

Current Veterinary Science's ethical statement is based on the principles indicated in the "Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" (http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf), "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" (http://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf), and The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/european-code-of-conduct-for-research-integrity_horizon_en.pdf).

General Ethical Principles

• Objectivity and Independence

Editor-in-chief, editors, associate editors, and referees conduct the evaluation process of the manuscript sent to the journal objectively and in coordination with the framework of ethical principles. Editorial decisions are independent, and internal or external factors cannot influence these decisions. By the principle of impartiality, academics working in our institution are not deemed eligible to work as a section editor in Current Veterinary Science to be ineffective in evaluating articles due to conflict of interest.

• Privacy
The articles' content and the authors' personal information, such as name, e-mail address, and telephone numbers sent to Current Veterinary Science, are used only for the scientific purposes of the journal and not for other purposes and cannot be shared with third parties. Article evaluation processes are also carried out confidentially.

• Authorship and Authors Rights
The authors of the manuscripts sent to Current Veterinary Science must have contributed significantly to the design, execution, or interpretation of the study. For example, given the research and publication ethics as well as authors' rights, it is not acceptable to include those as authors who do not actively contribute to the research but only help in writing or data collection processes, which may not require any scientific knowledge. All the authors in a publication should agree upon the names and the orders of the authors in the manuscript.
The editor evaluates the authors' competence regarding the study's subject within the framework of deontological rules and each author's professional fields.
The corresponding author of the article should declare the contributions of the authors to work under the title of "Author contributions." The corresponding author is primarily responsible for the problems that may arise.
In multidisciplinary studies, two authors from different disciplines can be "equivalent first-name authors," and up to three authors from different disciplines can be "equivalent second-name authors."

• Originality of Research Findings
The authors should declare that the article they presented contained the original research results, that the study data were analyzed correctly, and that they were prepared for publication using adequate and appropriate references in the "cover letter" section of the online system at the submission stage. Using expressions such as "it is the first study done," "there has been no previous study on this subject," and "there is a limited number of studies" to add originality and importance to the article is not acceptable and may cause prevention of the scientific evaluation of the article by the editor.

• Similarity
Articles submitted to the Current Veterinary Science are subjected to similarity analysis using appropriate software at the beginning and every required stage. If unethical similarities are detected regardless of the rate of similarity, this situation is reported to the authors, corrections are requested, or articles containing excessive similarities are rejected at the first evaluation stage without being evaluated.

• Plagiarism/Self-Plagiarism, Duplicate Publication
Current Veterinary Science applies publication ethics, verifies the originality of content submitted before publication, and checks all submitted manuscripts for plagiarism/self-plagiarism, similarity, and duplication. All submitted manuscripts are meticulously screened by similarity detection software (iThenticate by CrossCheck). Papers previously presented at scientific meetings and published only as an "abstract" should be indicated in the Title Page file as stated in the "Guidance for Authors." Authors do not have the right to use entire paragraphs from their previous publications in a new submission. These actions are also considered plagiarism. In any case, the manuscript should be original in terms of scientific content and writing. In the event of alleged or suspected research misconduct, the Editorial Board will follow and act by "COPE Guidelines."

• Multi-part Publication (Piecemeal Publication)
Some authors may divide study data into two or more articles and publish the results in different journals with different authors' names and orders. In principle, Current Veterinary Science is against multi-part publication. When necessary, the ethical committee approval information of the study, project information, congress presentations, etc., are checked, and situations that will create an ethical problem are identified and reported to the authors.

Authors may think their work should be published in multiple parts that complement each other. For this, each part of the article should be titled "Part-I" and "Part-II" and submitted to the journal "simultaneously." This issue can be evaluated by the editor-in-chief/subject editors/referees, who may suggest that the article can be published in parts or as a whole. In addition, rejection of a submission presented in parts means that all parts will be rejected.

• Animal Rights and Ethics
If animals are used in the study, the author (s) must declare in the materials and methods section that the manuscript complies with the institutional or international animal care and use guidelines. A manuscript containing information that suggests animals were subjected to adverse, stressful, or harsh conditions or treatments will not be considered for publication. Authors must also obtain permission from the Animal Experiment Ethics Committees and provide relevant information to experiment with animals in the Material and Method section. In clinical studies and with the ethics committee's approval, an "informed consent form" should be obtained from the animal owners. The material and method section should declare the information related to it. Declaration of "informed consent form" is sufficient for the articles in the "Case report" and "Letter to the Editor" category.

The permission granted by an ethics committee for a study is strictly for use in one article. It is not acceptable to use the same ethics committee approval number in articles with different titles and contents. The editor or subject editors may request the corresponding author to provide a copy of the ethics committee approval form to the journal electronically or by post if necessary.

In cases of violation of ethical rules, the article is not considered, or if it is in the evaluation stage, the procedure is terminated, and the article is rejected.

• Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests
The editor-in-chief pays attention to whether there is a conflict of interest or union of interest between editors, reviewers, and author (s) to ensure an objective and unbiased evaluation of the article. In addition, the authors should disclose any financial interests, links, or conditions that may raise the issue of bias in the research and article under the above heading.

• Copyright and license
Author(s) who submit papers to the Current Veterinary Science must fill in the "Copyright Transfer Form" document, indicating that they have transferred the publication rights to the journal. However, the author(s) reserve the following rights.

a. The right to their personal use for educational purposes.
b. The right to use all or a part of the article in meetings or conferences.
c. The right to post their work online in institutional repositories or on their website.
d. The right to use any platform to increase the visibility of his article(s). (e.g., Academia.edu, ResearchGate).
d. Patent and trademark rights for any process or procedure described in the article.

The "Copyright Transfer Form" document can be found on the journal's web page and can be signed with a wet signature. Authors who submit articles from abroad should scan the signed form and send it to the editor via the system or e-mail. Original wet-signed forms for articles sent domestically should be submitted to the journal via mail or cargo. The works of the authors who do not submit the Copyright Transfer Form on time are not published.

Articles published in the Current Veterinary Science are presented to the reader under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license allows users to copy, distribute, and transmit an article and adapt the article as long as the author is attributed. More detailed information can be obtained using this link (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en).

• Withdrawal of a Submission
If the authors detect a significant error or deficiency in their article under review or if this error is reported to them by the editor/subject editor/referees, they can contact the editor-in-chief immediately and ask to withdraw the article by stating the reason. The decision on this issue is up to the editorial board.

• Erratum
After an article has been published, the corresponding author may request the editor to publish “erratum” for any errors or inaccuracies the authors, editors, or readers notice. The editor will prepare and publish the Erratum article for the upcoming issue in collaboration with the authors. Like other publications, these articles should contain the publication tag and DOI number.

• Retraction
Suppose an ethical problem is detected in the article that cannot be compensated or eliminated with an erratum after publication. In that case, the editor-in-chief and associate editors prepare a justification for the article and apply the retraction procedure. The text file on the web page of a retracted article is blocked, and the reason for retraction is added to the system as a file, ensuring that it is constantly in the archive.

• Advertising
Current Veterinary Science does not accept advertising and sponsorships that are believed to create a potential conflict of interest. If the article sent to Current Veterinary Science promotes a commercial product and/or the work carried out is directly supported by a company, it is rejected without consideration.

Open Access Policy
Current Veterinary Science is an open-access journal; readers can freely access the published articles online. The Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access does not restrict or embargo the full text of the published articles.

Process of Article Evaluation and Publication

Initial Evaluation Process: Articles submitted to Current Veterinary Science are primarily evaluated by the editors and associate editors. At this stage, articles without suitable scope and aims, low original research value, scientific and ethically critical errors, low potential to contribute to science and the journal, and poor language and narration are rejected by the editor without a peer-review process. The initial evaluation process takes up to two weeks at most.

Preliminary Evaluation Process: Articles deemed appropriate for editorial evaluation are sent to the subject editor related to the category of articles to be examined regarding scientific competence and to the statistics editor to assess statistical methods. The subject editors discuss the article in all aspects and report their decisions (rejection, revision, or peer-review) to the chief editor. This stage takes about one month.

Peer-review Process: Peer-review is applied to the articles that have completed preliminary evaluation. Suggestions of subject editors are primarily considered in referee assignments. In addition, reviews can be requested from the referees registered in the journal's referee pool. At least two referees are assigned for peer review. Opinion of more referees can be required depending on the evaluation process. At this stage, referees send their decision (reject, revise, or accept) about the article to the editor-in-chief. Suppose the rejection decision given by a referee reflects sufficient examination and evidence-based negativities or ethical problems about the scientific content and accuracy of the article. In that case, this decision is checked by the editor-in-chief and associate editors and submitted to the authors regardless of the other referees' decisions. The time given to each referee to evaluate an article is 4 + 1 weeks.

Publication Process of an Article: The total evaluation period of an article, completed in the peer-review phase after the initial and preliminary evaluation process, takes 4-6 months. The articles that have completed the subject editorial and peer-review evaluation stages and are accepted by the editorial are sent to the corresponding author for final checks and necessary final additions. After acceptance, the article designed in the journal's publication format is given a DOI number and published immediately on the article on the press page. When it is time to publish the periodic edition of the journal, a selection is made from the articles kept on the Article in Press page, taking into account the submission date. The time it takes for the article to be published by taking the page number is 6-12 months.

Printing Fee
An "Article management fee" is not requested for the articles submitted to Current Veterinary Science.

Responsibilities of the Publisher, Editors and Associate Editors

 The publisher (Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Dokuz Eylül University) contributes to the execution of the journal's routine processes, such as printing, archiving, and mailing, in accordance with the editor's requests.

 The publisher undertakes to carry out an independent and fair decision-making mechanism for its editors and assistants in the article evaluation process and decisions.

 The publisher undertakes to carry out an independent and fair decision-making mechanism for its editors and associate editors in the article evaluation process and decisions.

 The editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors of Current Veterinary Science evaluate articles submitted to the journal regardless of their race, gender, religious belief, ethnicity, citizenship, or political views. In addition, the journal undertakes not to disclose any information about the article except to the authors, subject editors, and referees.

 Current Veterinary Science follows internationally accepted principles and criteria and makes the necessary decisions to apply them in the journal.

 Editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors conduct the evaluation and decision process in the journal in coordination with the principles of confidentiality and have independent decision-making authority and responsibility without being affected by any internal or external factors.

 Editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors make and implement all kinds of planning for the journal's development and international recognition. They also follow national and international meetings or events on journal development and article evaluation and ensure that the journal is represented on these platforms.

 The editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors make every effort to ensure that the journal's subject editors and referee pool have international qualifications. Likewise, it makes the necessary attempts to strengthen the author's profile.

 Editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors make plans to improve the quality of the articles published in the journal and carry out the necessary process.

 Editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors regularly conduct and control the initial evaluation, preliminary evaluation, peer review, and acceptance-rejection decisions of articles submitted to the journal. While carrying out these procedures, features such as the suitability of the study for the journal's aims and scope, its originality, the up-to-date and reliability of the scientific methods used, and the potential it will contribute to the journal's development as well as its benefit to science/practice are taken into consideration.

 Editors-in-chief, editors, and associate editors systematically review, inspect, and make decisions about articles submitted to the journal, considering features such as author rights, conflict of interest, observance, and protection of animal rights, and compliance with research and publication ethics.

 The editor-in-chief conducts the evaluation/revision process between the authors, subject editors, and referees and ensures it is completed within the prescribed time.

Archive Policy
The editorial office of the Current Veterinary Science and the publisher (Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Dokuz Eylül University) keep all the articles (electronic) published in the journal in their archives. All articles and their attachment files sent to the journal are kept securely in the archive. In light of technological developments, the editorial office of the Current Veterinary Science regularly performs electronic processes to develop and update materials in the digital environment. It presents them to its readers on the condition of keeping the original documents and information regarding the articles safe.

Even if the journal ceases to be published for any reason, the publisher (Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Dokuz Eylül University) will continue to protect the journal content in the long term and provide convenient access to users. Electronic services of the Dokuz Eylül University Information Technologies Department will be used for the journal to maintain this responsibility.

Responsibilities of Subject Editors
 Subject editors conduct reviews and evaluations in accordance with the journal's main publication goals and policies and with the criteria that will contribute to its development.

 Author information is kept confidential in articles sent to the subject editor for preliminary evaluation by the editor.

 Subject editors thoroughly examine the sections of the introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, and conclusion in terms of journal publication policies, scope, originality, and research ethics. After evaluation, the subject editor submits its decision (rejection, revision, or peer-review) to the chief editor in a reasoned report.

 The subject editor may request additional information and documents related to the study from the authors when necessary.

 The article can be submitted in multidisciplinary studies to evaluate multiple subject editors.

Responsibilities of Referees
 A double-blinded peer-review procedure is applied in Current Veterinary Science to evaluate articles submitted to the journal in accordance with the principle of impartiality and objective criteria; that is, referees and writers do not know about each other.

 The referees submit their opinions and reports to the editor-in-chief to ensure the control and suitability of a submitted article, its scientific content, scientific consistency, and compliance with the journal's principles. When a referee decides to "reject" an article, they prepare the reasons for the decision in accordance with scientific norms and present them to the editor.

 The referee(s) also allow the authors to improve the article's content. Accordingly, the revisions requested from the authors should be quality that explains / questions specific issues rather than general statements.

 Referees appointed for the evaluation of the articles agree that the articles are confidential documents and will not share any information about these documents with third parties except for the editors participating in the evaluation.

 Referees should place their criticism on scientific infrastructure and write their explanations based on scientific evidence. All comments made by the referees to improve the articles should be clear and direct and written away from disturbing the author's feelings. Insulting and derogatory statements should be avoided.

 Suppose a referee has an exciting relationship with the author(s) on one or more issues. In that case, they must report the situation to the editor and ask them to withdraw from the referee position. The same applies when the authors illegally obtain information about the article's referees and try to influence them.

 The editor-in-chief can share the comments and reports from the referees with the editors/associate editors and the relevant subject editor, as necessary, to ensure that the decision on the article is optimal. If required, the editor may share the critical decision and grounds that a referee has sent about the article with the other referee(s) and present them to their attention.
 Referee(s) may request revision many times for the article they evaluated.

 The content of the referee reports is checked and evaluated by the editor-in-chief, editors, and associate editors. The editorial makes the final decision.

Responsibilities of Author(s)
 It is not tolerable for the author (s) to send an article that has already been sent to another journal to Current Veterinary Science within the scope of the "which accepts" or "which publishes first" approach. If this is detected, the article is rejected at any evaluation stage. As a possible result of these actions, in the process following the previous acceptance of the article sent to another journal, the withdrawal request with this excuse that the authors submit for this article, the evaluation process of which is going on in our journal, is evaluated by the editors and associate editors of the journal and disciplinary action on the grounds of ethical violations about those responsible is started. This unethical action is also reported to the journal editor (if known), who accepted the article.

 The articles to be sent to Current Veterinary Science must include studies with up-to-date, original, and essential clinical/practical results and are prepared according to the journal's writing rules.

 Authors should choose the references they use during the article's writing by the ethical principles and cite them according to the rules.

 The authors are obliged to revise the article in line with the issues conveyed to them during the initial evaluation, preliminary evaluation, and peer-review phases of the article and to explain the changes they made/did not make sequentially in the "response to the editor" and "response to reviewer comments" sections.

 If information, documents, or data regarding the study are requested during the evaluation process, the corresponding author must submit them to the editorial.

 Authors should be aware of and consider the issues listed in the "General Ethical Principles" section regarding scientific research and authors.

 The authors do not have the right to submit multiple articles to Current Veterinary Science simultaneously. It is more appropriate to submit them within acceptable time intervals for the journal's policy.