Publishing Policy & Ethics

Assessment and Publication

As a peer-reviewed journal, it is our goal to advance scientific knowledge and understanding. We have outlined a set of ethical principles that must be followed by all authors, reviewers, and editors.

All manuscripts submitted to our journals are pre-evaluated in terms of their relevance to the scope of the journal, language, compliance with writing instructions, suitability for science, and originality, by taking into account the current legal requirements regarding copyright infringement and plagiarism. Manuscripts that are evaluated as insufficient or non-compliant with the instructions for authors may be rejected without peer review.
Editors and referees who are expert researchers in their fields assess scientific manuscripts submitted to our journals. A blind peer review policy is applied to the evaluation process. The Editor-in-Chief, if he/she sees necessary, may assign an Editor for the manuscript or may conduct the scientific assessment of the manuscript himself/herself. Editors may also assign referees for the scientific assessment of the manuscript and make their decisions based on reports by the referees. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision regarding the publishing of the manuscript.
Authors can access this information online via the journals’ websites (https://publicationethics.org/). Articles are accepted for publication on the understanding that they have not been published and are not going to be considered for publication elsewhere. Authors should certify that neither the manuscript nor its main contents have already been published or submitted for publication in another journal.

The Journal; Implements the Publication Policy and Ethics guidelines to meet high-quality ethical standards for authors, editors and reviewers:

Duties of Editors-in-Chief and co-Editors
The crucial role of the journal Editor-in-Chief and co-Editors is to monitor and ensure the fairness, timeliness, thoroughness, and civility of the peer-review editorial process. The main responsibilities of Editors-in-Chief are as follows:

• Selecting manuscripts suitable for publication while rejecting unsuitable manuscripts,
• Ensuring a supply of high-quality manuscripts to the journal by identifying important,
• Increasing the journal’s impact factor and maintaining the publishing schedule,
• Providing strategic input for the journal’s development,

Duties of Editors

The main responsibilities of editors are as follows:

• An editor must evaluate the manuscript objectively for publication, judging each on its quality without considering the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, religion, gender, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s). Editors should decline any assignment when there is a potential for conflict of interest.
• Editors must ensure the document(s) sent to the reviewers does not contain information of the author(s) and vice versa.
• Editors’ decisions should be provided to the author(s) accompanied by the reviewers’ comments and recommendations unless they contain offensive or libelous remarks.
• Editors should respect requests (if well reasoned and practicable) from author(s) that an individual should not review the submission.
• Editors and all staff members should guarantee the confidentiality of the submitted manuscript.
• Editors should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept. They must not have a conflict of interest with the author(s), funder(s), or reviewer(s) of the manuscript.
• Editors should strive to meet the needs of readers and authors and to constantly improve the journal.

Duties of Reviewers/Referees

The main responsibilities of reviewers/referees are as follows:

• Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information.
• Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author.
• Reviewers assist in the editorial decision process and as such should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
• Reviewers should complete their reviews within a specified timeframe (maximum thirty-five (35) days). In the event that a reviewer feels it is not possible for him/her to complete the review of the manuscript within a stipulated time, then this information must be communicated to the editor so that the manuscript could be sent to another reviewer.
• Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s personal research without the written permission of the author. Information contained in an unpublished manuscript will remain confidential and must not be used by the reviewer for personal gain.
• Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
• Reviewers should identify similar work in published manuscripts that has not been cited by the author. Reviewers should also notify the Editors of significant similarities and/or overlaps between the manuscript and any other published or unpublished material.

Duties of Authors

The main responsibilities of authors are as follows:

• The author(s) should affirm that the material has not been previously published and that they have not transferred elsewhere any rights to the article.
• The author(s) should ensure the originality of the work and that they have properly cited others’ work in accordance with the reference format.
• The author(s) should not engage in plagiarism or in self-plagiarism.
• On clinical and experimental humans and animals, which require an ethical committee decision for research in all branches of science;
All kinds of research carried out with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from the participants by using survey, interview, focus group work, observation, experiment, interview techniques,
Use of humans and animals (including material/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,
• Clinical studies on humans,
• Studies on animals,
• Retrospective studies in accordance with the law on the protection of personal data, (Ethics committee approval should have been obtained for each individual application, and this approval should be stated and documented in the article.)
Information about the permission (board name, date, and number) should be included in the "Method" section of the article and also on the first/last page.
During manuscript upload, the “Ethics Committee Approval” file should be uploaded to the system in addition to the manuscript file.
In addition, in case reports, it is necessary to include information on the signing of the informed consent/ informed consent form in the manuscript.
• The author(s) should suggest no personal information that might make the identity of the patient recognizable in any form of description, photograph, or pedigree. When photographs of the patient were essential and indispensable as scientific information, the author(s) have received consent in written form and have clearly stated as much.
• The author(s) should provide the editor with the data and details of the work if there are suspicions of data falsification or fabrication. Fraudulent data shall not be tolerated. Any manuscript with suspected fabricated or falsified data will not be accepted. A retraction will be made for any publication which is found to have included fabricated or falsified data.
• The author(s) should clarify everything that may cause a conflict of interests such as work, research expenses, consultant expenses, and intellectual property.
• The author(s) must follow the submission guidelines of the journal.
• The author(s) discover(s) a significant error and/or inaccuracy in the submitted manuscript at any time, then the error and/or inaccuracy must be reported to the editor.
• The author(s) should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support should be disclosed under the heading of “Acknowledgment” or “Contribution”.
• The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research should be acknowledged or listed under the heading of “Author Contributions”.

Cancellations/Returns

Articles/manuscripts may be returned to the authors in order to increase the authenticity and/or reliability and to prevent ethical breaches, and even if articles have been accepted and/or published, they can be withdrawn from publication if necessary. The Editor-in-Chief of the journal has the right to return or withdraw an article/manuscript in the following situations:
• When the manuscript is not within the scope of the journal,
• When the scientific quality and/or content of the manuscript do not meet the standards of the journal and a referee review is not necessary,
• When there is proof of ruling out the findings obtained by the research, (When the article/manuscript is undergoing an assessment or publication process by another journal, congress, conference, etc.,)
• When the article/manuscript was not prepared in compliance with scientific publication ethics,
• When any other plagiarism is detected in the article/manuscript,
• When the authors do not perform the requested corrections within the requested time (maximum twenty-one (21) days),
• When the author does not submit the requested documents/materials/data etc. within the requested time,
• When the requested documents/materials/data etc. submitted by the author are missing for the second time,
• When the study includes outdated data,
• When the authors make changes that are not approved by the editor after the manuscript was submitted,
• When an author is added/removed, the order of the authors is changed, the corresponding author is changed, or the addresses of the authors are changed without the consent of the Editor-in-Chief,
• When a statement is not submitted indicating that approval of the ethics committee permission was obtained for the following (including retrospective studies):
• When human rights or animal rights are violated,

ETHICAL ISSUES

Plagiarism

The use of someone else’s ideas or words without a proper citation is considered plagiarism and will not be tolerated. Even if a citation is given, if quotation marks are not placed around words taken directly from other authors’ work, the author is still guilty of plagiarism. Reuse of the author’s own previously published words, with or without a citation, is regarded as self-plagiarism.
All manuscripts received are submitted to iThenticate®, which compares the content of the manuscript with a database of web pages and academic publications. Manuscripts are judged to be plagiarized or self-plagiarized, based on the iThenticate® report or any other source of information, will be rejected. Corrective actions are proposed when plagiarism and/or self-plagiarism is detected after publication. Editors should analyze the article and decide whether a corrected article or retraction needs to be published.
Open-access theses are considered as published works and they are included in the similarity checks.
iThenticate® report should have a maximum of 11% from a single source, and a maximum of 25% in total.

Conflicts of Interest

Eskişehir Technical University Journal of Science and Technology C - Life Sciences and Biotechnology should be informed of any significant conflict of interest of editors, authors, or reviewers to determine whether any action would be appropriate (e.g. an author's statement of conflict of interest for a published work, or disqualifying a referee).

Financial

The authors and reviewers of the article should inform the journal about the financial information that will bring financial gain or loss to any organization from the publication of the article.
*Research funds; funds, consulting fees for a staff member; If you have an interest, such as patent interests, you may have a conflict of interest that needs to be declared.
Other areas of interest
The editor or reviewer may disclose a conflict of interest that, if known, would be embarrassing (for example, an academic affiliation or rivalry,a close relationship or dislike, or a person who may be affected by the publication of the article).

Conflict of interest statement

Please note that a conflict of interest statement is required for all submitted manuscripts. If there is no conflict of interest, please state “There are no conflicts of interest to declare” in your manuscript under the heading “Conflicts of Interest” as the last section before your Acknowledgments.