PUBLICATION POLICY

Farabi Medical Journal (Farabi Med J) is the official journal of the Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Medicine. It is a non-profit, open-access scientific journal. No fees are charged for manuscript submission, evaluation, or publication, and no royalties are paid to authors for published articles.

The journal follows the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics in its editorial and publication processes. All submitted manuscripts first undergo a preliminary evaluation to determine whether they comply with the journal’s writing and submission requirements, scientific quality standards, and ethical policies.  The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the journal’s policies, lack sufficient scientific merit, or to return them to the authors for technical correction before peer review.

Farabi Medical Journal primarily publishes original clinical and experimental research articles. Review articles are considered only upon invitation by the Editor or Editorial Board. Manuscripts submitted to the journal must be original, must not have been published previously, and must not be under consideration by another journal at the time of submission. Authors are responsible for ensuring compliance with ethical standards, including approval by relevant ethics committees and, where applicable, informed consent. This updated Aim and Scope is effective for all manuscripts submitted to Farabi Medical Journal on or after 6 April 2026. Submissions prior to this date will be evaluated according to the journal’s previous scope and editorial policies.

The journal operates under a double-blind peer-review system and adheres to international standards of publication ethics. All responsibility for the scientific content of published articles lies with the authors.

All manuscripts deemed suitable after preliminary evaluation are assessed through a double-blind peer-review process by at least two independent reviewers. The journal may involve statistical and language editors where necessary. The final decision regarding publication rests with the Editorial Board.

Submission by Editors and Editorial Board Members

To ensure impartiality, transparency, and editorial independence, Farabi Medical Journal applies the following principles in cases where members of the editorial team submit manuscripts to the journal:

• A maximum of one article per calendar year authored or co-authored by an Editor, Section Editor, or Editorial Board Member may be published in the journal, and such articles must not exceed 5% of total publications per year.
• Editorial Board members who are authors of a submitted manuscript are strictly excluded from all stages of reviewer selection, evaluation, and editorial decision-making for that manuscript and cannot access the peer-review process.
• All such manuscripts are handled by another editor with no conflict of interest or, where necessary, by an independent Guest Editor. Fast-track or accelerated review processes are not permitted for these submissions.
• All evaluations are conducted under a double-blind peer-review process, and such manuscripts are subject to the same scientific and methodological evaluation standards as all other submissions. The journal reserves the right to reject these manuscripts at any stage, including editorial pre-evaluation (desk rejection).
• If accepted, the article will include a statement indicating that the editorial evaluation process was conducted independently of the author’s editorial role, ensuring full transparency.

Institutional Diversity and Publication Quota

Farabi Medical Journal aims to maintain institutional diversity in its published content in line with good editorial practice and indexing expectations.

To prevent excessive concentration of publications from the publisher institution, articles including at least one author affiliated with Karadeniz Technical University must not exceed 15% of total publications per calendar year.

The journal monitors repeated authorship from the same institution, and excessive representation of the same authors within a given year may be subject to editorial limitation or delayed publication, particularly when not justified by multicenter or collaborative studies.

This ratio is continuously monitored during the publication process. Manuscripts exceeding this quota may be delayed to a subsequent issue or calendar year, even if they have successfully completed peer review.

Submissions from the publisher institution may be assigned lower editorial priority when the institutional quota threshold is approached.

The journal prioritizes submissions from diverse institutions and international contributors in order to promote scientific diversity and prevent institutional inbreeding.

AI USE POLICY

Farabi Medical Journal recognizes that artificial intelligence (AI) tools may provide supportive assistance during different stages of scholarly work. The journal supports the responsible, transparent, and limited use of such tools, provided that their use does not compromise scientific integrity, confidentiality, originality, or human accountability. 

AI tools may assist with limited tasks such as language improvement or technical editing, but they may not replace the intellectual, scientific, ethical, or editorial responsibilities of authors, reviewers, or editors. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, validity, and integrity of all submitted and published content.

The following principles apply:

For Authors

• AI tools may be used for language editing or limited writing assistance, provided that such use is clearly disclosed in the manuscript or submission process where required.
• Authors must not use AI tools to generate scientific findings, fabricate data, create misleading interpretations, or produce substantial manuscript content presented as original scholarly authorship.
• Uploading confidential manuscript content to public AI platforms is not recommended because of privacy and data security concerns.
• The use of AI for figure, image, or data manipulation in a misleading or scientifically inappropriate manner is prohibited.
• Authors must declare any AI tools used during manuscript preparation. The ultimate responsibility for the manuscript always remains with the authors.

For Reviewers

• Reviewers must not upload submitted manuscripts, in whole or in part, to public AI platforms or third-party systems that may compromise confidentiality.
• Reviewers must not use AI tools to generate or write peer-review reports on their behalf.
• If a reviewer uses any permitted local or secure tool for limited language support, this must not compromise the confidentiality or independence of the review process.

For Editors

• Editors must not use AI tools as a substitute for editorial judgment or publication decision-making.
• Editors may use internal or secure systems for technical checks, such as similarity screening, provided that these tools are used under human oversight.
• Editors are responsible for ensuring that any use of AI within editorial workflows remains transparent, proportionate, and consistent with publication ethics.

Topic	Authors	Reviewers	Editors
Language editing with AI	Permitted — disclosure required	Local tools only	Prohibited (public platforms)
Generating manuscript content with AI	Prohibited	—	—
Uploading manuscript text to AI platforms	Not recommended (privacy)	Prohibited	Prohibited
Writing peer review reports with AI	—	Prohibited	—
Editorial decision-making	—	—	Prohibited
Figure or image manipulation with AI	Prohibited	—	—
AI tool disclosure	Mandatory	Notify if applicable	Transparency report
Internal AI systems (similarity checks etc.)	—	—	Permitted — human oversight required

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHORS

The scientific and legal responsibility for all published articles belongs to the author(s). By submitting a manuscript to Farabi Medical Journal, authors accept that publication rights will be transferred to the journal upon acceptance. The Copyright Transfer Form and the Conflict of Interest Declaration Form must be completed, signed by all authors, and uploaded during submission. A signed hard copy may also be requested when necessary. 

All manuscripts submitted to the journal are subject to similarity screening in accordance with publication ethics. For this purpose, a report obtained through intihal.net is requested during submission. Where deemed necessary, the editors may also use other similarity-checking tools such as iThenticate or Turnitin. Manuscripts with missing documents or incomplete submission information may be excluded from evaluation.

All author information, including ORCID iDs, must be entered completely and accurately into the submission system.

For all research requiring ethics committee approval, such approval must be obtained before submission, and the relevant information must be clearly stated in the manuscript. Authors must indicate compliance with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments, as well as with the applicable regulations of the Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Health.

Ethics committee approval is required for, but not limited to, the following:

• research involving human participants using qualitative or quantitative data collection methods, including questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, observation, and experimental methods;
• studies involving human or animal materials/data for scientific purposes;
• retrospective studies, where ethical approval is required under applicable regulations.

Where required, authors must clearly state that informed consent was obtained from participants.

For the use of scales, questionnaires, photographs, figures, tables, or any other copyrighted material belonging to third parties, the necessary permissions must be obtained from the copyright holder and appropriately documented. Legal, financial, and ethical responsibility in such matters belongs to the author(s).

If a manuscript is rejected, copyright remains with or is returned to the authors. If it is accepted, the publication rights are transferred to the journal.

The final responsibility for the content of published articles belongs to the authors. The editors, editorial board, and publisher do not assume responsibility for the scientific claims or interpretations presented in the articles.

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF REVIEWERS

Reviewers are expected to contribute to the scientific quality of the journal by conducting evaluations in a fair, timely, objective, and confidential manner. 

Reviewers are expected to:

• accept review assignments only in fields relevant to their expertise and only when they have no conflict of interest;
• evaluate manuscripts objectively, impartially, and solely on the basis of scientific merit;
• complete the review process within the requested time;
• provide constructive, respectful, and scholarly feedback aimed at improving manuscript quality;
• protect the confidentiality of the manuscript and all information obtained during the review process.

EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Editors are responsible for managing the journal’s editorial processes in accordance with the principles of fairness, confidentiality, scientific merit, and publication ethics.

Editors are expected to:

• provide necessary information to authors, reviewers, and readers in a timely manner;
• make publication decisions on the basis of the manuscript’s originality, scientific contribution, methodological validity, clarity of presentation, and relevance to the journal’s aims and scope;
• ensure that the double-blind peer-review process is applied properly and impartially;
• support unbiased, objective, and independent editorial evaluation at all stages;
• protect personal data and confidential information contained in submitted manuscripts;
• ensure that manuscripts involving human or animal subjects comply with ethical requirements and include the necessary approvals and permissions;
• use or request similarity/originality screening where necessary.

APPEALS AND COMPLAINTS

All appeals and complaints are handled by the Editorial Board in accordance with the principles of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).

Authors who wish to submit an appeal or complaint should contact the Editorial Board directly. When necessary, an external expert may be consulted in order to resolve matters that cannot be settled internally. The Editor-in-Chief is the final authority in the decision-making process for appeals and complaints.

SIMILATIRY SCREENING POLICY

Farabi Medical Journal subjects all submitted manuscripts to plagiarism and similarity screening in accordance with publication ethics principles. A similarity report obtained through intihal.net is required during submission. Manuscripts with a similarity rate exceeding 20% are not considered for further evaluation and may be returned to the corresponding author or rejected by the Editorial Board. When necessary, additional screening may be performed using other tools such as iThenticate or Turnitin.