Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Gazi University Journal of Science Part A: Engineering and Innovation is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, research integrity, transparency, and responsible scholarly publishing. The journal follows internationally recognized principles of publication ethics and relevant guidance provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
All authors, reviewers, editors, and other parties involved in the publication process are expected to act with integrity, fairness, confidentiality, transparency, and accountability.
A. Ethical Principles
The journal is committed to maintaining the integrity and reliability of the scholarly record. All submitted manuscripts undergo editorial assessment, similarity screening, and double-blind peer review to ensure fair, independent, and confidential evaluation. The identities of both authors and reviewers remain strictly confidential throughout the process.
Editorial and Peer Review Workflow:
1.Initial Screening: Submitted manuscripts undergo a preliminary technical and editorial review to check format, language, layout, and compliance with the journal’s scope. This administrative check does not replace scientific peer review.
2.Double-Blind Peer Review: Manuscripts passing the initial technical screening are evaluated through a double-blind peer review process, wherein the identities of both authors and reviewers remain strictly confidential. Each manuscript is assigned to at least two independent external expert reviewers. In the event of a split decision (e.g., one acceptance and one rejection), the manuscript is submitted to a third independent external reviewer for further evaluation.
Duties of Reviewers: Reviewers evaluate manuscripts objectively and confidentially. They must disclose any potential conflicts of interest, refrain from reviewing papers in cases of competitive or collaborative relationships, and ensure that all unpublished materials remain confidential. Reviewer evaluations must be based strictly on the intellectual content, originality, and scientific rigor of the submission without regard to the authors' race, gender, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, or citizenship.
3.Editorial Decision: Reviewer recommendations inform the editorial outcome; however, the final decision regarding acceptance, revision, or rejection rests solely with the Editor-in-Chief or a designated editor. A positive reviewer recommendation does not automatically guarantee publication.
4.Revisions: Authors may be requested to revise their manuscripts based on editorial and reviewer feedback. Revised manuscripts may undergo additional review rounds or be re-evaluated by the original reviewers when necessary.
Publication Fees and Transparency: No Publication Fees: The journal does not charge any submission, processing, page, or publication fees.; Article History: Submission, revision, acceptance, and publication dates are explicitly displayed on each published article page.
B. Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
1. Originality and Exclusive Submission: Authors must submit original work that has not been published previously and is not under consideration by another journal.
Simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal is not permitted.
Authors must properly acknowledge and cite all sources, ideas, data, methods, and other materials used in their work.
If duplicate submission, duplicate publication, plagiarism, or another significant ethical concern is identified, the journal may suspend or terminate the editorial process and may take further action in accordance with this policy.
2. Authorship: Authorship must be limited to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the conception, design, execution, analysis, or interpretation of the research and who have participated in drafting or critically revising the manuscript.
All listed authors must approve the final version of the manuscript and agree to be accountable for the integrity and accuracy of the work.
Individuals who do not meet appropriate authorship criteria should not be listed as authors.
Any change in authorship after submission must be justified, agreed upon by all authors, and approved by the journal.
3. Plagiarism and Similarity Screening: The journal uses similarity-screening tools, including iThenticate, as part of its editorial quality-control process.
The journal applies the following similarity thresholds as screening criteria:
- Total similarity: Max 20%
- Single source: Max 4%
- Overall similarity (including references, captions, and template): Max 30%
Similarity scores are screening indicators and are not, by themselves, evidence of plagiarism. The editorial team evaluates the nature, source, extent, and context of detected overlap before making an editorial decision.
Where plagiarism, inappropriate copying, or other forms of unattributed reuse are identified, the journal may request clarification or correction, reject the manuscript, or take other appropriate action in accordance with its publication ethics procedures.
4. Research Integrity, Data, and Reproducibility: Authors are responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the research presented in their manuscripts.
Authors should retain sufficient research data, analytical materials, and supporting information to permit verification of the reported findings.
Where reasonably necessary and subject to applicable ethical, legal, confidentiality, and intellectual-property restrictions, the journal may request supporting data, research materials, or other information necessary to assess the integrity of the reported work.
Fabrication, falsification, inappropriate manipulation of data or images, and misleading presentation of research findings constitute serious breaches of publication ethics.
5. Research Ethics: Where research involves human participants, animals, identifiable personal information, or other activities requiring ethical approval, authors must obtain the appropriate ethical approval or authorization before conducting the research and provide the relevant information in the manuscript.
Authors are responsible for complying with applicable legal, institutional, and ethical requirements governing their research.
6. Funding: Authors must disclose all sources of financial support for the research and publication.
Where no external funding was received, this should be stated explicitly.
7. Conflict of Interest: Authors must disclose any financial or non-financial conflict of interest that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research, its interpretation, or its publication.
Failure to disclose a relevant conflict of interest may constitute a publication-ethics concern.
8. Third-Party Materials and Copyright: Authors are responsible for ensuring that third-party materials included in their manuscripts are used lawfully.
Where third-party material is not owned by the authors and is not covered by an applicable copyright exception, authors must obtain the necessary permission or licence.
Third-party materials subject to different licensing or copyright conditions must be clearly identified where appropriate.
The use of third-party material does not automatically place that material under the Creative Commons licence applied to the article as a whole.
9. Licensing and Copyright: Authors retain copyright in their published work.
The journal does not require authors to assign or surrender copyright ownership to the journal. Authors retain full copyright and publishing rights of their work without restrictions. By signing the Licensing and Open Access Declaration Form, authors grant Gazi University Journal of Science Part A: Engineering and Innovation (published by Gazi University Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences) a non-exclusive license to publish, reproduce, distribute, and make the article available under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
The copyright and licensing terms must be interpreted consistently with the journal's open access policy. All published content and associated metadata are permanently accessible via their assigned DOI (e.g., https://doi.org/10.54287/gujsa.xxxxxx).
10. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automated Tools Policy : The journal recognizes the appropriate and responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI and large language models (LLMs), in scholarly research and publishing. The use of AI and automated tools must not compromise research integrity, transparency, confidentiality, authorship, or human accountability.
-Authorship and Responsibility: Artificial intelligence (AI) tools, language models, and machine-learning algorithms do not meet the criteria for authorship and must not be listed as authors or co-authors. AI tools must not be cited as authors or as independent scholarly sources.
Human authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, appropriate attribution, validity, and legal status of the entire content of their manuscript, including any content, data, analyses, calculations, references, or other outputs produced or modified with the assistance of AI tools.
Permitted Use and Disclosure: Generative AI tools and other automated technologies may be used in research and manuscript preparation when their use is subject to appropriate human oversight and verification.
Straightforward language correction, editing, translation, or formatting does not normally require disclosure. However, the use of generative AI beyond such routine assistance, including for data curation, content generation or synthesis, substantive analysis, interpretation, experimental design, or other material aspects of manuscript preparation, must be disclosed.
The disclosure should identify the AI tool used and describe its purpose. Authors should provide this information in a dedicated “AI Disclosure” section placed before the references or, where appropriate, in the Acknowledgements.
Verification of AI-Assisted Content: Authors are responsible for independently verifying all AI-assisted content before submission. This includes text, data, analyses, interpretations, calculations, citations, references, figures, images, and other outputs.
AI-generated or AI-assisted content must not be included in a manuscript if it is inaccurate, misleading, plagiarized, fabricated, or otherwise inappropriate. AI-generated citations and references must be independently checked for their existence, accuracy, relevance, and bibliographic details.
Generative AI must not be cited as a source or used as a substitute for the original scholarly literature.
Figures, Images, and Other Visual Materials: Figures, images, or other graphical materials that are generated, substantially modified, or enhanced using generative AI must be transparently identified in the relevant figure caption or accompanying statement, where applicable.
Authors are responsible for ensuring that the use of AI-generated or AI-assisted visual materials complies with copyright, licensing, privacy, ethical, and other applicable requirements.
Peer Reviewers; Peer reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of all manuscripts, data, supplementary materials, reviewer reports, and other information received during the peer-review process.
Reviewers must not upload, disclose, or otherwise transfer unpublished manuscripts or confidential manuscript information to generative AI tools or other external automated systems.
Reviewers must not use generative AI to generate, substantially write, or replace their peer-review reports or their independent scholarly assessment of a manuscript.
Any permitted use of automated tools must not compromise confidentiality or replace the reviewer's independent judgment. Reviewers remain personally responsible for the content and integrity of their reviews.
Editors and Editorial Decision-Making: Editors must maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, author correspondence, and other information obtained during the editorial process.
Editors must not upload confidential manuscript or peer-review material to generative AI tools or other external automated systems.
Generative AI must not be used to generate or determine peer-review assessments, acceptance or rejection decisions, or other substantive editorial judgments. Editorial decisions must remain based on independent human judgment.
Where AI or automated tools are used for appropriate administrative or technical purposes, their outputs must be reviewed and verified by an editor or other appropriately qualified member of the journal staff.
Use of Automated Tools by the Journal: The journal may use appropriately tested automated tools for administrative, technical, or research-integrity purposes, such as similarity checking, metadata processing, formatting, or identifying potential integrity concerns.
The journal will disclose the routine use of such tools where appropriate. Automated outputs are considered supporting information and must not, by themselves, constitute the basis for an editorial or research-integrity decision.
All substantive decisions based on automated-tool outputs remain subject to human review and verification.
Human Oversight and Accountability: AI and automated tools may assist authors, reviewers, editors, or journal staff but must not replace human responsibility, scholarly judgment, or editorial accountability.
The journal will follow applicable publication-ethics principles and relevant COPE guidance when addressing inappropriate or undisclosed use of AI, fabricated or unverifiable AI-generated content or references, breaches of confidentiality, or other concerns relating to the use of AI and automated tools.
C. Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers
Reviewers play an essential role in maintaining the quality and integrity of the journal publications.
Reviewers must:
- evaluate manuscripts objectively, fairly, and within their area of expertise;
- provide constructive, evidence-based, and sufficiently detailed comments;
- maintain strict confidentiality regarding manuscripts and all associated information;
- disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest;
- decline a review when they do not have the appropriate expertise or cannot complete the review within the required timeframe;
- identify relevant published work that has not been appropriately cited where necessary;
- alert the editors to possible plagiarism, duplicate publication, data manipulation, or other ethical concerns.
Reviewers must not use unpublished information obtained through peer review for personal advantage or for any purpose unrelated to the review process.
Reviewers must not upload manuscripts, data, figures, supplementary files, reviewer reports, or other confidential review materials to generative AI tools or external automated systems in a manner that could compromise confidentiality.
Reviewers must not use generative AI to generate or substantially assist in producing their peer-review assessment. Any permitted use of automated tools must preserve confidentiality and comply with the journal's applicable policies.
D. Responsibilities of Editors
The Editor-in-Chief and editorial team are responsible for maintaining the academic quality, fairness, integrity, and transparency of the journal’s editorial process.
Editors must:
- make editorial decisions based on the scholarly quality, originality, relevance, and methodological soundness of manuscripts;
- ensure that manuscripts are evaluated according to the journal’s stated double-blind peer-review process;
- ensure that each research manuscript is evaluated by at least two independent external reviewers with appropriate subject expertise;
- select reviewers with appropriate expertise and without relevant conflicts of interest;
- protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts;
- avoid discrimination based on characteristics unrelated to the scholarly merits of the manuscript;
- disclose and appropriately manage their own conflicts of interest;
- ensure that manuscripts authored by the Editor-in-Chief, editors, editorial board members, or reviewers are handled through an independent editorial process and evaluated by independent external reviewers without relevant conflicts of interest;
- ensure that an editor who is an author of a manuscript does not participate in the editorial evaluation or final decision concerning that manuscript;
- ensure that the proportion of published research articles in which at least one author is the Editor-in-Chief, an editor, an editorial board member, or a reviewer does not exceed 25% in either of the two most recent issues;
- ensure that final editorial decisions are based on the scholarly merits of the manuscript and are made independently of inappropriate personal or external influence;
- respond appropriately to allegations of research or publication misconduct;
- take reasonable steps to maintain the integrity of the published scholarly record.
Reviewer recommendations are advisory. The final editorial decision is the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief or a designated editor who is not involved in the relevant conflict of interest.
The duration of the editorial and peer-review process may vary depending on reviewer availability, manuscript complexity, revisions, and the need for additional review. The journal does not guarantee a fixed review or acceptance period.
The editorial and peer-review process is entirely free of charge.
Editorial Independence and Endogeny: The journal is committed to maintaining editorial independence and minimizing endogeneity in its published content. Manuscripts authored by the Editor-in-Chief, editors, editorial board members, or reviewers must be handled through an independent editorial process and evaluated by independent external reviewers who have no relevant conflict of interest with the authors.
The journal monitors the proportion of research articles involving members of the editorial team, editorial board, or reviewer pool as authors. In each of the two most recent issues, the proportion of published research articles in which at least one author is the Editor-in-Chief, an editor, an editorial board member, or a reviewer must not exceed 25% of the research articles published in that issue.
For manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-Chief, editors, editorial board members, or reviewers, the relevant individual must not participate in the editorial decision-making process for their own manuscript. Such manuscripts shall be assigned to an independent editor and evaluated through the journal's standard external peer-review process.
The journal periodically reviews its published content to monitor compliance with this requirement and to support transparency, editorial independence, and the integrity of the peer-review process.
E. Editorial Misconduct and Publication Ethics Concerns
The journal considers the following to be potential forms of research or publication misconduct:
- plagiarism or substantial unattributed copying;
- fabrication or falsification of data;
- inappropriate manipulation or presentation of images or research results;
- duplicate or redundant publication;
- simultaneous submission to multiple journals;
- inappropriate authorship or authorship manipulation;
- undisclosed conflicts of interest;
- undisclosed sources of funding where disclosure is required;
- citation manipulation;
- unethical research involving human participants, animals, or identifiable personal information;
- manipulation or interference with the peer-review process;
- other conduct that materially compromises the integrity of the scholarly record.
When a potential ethical violation is identified, the journal may request explanations, supporting documentation, corrections, or other information from the authors or relevant parties.
Where appropriate, the journal may contact the authors' institution or another relevant authority and may take editorial action based on the available evidence and applicable publication-ethics guidance.
F. Complaints and Appeals
Authors may raise concerns or appeal an editorial decision by contacting the journal through its official editorial contact channel.
An appeal should provide specific reasons and relevant evidence supporting the request for reconsideration.
Appeals are reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief or an appropriate independent editor who was not responsible for the original decision whenever practicable.
An appeal does not guarantee reversal of the original decision. Editorial decisions remain based on scholarly and ethical considerations.
Complaints concerning editorial conduct, peer review, or publication ethics are considered seriously and handled confidentially and fairly.
G. Corrections, Retractions, and Post-Publication Issues
The journal is committed to maintaining an accurate and reliable scholarly record.
If a significant error is identified after publication, the journal may publish an appropriate correction or other post-publication notice.
If an article is found to contain serious errors, research misconduct, fabricated or falsified information, unethical research practices, or other circumstances that materially undermine the reliability of the published record, the journal may consider retraction or another appropriate editorial action.
Post-publication concerns are assessed individually, and the journal may consult authors, reviewers, editors, institutions, or other relevant parties where necessary.
Corrections, retractions, and other post-publication notices should be linked to the affected article and should clearly identify the nature of the action taken.
H. Special Issues and Guest-Edited Content
Special issues and other content curated by guest editors must remain within the scope of the journal and must be subject to the same standards of editorial oversight and external peer review as regular journal content.
The Editor-in-Chief retains overall responsibility for the content of the journal, including special issues.
Guest editors' academic qualifications and expertise must be appropriately assessed and approved by the journal.
The Editor-in-Chief or designated editorial board members must provide appropriate oversight of guest editors and special-issue content.
Manuscripts submitted by guest editors or individuals with a relevant conflict of interest must be handled through an independent review process.
Papers submitted to a special issue by guest editors must not constitute more than 25% of the issue's total content.
I. Transparency and Accountability
The journal is committed to providing transparent and accessible information concerning its editorial process, peer review, publication ethics, licensing, copyright, author rights, and publication charges.
The journal's policies may be updated when necessary to reflect developments in scholarly publishing, research-integrity standards, and relevant publication-ethics guidance.
The journal reserves the right to take appropriate editorial and ethical action when information becomes available that calls into question the integrity, originality, legality, or reliability of a submitted or published work.
September 30, 2026
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