JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION RESEARCHES ETHICAL PRINCIPLES AND PUBLICATION POLICY
The Journal of Communication Science Researches (JCSR) adopts a scientific publishing philosophy that adheres to principles of transparency. In this direction, the principles located under the publishing ethics published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) form the basis of JCSR's publication policy. In this context, in cases of misuse or breach of publication ethics, COPE's developed publication ethics flow charts (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts) are referenced.
Works desired to be included in JCSR must not have been previously published in another journal or platform and must not have entered the evaluation phase of another journal. During the evaluation phase of works, JCSR implements a double-blind peer review process. Accordingly, many aspects such as plagiarism, adopting a false stance regarding authorship and research scope, violation of copyright laws, and hiding conflicts of interest are considered contrary to ethical principles. Moreover, the necessity of obtaining 'Ethical Committee Approval' is emphasized for any research that involves the use of humans or animals as data collection tools. The removal of any work determined to be non-compliant with ethical principles from publication is considered.
JCSR pays attention to the highest standards of ethical values in scientific publishing and adopts publishing principles that are accepted on an international level. The responsibility for the compliance of articles with ethical rules lies with the authors.
Research Ethics
The journal adheres to the highest standards in research ethics and adopts the international research ethics principles defined below. The responsibility for ensuring articles comply with ethical rules lies with the authors. In the design, review, and conduct of the research, principles of integrity, quality, and transparency must be maintained. The research team and participants must be fully informed about the purpose, methods, and anticipated possible uses of the research; the requirements and potential risks of participation. The confidentiality of information provided by research participants and the privacy of respondents must be protected. Research should be designed to safeguard the autonomy and dignity of participants. Harm to participants should be avoided. Research should be planned in a way that does not put participants at risk. Clarity and transparency regarding research independence must be maintained; conflicts of interest should be disclosed. In experimental studies, written informed consent must be obtained from participants who decide to participate. The approval of a legal guardian is required for children, those under guardianship, or those with diagnosed mental illness. If the study is to be conducted in any institution or organization, approval from that institution or organization must be obtained.
Ethics Committee Approval
"Ethics Committee Approval" is required for the research indicated below. An approved "Ethics Committee Approval" from the institution of the article's author must be obtained. Research requiring Ethics Committee approval includes:
Any research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require collecting data from participants using surveys, interviews, focus group studies, observation, experiments, interview techniques, experimental or other scientific purposes involving humans and animals (including material/data), clinical research on humans, research on animals, and retrospective studies under the personal data protection law.
Furthermore, case reports must indicate that an "informed consent form" has been obtained, permissions must be obtained and indicated for using scales, questionnaires, and photographs belonging to others, and it must be stated that copyright laws have been adhered to for used ideas and artworks. The text must mention "Ethics Committee Permission". Articles must include a declaration of adherence to Research and Publication Ethics.
Open Access
The open access policy adopted by the Journal of Communication Science Research stipulates that all issues and contents of JCSR, published three times a year in January, May, and September, are provided to the reader for free. Readers have the right to read, download, and copy the full text of any work published within JCSR. This is in accordance with the definition of open access by the BUDAPEST OPEN ACCESS INITIATIVE (BOAI). Additionally, it is considered unethical for readers to use the content for commercial purposes.
Publication Policy
Works intended for publication within JCSR must be appropriate to the journal's aims and scope. In this direction, it is among the important points that the researches have an original value. Plagiarism, duplication, fake authorship/denied authorship, research/data fabrication, article slicing, publishing by slicing, copyright infringement, and hiding conflict of interest are considered unethical behaviors. All works that do not comply with the accepted ethical standards are removed from publication. The publication of works that are detected as irregular and/or unethical after the publication process is likewise suspended. The acceptance period of the article is at the discretion of the editors to be renewed. In the works sent to the journal for publication; without the written permission of all authors, any of the authors' names cannot be removed from the article credentials, a new name cannot be added to the credentials, and the order of authors cannot be changed. Articles must be arranged according to the draft article and sent along with a similarity report. Additionally, our authors are requested to provide a 'Response to Reviewer File' for article revision.
Plagiarism Check
Works subjected to preliminary control are scanned using plagiarism software. The issue of plagiarism, defined as the act of copying another person's or institution's ideas or works without permission and without citing sources, is addressed for the submitted works by utilizing the iThenticate and intihal.net software. Authors are informed in line with the data provided by plagiarism reports. Works with high similarity rates can be rejected even if they have been accepted, due to violation of publishing ethical principles. In this regard, the upper limit for similarity reports is 20%.
Evaluation Process
All articles submitted must be entirely original works. The article submitted should not be under review in any other journal. In cases where such submissions are detected, no further submissions from the related author will be accepted by the journal.
Submissions received by the journal management system undergo preliminary evaluation by the editors based on the following criteria within a maximum of 4 weeks. Evaluations are conducted according to the suitability for the journal's subject areas, similarity rate assessment, adherence to the journal's scientific rules (APA Rules), and publication language (abstract, adequacy of keywords, structured abstract translation, etc.).
Works that pass the preliminary evaluation stage by the editors are sent to two expert referees in the field according to the quality of the work. After the work is sent to a referee, they must inform the editorial board within a maximum of 4 weeks whether they can evaluate it or not. Referees who fail to communicate are replaced by new referee assignments. Depending on the quality of the work, referees evaluate the work on a standard evaluation form. Additionally, referees can also provide notes with suggestions and opinions on the full text to the editorial board if they wish. The period for referee evaluations is set as 4 weeks. Reviews from referees serve as guidance for the editors in making the final decision. The final decision always belongs to the editors.
The text translates to English as follows:
For the study, referees can express their opinions in 4 ways. These opinions are as follows:
- The manuscript can be accepted as is (Accept): Can be accepted for publication after corrections.
- The manuscript requires a few minor corrections (Minor Revision): The publication board decides after checking whether the corrections have been made.
- The manuscript requires significant changes (Major Revision): The referee re-evaluates after the corrections. After the work is submitted by the authors, it is taken into the second round of evaluation.
- The manuscript is not suitable for publication and cannot be published (Reject): Based on the referees' opinions, a 3rd or 4th referee can be assigned to the study, and this process works in the same way as described above. After the evaluation is completed in accordance with the referees' opinions, the referees' opinions are reviewed by the Editors within at least two weeks.
Duties and Responsibilities
Author Responsibilities: The responsibility for the scientific and ethical standards of the articles lies with the authors. Therefore, authors must guarantee that their articles are original, have not been published elsewhere before, and are not under consideration for publication in another language. Copyrights must be respected, and copyrighted material must be used with the necessary permissions. Works of other authors, contributors, or resources utilized should be appropriately used and cited in the references. All authors must directly contribute to the academic and scientific accuracy of the article; those who do not meet the criteria for authorship but have contributed should be acknowledged in the 'acknowledgments/credits' section. Financial relationships, conflicts of interest, and competition of interest should be declared. In studies involving human participants, it must be stated that informed consent has been obtained and ethical board approval has been received. The author must prepare their manuscript in accordance with the writing rules specified by the journal and submit their application accordingly.
Editor Responsibilities: The chief editor is responsible for ensuring that articles submitted for publication are evaluated impartially and that authors are treated fairly regardless of their ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religious belief, and political philosophy. The chief editor ensures that referees adhere to principles of impartiality by opposing conflicts of interest. The chief editor has full authority in the referee appointment process and is responsible for making the final decision regarding the articles to be published in the journal.
Referee Responsibilities: Referees are expected to adhere to principles of impartiality. They should not have conflicts of interest with the research, the authors, or the financial supporters of the research, and should maintain an impartial attitude in their evaluations. Referees must ensure that all information related to the submitted articles remains confidential and report to the editor if they encounter any issues such as copyright infringement or plagiarism. The evaluation process emphasizes the importance of keeping the referees' identities confidential, and referees are advised not to discuss the articles among themselves.
Copyright
The JCSR journal, which adopts the open access philosophy, accepts for review "works that have never been published anywhere before, have not been accepted for publication, and/or have not been submitted for consideration to another journal." During the process of submitting the article via DergiPark, authors upload the 'Transfer of Copyright Agreement' form, signed, within the relevant system and share the publication rights of the work with JCSR, which is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). However, although the copyright is shared, there are restrictions in terms of commercial rights due to the license held by the journal.
Article Processing Charge
Publishing and processing articles in the journal is free of charge. There are no processing fees, submission, or copyright fees for submitted or accepted articles.
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