International Journal of Düzce Educational Sciences
Ethical Rules
International Journal of Düzce Educational Sciences is a national reviewerd journal published twice a year in accordance with the ethical principles and rules stated below in order to publish high-quality scientific articles in the field of educational sciences. Articles submitted to the International Journal of Düzce Educational Sciences are evaluated through a double-blind review process and published electronically with open access. Below are the ethical responsibilities, roles, and duties of authors, editors, reviewers, and publishers. These ethical principles and rules are prepared in accordance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In addition, information regarding cases considered as plagiarism and unethical behavior in the International Journal of Düzce Educational Sciences has been provided.
Ethical Committee Document
For articles requiring ethical committee approval for publication, it is mandatory to submit the Ethical Committee Document for publication application.
Researches requiring Ethical Committee approval are as follows:
1. All kinds of researches conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from participants using survey, interview, focus group study, observation, experiment, interview techniques,
2. Use of humans and animals (including materials/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,
3. Clinical research conducted on humans,
4. Research conducted on animals,
5. Retrospective studies in accordance with the Personal Data Protection Law.
Additionally; · Mention of obtaining "Informed Consent Form" in case presentations, · Permission from owners and indication of use for scales, questionnaires, photographs belonging to others, · Compliance with copyright regulations for ideas and artworks used.
Note: For research data used before 2020, produced from master's/doctoral studies (should be indicated in the article), submitted to the journal in the previous year, accepted but not yet published articles, retrospective ethical committee approval is not required. Please indicate in the declaration form if your study falls into this category.
Please CLICK HERE to access the declaration form stating that the study does not require Ethical Committee Approval.
Authors
Articles submitted to the International Journal of Düzce Educational Sciences should be original studies in the field of educational sciences. All sources utilized in the articles (authors, online pages, personal interviews, etc.) should be properly and correctly cited. It should be indicated that the articles submitted to the journal have not been submitted to another journal, and the 'Copyright Transfer Form' should be filled out. Individuals who did not contribute intellectually to the submitted article should not be indicated as authors. Conflicts of interest related to the submitted article should be disclosed and explained. Authors may be asked to provide raw data of their studies to the editorial board during the peer review process, and in this case, authors are expected to share their raw data with the editorial board. Authors are obliged to keep the data related to a published article for 5 years. Authors should inform the editor and editorial board if they detect an error in their study and cooperate for the correction or withdrawal process.
Reviewers
All articles submitted to the International Journal of Düzce Educational Sciences are evaluated through a double-blind review process. Double-blind review means that authors are kept anonymous from reviewers and reviewers are kept anonymous from authors in order to ensure an unbiased, objective, and independent evaluation process. Articles are transmitted to reviewers for evaluation through the journal management system. This system is conducted through DergiPark. Reviewers are required to fill out a form stating their decision regarding the contribution of the article to the special education field and whether the article is publishable or not, along with the reasons for their decision. The ethical responsibilities and roles of reviewers of the International Journal of Düzce Educational Sciences are as follows:
Reviewers are required to review only articles related to their areas of expertise. Reviewers are expected to accept to review articles with no conflicts of interest. Reviewers should inform the editor if they notice any conflicts of interest and should refuse to review the relevant article. Reviewers should evaluate articles in an unbiased and objective manner. Reviewers are required to fill out the Research Article Reviewer Evaluation Form, Single-Subject Research Article Reviewer Evaluation Form, or Review Article Reviewer Evaluation Form for the articles they evaluate, and they are expected not to mention their names in order not to compromise the double-blind review process. Reviewers are also required to state their decisions on the publishability of the article and the reasons for their decisions in this form. Reviewers are expected to use a polite, respectful, and scientific tone in their recommendations. Reviewers should avoid aggressive, disrespectful, and subjective personal comments. If it is determined that reviewers make such unscientific comments, they may be contacted by the editor or editorial board to review and correct their comments. Reviewers are required to complete their evaluations within the given time frame and adhere to the ethical responsibilities stated here.
Editor
The editor is responsible for all articles published in the journal. The ethical duties and responsibilities of the editor are as follows:
General Responsibilities:
The editor is responsible for contributing to the improvement and development of the quality of the journal. The editor should support the freedom of expression of the authors.
Relations with Readers:
The editor should ensure that sections where peer review is not necessary in the journal (editorial, invited articles, conference announcements, etc.) are clearly stated. The editor should make efforts to ensure that published articles are compatible with the knowledge and skills of the journal's readers.
Relations with Reviewers:
The editor should request reviewers to evaluate articles that are appropriate to their knowledge and expertise. Thus, articles should be evaluated appropriately by experts in the field. The editor is responsible for requesting reviewers to declare that they have no conflicts of interest before evaluating an article. The editor is required to provide reviewers with all the necessary information about the peer review process and what is expected from reviewers. The editor should ensure that the peer review process is conducted through double-blind review and should not disclose the identities of authors to reviewers or reviewers to authors. The editor should evaluate reviewers based on their timing and performance. The editor should establish a database of reviewers and update the database according to the performance of reviewers. The editor should remove reviewers who make rude and unqualified comments or return late from the list of reviewers. The editor should continuously renew and expand the list of reviewers according to their areas of expertise.

Relations with Authors:
The editor should continuously update the publication and writing rules and the sample template for authors on what is expected from them. The editor should evaluate the articles submitted to the journal in terms of journal writing rules, the importance of the study, and originality, and if it is decided to reject the article during the initial submission process, the editor should inform the authors of the reasons for this decision clearly and impartially. If it is decided that the article needs to be reviewed again in terms of grammar, punctuation, and/or writing rules (margins, appropriate referencing, etc.), the authors should be informed about this and given time to make the necessary corrections. Submission and acceptance dates should be included in the articles. When there is a request for information about the status of the article, authors should be informed about the status of their article in a way that does not disrupt the double-blind review process.
Relations with the Editorial Board:
The editor should convey the publication and writing rules to new editorial board members and explain what is expected from them. The editor should provide editorial board members with the most up-to-date version of the publication and writing rules. The editor should evaluate editorial board members and actively involve members who will contribute to the development of the journal. The editor should inform editorial board members about the roles and responsibilities listed below:
• Supporting the development of the journal
• Writing reviews related to their areas of expertise when requested
• Reviewing and improving publication and writing rules
• Fulfilling the necessary responsibilities in the operation of the journal
Publisher
The International Journal of Düzce Educational Sciences is published by Düzce University. The ethical responsibilities of the publisher are as follows:
The publisher acknowledges that the decision-making authority and the editorial responsibility of the peer review process in the publication process of the International Journal of Düzce Educational Sciences lie with the editor. The publisher ensures the open, electronic, and free access of the journal on the university's library page: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/aicusbed
Plagiarism and Unethical Behavior
All articles submitted to the International Journal of Düzce Educational Sciences are scanned with Ithenticate and Turnitin software programs before printing. The highest accepted similarity rate is 20% (Shafer, 2011). Articles exceeding this rate are examined in detail, and if necessary, they are returned to the authors for review or correction, and if plagiarism or unethical behavior is detected, publication may be rejected.
Below are listed some unethical behaviors:
Listing individuals who did not contribute intellectually to the study as authors. Failure to indicate individuals who contributed intellectually to the study as authors. Failure to indicate if the article is derived from a master's/doctoral thesis or a project. Segmentation, i.e., publishing multiple articles from a single study. Failure to report conflicts of interest regarding submitted articles. Disclosure of the double-blind review process.
Evaluation Process;
1. Articles submitted to the International Journal of Düzce Educational Sciences (IJDES) are first subjected to a preliminary evaluation by the editorial board for compliance with journal principles. Articles that do not fall within the scope of the journal or do not comply with the content and form requirements of a scientific article may be rejected or requested for some changes before the peer review process is initiated. Academic impartiality and scientific quality are the most important criteria in the evaluation of submitted articles.
2. During the evaluation stage, articles are examined through similarity detection and plagiarism detection programs (Ithenticate and Turnitin). The similarity index value of the articles should be below 20% (after excluding references and citations). Articles exceeding this value are rejected without being considered for evaluation.
3. Articles submitted to IJDES in accordance with publication rules are sent to two well-known reviewers recognized for their work in the relevant field for evaluation. IJDES uses a "double-blind" reviewer system in which the names of reviewers and authors are kept confidential at every stage of the process.
Possible Reviewer Feedback and Process; a) If one of the reviewer reports states that the article "cannot be published" while the other states that it is "publishable," the editor sends the article to a third reviewer and informs the responsible author(s) of this result via email or the journal platform. b) When one of the reviewer reports states that the article needs "editing" and the other states that the article "cannot be published," the editor re-evaluates the article. After this evaluation, the editor either rejects the work or sends it to a third reviewer and informs the responsible author(s) of this result via email or the journal platform. c) If at least one of the reviewer reports states that the article needs "corrections," the article is sent back to the authors electronically along with both reviewer reports. After this point, the authors must complete the editing of the article within 30 days and upload the edited article to the journal platform. After making changes, the authors upload the article to the system again. The uploaded article is re-evaluated by the reviewers, and an evaluation report is prepared. d) If the article has received corrections from the editor, the author uploads the edited article to the system again, reviewers review the article again, and provide feedback within 4 weeks. e) If both reviewer reports state that the article "cannot be published," the author is notified of this result via email and the journal platform, and the article is removed from the evaluation process. f) If both reports from the reviewers state that the article is "publishable," the author is informed of this result via email and the journal platform, and the article is considered for publication.
Reviewers upload their review reports to the system within a 4-week period.
4. Authors submitting to IJDES consider the criticism and suggestions of the Reviewer and Editorial Boards. If they disagree, they have the right to object with their justifications.
5. The peer review process of IJDES may sometimes take longer due to unwanted reasons. Under normal conditions, the initial evaluation stage by the editor is planned for 1 week, and the reviewer evaluation process is planned for 2 months. However, the reviewer evaluation process may be extended due to reasons such as delayed response from reviewers, re-appointment of reviewers, etc. It takes an average of 4-6 months for a study to be uploaded and published in the system.
6. Authors who submit articles to IJDES are considered to have accepted the peer review conditions and process of the journal.
7. Copyright of the accepted (published) works in IJDES is transferred to Düzce University.

Reference: Shafer, S. L. (2011). You will be caught. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 112(3), 491-493.