Istanbul Education Journal (ISTJ) Ethical Principles are written to create quality scientific publications, ethical standards and trust in scientific knowledge for authors, reviewers, publishers and readers.

Istanbul Education Journal (ISTJ) obeys national and international research and publication ethical laws, guidelines, and principles. In this context, ISTJ undertakes to comply with the principles published by the Press Law, the Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive for Higher Education Institutions at the national level; the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) ve World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) at the international level. ISTJ also requests researchers to publish according to the relevant ethical publishing laws, guidelines, and principles. If researchers commit ethical violations, they are held responsible for the violation, and legal action is taken when necessary.

If readers find any errors, omissions, plagiarism, etc., in the articles published by ISTJ, and they notify this situation to istanbulegitim.istj@meb.gov.tr ​​or muhammed.celik@meb.gov.tr, applicants will be contacted as quickly as possible.

Ethical Principles and Responsibilities for the ISTJ Authors

Authors who submit manuscripts to ISTJ are expected to comply with the following ethical principles and responsibilities:

1.All the manuscript data submitted by authors to ISTJ for review must be accurate and original.

2.Authors must fully and accurately cite their references in the manuscript. All the responsibility for similarity belongs to the authors. Authors must know the rules of citation and comply with these rules (see APA 7 reference indication). Even if the similarity rate is 1%, plagiarism may occur if the authors do not obey the citation rules. Therefore, citation rules must be known by authors and applied carefully. If any plagiarism is detected, the article will be rejected. ISTJ reserves the right to apply additional sanctions for plagiarized authors and manuscripts.

3.The manuscript submitted to ISTJ for the publication must not have been previously published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

4.Since authors cannot submit their manuscripts to more than one journal's application process at the same time, each application must be started after the previous one is completed.

5.The studies previously presented at congresses and symposiums and only the published abstract may be accepted to ISTJ, provided that this is stated.

6.If the manuscript is presented as part of a master's thesis, doctoral thesis, or other comprehensive research projects, the title of the relevant thesis/research/project must also be stated.

7.Authors must clearly state which functions of the artificial intelligence tools they have used in their manuscripts, at which research stages and to what extent, both in the ethical statement section of their articles and in the ISTJ Ethical Statement Form. They must detail the versions and technical specifications of their artificial intelligence software.

8.When authors are requested to provide raw data regarding their manuscripts within the review process, the relevant data must be forwarded to editors or reviewers.

9.Authors cannot withdraw their manuscripts that have been successfully peer-reviewed and queued for publication without a valid excuse.

10.Authors must give feedback for corrections or stating any objections to the corrections, if any, within the time period specified for them. Authors who do not comply with the time period specified for them may be granted a one-time additional period as deemed appropriate by the relevant editor, and if the author does not complete the necessary corrections within this additional period, the manuscript may be returned to the author or rejected outright.

11.No copyright is paid to the manuscript sent to ISTJ. The copyright of the published manuscript belongs to the author. Authors authorize ISTJ to publish the manuscript and identify it as the original publisher. Authors grant any third party the right to freely use the manuscript if original authors and citation details are identified. The signed ISTJ Copyright Agreement Form must be added to the ISTJ process file. Click for the ISTJ Copyright Agreement Form.

12.In ethical statement section, authors must state that they have complied with all ethical rules while conducting the study. The signed ISTJ Ethical Stament Form must be added to the ISTJ process file. Click for the ISTJ Ethical Statement Form.

13.Ethics committee approval must be obtained for the manuscripts that require it. This ethical approval must be stated on the relevant page of the manuscript, and the ethics committee approval document must be added to the ISTJ process file along with the manuscript. If the ethics committee approval is not required for the manuscript, the reason for this must be clearly stated in this section. In addition, the author must sign the ISTJ Declaration of No Need for Ethics Committee Approval Form, which confirms that the manuscript does not require the ethics committee approval. Click for the ISTJ Statement of No Need for Ethics Committee Approval Form.

14.In conflict of interest section, authors must state that they do not have any conflict of interest among themselves and that no situation affects their objectivity for or against any person or institution. The signed ISTJ Conflict of Interest Statement Form must be added to the ISTJ process file. Click for the ISTJ Conflict of Interest Statement Form.

15.In studies with more than one author, authors must transparently state the extent of their support for the manuscript. Contributing to the conception, design, analysis and interpretation of the manuscript; providing support to the manuscript not only in terms of spelling and grammar, but also in terms of intellectual and academic content, and finalizing the article before sending it for review are prerequisites that an author must fulfill in order to be written as an author of the manuscript. The names of those who do not meet one or more of these conditions must not be written as authors in the manuscript. Individuals or institutions that provided technical support, data collection assistance, or funding to the study, but who do not fully meet the authorship criteria, may be included in the "Acknowledgements" section. The signed Author Contribution Statement Form must be added to the ISTJ process file. Click for the ISTJ Author Contribution Statement Form.

16.Violations of Publication Ethics

Failure to Cite: Failure to properly cite or reference the source when using data, ideas, methods, or results from another study. 

Authors must confirm that their submitted manuscripts do not contain such ethical violations.

Ethical Principles and Responsibilities for the ISTJ Editor-in-Chief(EIC), the ISTJ Assistant Editor,

the ISTJ Copy Editors and the ISTJ Subject Editors

The ISTJ EIC, the ISTJ Assistant Editor, the ISTJ Copy Editors and the ISTJ Subject Editors working for ISTJ are expected to comply with the following ethical principles and responsibilities:

1.The ISTJ EIC, the ISTJ Assistant Editor, the ISTJ Copy Editors and the ISTJ Subject Editors are responsible for creating a quality journal for teachers, principals, and researchers to publish their academic studies and making ISTJ a journal indexed in the national and international directories.

2.The ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Subject Editors appointed by the ISTJ EIC have authority to decide whether a manuscript can be sent to reviewers to be assigned to the manuscript.

3.The ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Subject Editors appointed by the ISTJ EIC are responsible for the content of the manuscript. When necessary, they can publish a correction note or perform a retraction.

4.The ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Subject Editors appointed by the ISTJ EIC are responsible for maintaining and completing the peer-review process by scientific criteria and ethical principles.

5.The ISTJ EIC, the ISTJ Assistant Editor and the ISTJ Subject Editors are responsible for fulfilling the requirements of the double-blind review model.

6.The ISTJ Editor, the ISTJ Assistant Editor, the ISTJ Copy Editors and the ISTJ Subject Editors ensure the confidentiality of a manuscript until it is published; this does not apply to the applications made to more than one place at the same time.

7.The ISTJ Copy Editors assess whether a manuscript submitted to ISTJ adheres to the prescribed format and style outlined in the ISTJ Article Writing Template. In the event of non-compliance, the ISTJ Copy Editors identify and highlight the discrepancies, requesting the author to rectify the deficiencies and errors.

8.The ISTJ Subject Editors are appointed by the ISTJ EIC in accordance with their areas of expertise while the manuscript is undergoing preliminary review, prior to the article being sent to reviewers. It is incumbent upon the ISTJ Subject Editors to possess the requisite competencies to ensure the quality and integrity of the manuscript in question. It is the responsibility of the ISTJ Subject Editors to ensure that authors and their manuscripts adhere to the established scientific and ethical standards. The Subject Editors make a decision regarding the article in question, basing their judgement on the original value of the manuscript, the aims of the journal in question and the ethical rules that pertain to the field of study.

9.The ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Subject Editors have the authority not to publish the manuscript that does not comply with the publication conditions, to return it to the author for correction, or to edit it in format.

10.The ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Subject Editors appointed by the ISTJ EIC check whether authors have made the corrections requested by editors and reviewers in a manuscript. In case of corrections not made on time, authors may be given additional time or may return the manuscript to authors.

11.The ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Subject Editors appointed by the ISTJ EIC accept, reject or request changes to the manuscript in line with the reviewer reports.

12.The ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Subject Editors appointed by the ISTJ EIC inform reviewers that a manuscript is confidential and that this is a privileged interaction.

13.The ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Subject Editors appointed by the ISTJ EIC do not allow any conflict of interest among editors, authors and reviewers.

14.The ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Subject Editors appointed by the ISTJ EIC may appoint a third reviewer to review an article. In this case, the ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Subject Editors appointed by the ISTJ EIC may reject the article, give a minor or major revision, or mark the acceptance decision, depending on the third referee's review.

15.The ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Subject Editors appointed by the ISTJ EIC send the article, which has the approval of reviewers, to the ISTJ Language Editors to be examined for semantic integrity, spelling rules, and punctuation marks.

16.After the ISTJ Language Editors complete the review of the manuscript, the ISTJ EIC submits it to the ISTJ Editorial Board for the publication decision.

17.The ISTJ EIC and the ISTJ Assistant Editor make the final reading of the manuscript for which the publication decision has been made, and follow the layout phase.

18.The ISTJ EIC puts the completed manuscripts in a queue according to the manuscript acceptance date and the first current issue of different sub-topics to be published in ISTJ and publishes the following manuscript.

Responsibilities for the ISTJ Statistical Editor

The ISTJ EIC assigns the ISTJ Statistical Editor while the manuscript is at the preliminary review stage before it goes to referees when necessary. The ISTJ Statistical Editor reviews the method of the manuscript, the statistical tests used, and the statistical analysis findings and requests raw data tables from authors when necessary. For an manuscript to be sent to reviewers at ISTJ, it is mandatory to check the statistical test methods, findings, and comments when necessary. If the ISTJ Statistical Editor finds the relevant article statistically insufficient or erroneous, he sends it to authors to correct this inadequacy and error. After authors make the edit, the ISTJ Statistical Editor makes his decision based on the result of the edit. 

ISTJ Reviewing Process

Qualified manuscripts that are original, up-to-date, and thought to contribute to the field within the scope of ISTJ topics are accepted at ISTJ for preliminary review. Manuscripts that are not original, up-to-date, within the scope of ISTJ topics, and are thought to be unsuitable for the ISTJ target audience may be returned to authors by the ISTJ EIC without prior review and without writing a reason for rejection. The ISTJ EIC has the authority to reject an article submitted to ISTJ without prior review.

The manuscript submitted to ISTJ is first sent to the ISTJ Copy Editor to review its compliance with the ISTJ Article Writing Template. After the submitted manuscript's compliance with the ISTJ Article Writing Template is approved by the ISTJ Copy Editor, the relevant article is sent to the ISTJ EIC or an ISTJ Subject Editor authorized by the ISTJ EIC who is familiar with the research topic of the manuscript for a comprehensive review. At the same time, the ISTJ EIC sends the article to the ISTJ Statistical Editor to review the accuracy of the statistical test methods and statistical findings used in the manuscript when necessary. The manuscript, which receives a positive report from the control of the ISTJ EIC or the ISTJ Subject Editor and the ISTJ Statistical Editor, is then submitted to review two reviewers who have expertise in the subject and have at least a doctoral degree.

The reviewing process is carried out confidentially by the ISTJ EIC, the ISTJ Subject Editor, or the ISTJ Assistant Editor authorized by the ISTJ EIC within the double-blind peer review model framework. Reviewers are requested to express their views and opinions about the manuscript they have reviewed. Reviewers are asked to explain their positive or negative opinions about the manuscript they have reviewed at least 100 words. Authors can object and defend their opinions if they disagree with reviewers' opinions. The ISTJ EIC ensures mutual communication between authors and reviewers while preserving confidentiality. If one of the two reviewers expresses a negative opinion, the manuscript may be sent to a third reviewer for the decision of the ISTJ EIC or it may be returned to the author without being sent to a third reviewer. Studies can be published with the positive decision of at least two reviewers. If both reviewer reports are positive, the manuscript is sent to the control of the ISTJ Language Editor. After the ISTJ Language Editor checks the manuscript, it is presented to the ISTJ Editorial Board by the ISTJ EIC with a proposal to consider publication. If the ISTJ Editorial Board approves the manuscript's publication, the ISTJ Layout Editor lays out the manuscript and prepares it for the publication. The final reading of the manuscript, the completed layout, is done by the ISTJ EIC or the ISTJ Assistant Editor. After the final reading phase, the manuscript is queued according to the acceptance date and the first current issue to be published in ISTJ, with different sub-topics being equally distributed, and the next manuscript is published.

The ISTJ EIC does not allow conflicts of interest among authors, editors and reviewers. He or the ISTJ Subject Editor authorized by the ISTJ EIC has full authority to appoint reviewers. They ensure that reviewers' evaluations are objective. Reviewers assigned for the reviewing process ensure that the manuscript contains new and important information; the body of the manuscript clearly and neatly describes the content; the method has integrity and understandability; the discussion and conclusion can be proven with findings; there are a sufficient number of references in the research and the quality of the language used is good enough. 

Ethical Principles and Responsibilities for ISTJ Reviewers

ISTJ expects reviewers taking part in the reviewing process to comply with the following ethical principles and responsibilities:

1.Reviewers must agree to evaluate only manuscripts related to their expertise.

2.Reviewers must evaluate impartially and confidentially.

3.Reviewers are limited to intellectual and scientific content only when reviewing manuscripts.

4.Reviewers must immediately inform the ISTJ Editor of any author misconduct.

5.Reviewers must not have any conflict of interest regarding the research, authors, and research funders. Their judgments must be objective.

6.Reviewers must ensure the confidentiality of all information regarding the manuscripts they review until the article is published. If they notice that authors have committed copyright infringement or plagiarism, they must immediately report it to the ISTJ EIC.

7.In cases where the use of artificial intelligence is stated or the effect of artificial intelligence is felt in the article, reviewers must take into account the appropriateness of this use, its transparency and the reliability of the results in their reviews.

8.Reviewers who feel they need to be more competent about the manuscript's subject or who think they cannot review the manuscript on time due to workload or various excuses must inform the ISTJ EIC about the issue and request not to be included in the reviewing process.

Responsibilities for the ISTJ Turkish and English Language Editors

The ISTJ Turkish and English Language Editors check the integrity of meaning and the accuracy of spelling rules and punctuation marks in the manuscript. They ask authors for corrections on these issues if there are any errors. For a manuscript to be published in ISTJ, it is mandatory to check Turkish and English languages. 

ISTJ Publication Policy

1.The articles that are not original, up-to-date, suitable for the ISTJ target audience, within the scope of ISTJ subjects, and do not contribute to the field are returned to authors by the ISTJ EIC without prior review and without writing a reason for rejection. The ISTJ EIC has full authority to reject a manuscript submitted to ISTJ without prior review.

2.The qualified manuscripts that are original, up-to-date, thought to contribute to the field within the scope of ISTJ subjects, and not previously published or under review in another journal for the publication are accepted at ISTJ for preliminary review.

3.The entire process of the manuscripts is carried out only through the DergiPark system; other than this, no other communication methods are established with the authors.

4.All the responsibility for similarity belongs to the authors. The main criterion in the similarity rate is that the authors know the rules of citation and comply with these rules. Even if the similarity rate is 1%, if the citation is not done in accordance with the rules, plagiarism may occur. Therefore, the citation rules must be known by the authors and applied carefully (see APA 7 reference system).

Within the scope of the cooperation between ISTJ, DergiPark, and intihal.net, a similarity report can be obtained free of charge for article applications. Accordingly, a similarity report is prepared, and authors are notified of the result by e-mail. When the result of the report is announced, the manuscript submission process is completed.

5.Each article accepted for review is first reviewed by the ISTJ Copy Editor once within a maximum of  10 days for compliance with the ISTJ Article Writing Template. If there are any deficiencies or errors in the article template, the responsible author is asked to correct these deficiencies and errors within 7 days at most. If the necessary changes are not made, the author may be given an additional 5 days. If the author does not make the necessary changes during this period, the manuscript will be rejected and will not be processed again in the same publication period.

6.The manuscript that complies with the ISTJ Article Writing Template is reviewed comprehensively by either the ISTJ EIC or an ISTJ Subject Editor with at least a PhD degree in the research topic of the manuscript in terms of originality, methodology, importance of the research topic, contribution to the field, and suitability for the scope of the journal. At the same time, the article is sent to the ISTJ Statistical Editor to determine the accuracy of the statistical test methods and statistical findings used in the article when necessary. This review is expected to be completed within 15 days. If the authors are requested to make any corrections at this phase, the authors and ISTJ Editors are given 15 days for each correction and the responsibilities of the procedures are expected to be fulfilled within this period. The manuscript, which successfully passes the review of the the ISTJ EIC or the ISTJ Subject Editor and the ISTJ Statistical Editor, is then submitted to the review of two reviewers who have expertise in the subject and have at least a doctoral degree.

7.Manuscripts that pass the preliminary review are reviewed by at least two reviewers with the double-blind peer review principle. According to the double-blind peer review principle, authors and reviewers do not know each other's identities. The ISTJ EIC ensures confidentiality throughout the reviewing process. However, after the manuscript review process is completed, whether positive or negative, the names and institutions of the reviewers who actively participate in the review process are announced in the first issue to be published.

8.Reviewers are expected to complete their reviews within 30 days at the latest. If reviewers request corrections from the article they review, the relevant reports are sent to authors and the manuscript is requested to be corrected as requested. Authors are expected to complete the corrections given to them within 15 days. Reviewers who want to see the correction are expected to approve the correction or send it back for correction within 15 days. It works like this until the peer review process is completed.

9.If one of the two reviewers rejects the manuscript, the ISTJ EIC may send it to a third reviewer for review, depending on its current status and the reasoning of the reviewer who has made the rejection decision, or may reject the article without sending it to a third reviewer and return it to the author. The manuscript can be published with a positive decision from at least two reviewers.

10.The manuscript whose review process has been completed is reviewed by the ISTJ Turkish and English Language Editors within 10 days at the latest, and if necessary, the ISTJ Language Editors may request corrections from authors. In these corrections, the ISTJ Language Editors and the responsible author are given separate periods of 10 days each, and the process continues like this until it is completed.

11.The ISTJ Editorial Board makes the publication decision after reviewers accept the manuscript and The ISTJ Language Editors complete their review. The members of the ISTJ Editorial Board may also provide corrections to authors.

12. The layout of the manuscript, which is decided to be published by the ISTJ Editorial Board unanimously or by majority vote, is done by the ISTJ Layout Editor within 10 days.

13. The final reading of the manuscript, the layout of which is completed, is done by the ISTJ EIC or the ISTJ Assistant Editor within 10 days. The ISTJ EIC queues the completed manuscripts according to the manuscript acceptance date and the first current issue of different subtopics to be published in ISTJ and publishes the following manuscript.

14.Data of published manuscripts are transmitted to the relevant indexes within 15 days at the latest.

15.A maximum of one study by the same author is published in the same issue.

16.All the manuscripts that do not comply with ethical principles (plagiarism, forgery, distortion, duplication, false authorship/denied authorship, research/data fabrication, article slicing, publication by slicing, copyright violation, concealment of conflict of interest, other ethical violations) are removed from the publication. These include the unethical articles that can be detected later even after they are published.

17.Legal responsibilities arising from the content of the manuscripts published in ISTJ belong entirely to the authors.