Responsibilities of Editors:

Editorial policy:

The Journal of Faculty of Pharmacy of Ankara University is an international medium, an open access, peer-reviewed journal for the publication of original research reports, reviews and short communications in English or Turkish on relevant developments in pharmaceutical sciences.

The editor is solely responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding issues such as libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The chief editor may confer with members of editorial board or reviewers in making these decisions. Articles submitted to the journal are subject to a formal preliminary review by the chief editor and associate editors. Articles that were not prepared according to the journal rules are not evaluated and rejected immediately. When the article is published, the authors are considered to transfer all rights of the manuscript to the Publisher.

Peer review:

The editor shall ensure that the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and timely. Research articles must typically be reviewed by at least two external and independent reviewers, and where necessary the editor should seek additional opinions from a third reviewer. The editor shall select reviewers who have suitable expertise in the relevant field, taking account of the need for appropriate, inclusive and diverse representation. The editor shall review all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and suggestions for self-citation made by reviewers in order to determine whether there is any potential risk for bias.

Editors should correct any errors in an article before publication, and then publish corrections if detected later. All correction or retraction notices must be prominently published in the journal and include the full bibliographic reference to the original article or abstract. It should also be listed on the table of contents and prominently labeled (e.g. typo, retraction or apology).

Fair play:

The editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. The editorial policies of the journal should encourage transparency and completeness, honest reporting, and the editor should ensure that peer reviewers and authors have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. The editor shall use the journal’s standard electronic submission system for all journal communications. The editor shall establish a transparent mechanism for appeal against editorial decisions.

Confidentiality:

The editor must protect the confidentiality of all material submitted to the journal and all communications with reviewers, unless otherwise agreed with the relevant authors and reviewers. Unless reviewers have agreed to disclose their names, the editor must protect reviewers’ identities. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions:

In addition to the specific ethics-related duties, reviewers are asked generally to treat authors and their work in a good way and to observe good reviewing etiquette. Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its review will be impossible should notify the editor and decline to participate in the review process.

Confidentiality:

Reviewers must not share the review or information about the paper with anyone or contact the authors directly without permission from the editor. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Awareness to ethical issues:

A reviewer should be aware of potential ethical issues in the article and should present to the editor, including any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other publication. Any statement that an observation and/or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.

Standards of objectivity and competing interests:

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Reviewers should be aware of any personal bias they may have and take this into account when reviewing a paper. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. Reviewers should consult the Editor before agreeing to review a paper where they have potential conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers. If a reviewer suggests that an author includes citations to the reviewer’s (or their associates’) work, this must be for genuine scientific reasons and not with the intention of increasing the reviewer’s citation count or enhancing the visibility of their work (or that of their associates).

Responsibilities of Authors

Reporting standards:

Authors who prepare the article of the original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data access and retention:

Authors may be asked to provide the research data supporting their manuscript for editorial review. Authors should be prepared to provide access to such data, and should be able to present such data for a reasonable number of years after publication.

Originality, plagiarism and acknowledgement of sources:

Plagiarism can be present such as introducing another’s paper as the author’s own paper, copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), publishing results from research performed by others. Any type of plagiarism is unacceptable and considered as unethical behavior. The authors should ensure that they have written original works entirely, and if the work and/or words of others have been used, this should be appropriately cited and permission should be obtained where necessary. Authors should cite publications that have inspired the published work and place it in comparison within the rest of the scholarly record. Information obtained privately such as from a conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without any explicit, written permission from the source. All manuscripts submitted for publication to the Journal of Faculty of Pharmacy of Ankara University should be scanned by the plagiarism screening programs.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication:

It is unethical and unacceptable when the same manuscript is submitted to more than one journal at the same time. Author should not submit for consideration in another journal a paper that has been published previously, except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint.

Authorship of the paper:

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made substantial contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the paper (e.g. language editing or medical writing), they should be recognized in the acknowledgements section. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider (at their discretion) the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been submitted. All authors must agree with any such addition, removal or rearrangement. Authors take collective responsibility for the work. Each individual author is accountable for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. The "Author Contribution Form" must be filled out and sent to the Journal of Faculty of Pharmacy of Ankara University together with the article.

Declaration of competing interests:

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could be viewed as inappropriately influencing (bias) their work. All sources of financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article should be disclosed, as should the role of the people and/or foundation, if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest possible stage.

Notification of fundamental errors:

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper if deemed necessary by the editor. If the editor or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains an error, it is the obligation of the author to cooperate with the editor, including providing evidence to the editor where requested.

Hazards and human or animal subjects:

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the study involves the use of animal or human subjects/volunteers, the author should guarantee that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) including ethics committee have approved them. In studies where ethics committee approval is mandatory, the name and ethics committee approval number of the institution for which ethics committee approval has been obtained should be specified in the material and method section of the manuscript. It should also be stated in the material and method section of the manuscript that the protocols and procedures used are ethically reviewed and approved by the ethics committee. If the studies requiring an ethics committee report are submitted without it, they will be immediately rejected. Informed consent form must be taken in clinical studies including human and/or human subjects and should be stated in the material and method section. For studies including human volunteers, written informed consent form prepared in compliance with the study protocol should be obtained. All trials performed on humans should be carried out according to the Helsinki Declaration principles (World Medical Association (WMA) Helsinki Declaration for Medical Research in Human Subject). All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) Guidelines) and should be carried out in accordance with EU Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes (EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments), the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (The U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986) or the U.S. Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (U.S. Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals). All experimental research on plants should comply with international guidelines.