PUBLICATION ETHICS, PUBLICATION POLICY, AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF STAKEHOLDERS

JGTTR (Journal of Global Tourism and Technology Research) is based on scientific integrity, transparency, impartiality, accountability, and academic freedom in its publication processes. The journal observes national and international academic publishing standards in publication ethics, editorial processes, peer review, conflicts of interest, ethics committee approval, copyright/licensing, open access, and correction-retraction processes. In this context, JGTTR takes into consideration the journal evaluation criteria of TR Dizin, the principles and guidelines published by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) and the “Ethical Guideline on the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Scientific Research and Publication Activities in Higher Education Institutions” published by YÖK.

JGTTR publishes original scientific studies in tourism, gastronomy, travel, guiding, hospitality, destination, sustainability, and tourism-related disciplines. The publication languages of the journal are Turkish and English. JGTTR is published in two issues per year, in March and October. All scientific studies published in the journal are subjected to a double-blind peer review process after editorial preliminary review.

1. Responsibilities of Editors

Editors evaluate the studies submitted to the journal only in terms of scientific quality, originality, methodological adequacy, contribution to the field, and compatibility with the aims and scope of the journal. The title, institution, gender, ethnic origin, political opinion, religious belief, or similar personal characteristics of the authors are not taken into consideration during the evaluation process.

Editors are committed to the principle of editorial independence. The publisher, sponsor, institution, or third parties may not interfere in editorial decisions regarding the acceptance, rejection, or revision of a manuscript.

Editors protect the confidentiality of all submitted studies. Information and documents related to the peer review process are shared only with the relevant editors, authors, reviewers, and, when necessary, the editorial board.

Editors carry out the necessary procedures on the basis of COPE guidelines and flowcharts in cases such as suspicion of ethical violation, plagiarism, data fabrication, data falsification, salami slicing, duplicate publication, inappropriate authorship, concealment of conflict of interest, peer review manipulation, or similar situations. When deemed necessary, they request clarification, suspend the evaluation process, reject the manuscript, publish a correction, initiate a retraction process, or inform the relevant institutions.

Editors ensure that information such as publication policies, peer review model, open access status, fee policy, copyright and license information, ethical principles, complaint and appeal mechanism, and correction and retraction policy are presented clearly, up to date, and accessibly on the journal’s website.

2. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors accept that the studies they submit to the journal are original, have not been published before, and have not been submitted simultaneously to another journal for evaluation.

Authors are obliged to report the purpose, method, findings, and results of the research accurately, clearly, and verifiably. When deemed necessary, raw data, ethics committee approval, permission for scale use, copyright permission, research funding information, and other supporting documents may be requested by the editorial office.

Authorship should be limited only to persons who have made a meaningful and direct academic contribution to the study. Persons who do not meet the authorship criteria cannot be listed as authors; persons who contributed but do not meet the authorship criteria may be mentioned appropriately in the acknowledgements section.

Authors must clearly declare financial support, project number, institutional support, consultancy, company relations, patents, commercial ties, or any personal/institutional relationships that may affect impartiality. If there is no conflict of interest, this should also be stated separately.

Authors are obliged to respond to reviewer and editor evaluations in a scientific style, within the specified time, and with justification. All changes made during the revision process should be explained systematically.

If authors notice a significant error or ethical problem in their published studies, they are obliged to notify the editorial office without delay and cooperate with the editorial office in the necessary correction, retraction, or clarification processes.

3. Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers should accept to evaluate only studies that fall within their field of expertise. Reviewers who cannot complete the evaluation on time or who believe that there is a conflict of interest in the study should decline the invitation without delay.

Reviewers accept the studies sent to them during the evaluation process as confidential documents. Without the permission of the editor, they may not share the manuscript with third parties, discuss it, use it in their personal research, or use the information obtained during the evaluation process for personal benefit.

Reviewer reports should be objective, constructive, scientific, and justified. Derogatory, personal, or discriminatory expressions targeting the authors are not acceptable.

Reviewers are obliged to notify the editorial office of relevant but omitted sources, possible similarities, suspicions of ethical violations, data reliability problems, and conflicts of interest.

4. Policy on the Use of Academic Artificial Intelligence Tools

JGTTR accepts that academic artificial intelligence and generative artificial intelligence tools may be used in scientific research and writing processes in a limited, transparent, auditable, and ethically appropriate manner. However, artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors; because these tools cannot assume responsibility for the accuracy, originality, ethical appropriateness, and legal consequences of scientific content.

Authors should transparently declare the artificial intelligence tools they use for purposes such as language correction, proofreading, translation, summarization, reference arrangement, or limited technical support, when deemed necessary, in the method section of the manuscript, in the acknowledgement/note section, and/or in the explanation submitted to the editor. The declaration should at least indicate the name of the tool used, its version, at which stage, and for what purpose it was used.

The use of artificial intelligence cannot be used for fabricating research data, falsifying data, creating fake sources, replacing reviewer reports or scientific evaluation, producing text/findings to the extent that human contribution is eliminated, or delegating researcher responsibility.

Authors are obliged to personally check the accuracy, impartiality, appropriateness of sources, ethical appropriateness, and originality of all content created or edited by artificial intelligence tools. Responsibility for consequences such as misinformation, fabricated sources, bias, confidentiality violations, or copyright infringements caused by artificial intelligence outputs belongs to the authors.

Content related to human participants, personal data, institutional internal documents, confidential peer review materials, or unpublished texts may not be uploaded to open artificial intelligence systems without observing data security, privacy, copyright, and confidentiality obligations.

Editors and reviewers are also under an obligation of confidentiality. They may not upload manuscripts, supplementary files, or reviewer reports submitted to them for evaluation to external artificial intelligence tools without the author’s explicit permission and the approval of the editorial office.

JGTTR adopts the principles of transparency, diligence, honesty, protection of privacy, accountability, and human responsibility emphasized in YÖK’s ethical guideline regarding the use of academic artificial intelligence; it also takes COPE’s approach to publication ethics regarding artificial intelligence as a basis.

5. Actions Contrary to Scientific Research and Publication Ethics

The following actions are considered ethical violations:

Plagiarism: Using others’ ideas, data, methods, interpretations, figures, tables, or texts without proper citation.

Fabrication: Producing data or findings that do not actually exist.

Falsification: Intentionally changing research data, records, analyses, or results, reporting them selectively, or presenting them in a misleading way.

Duplicate / redundant publication: Publishing or submitting the same or substantially similar content in more than one place.

Salami slicing: Inappropriately dividing a single research study in a way that disrupts its integrity and turning it into more than one publication.

Unfair authorship: Listing persons who did not contribute as authors, excluding persons who did contribute, or changing the order of authors in an inappropriate manner.

Concealing a conflict of interest: Failing to declare relationships that may affect scientific impartiality.

Manipulating the peer review process: Suggesting fake reviewers, concealing identity, misleading the evaluation process, or trying to influence it unethically.

Conducting or publishing research without obtaining ethics committee approval, informed consent, institutional permission, copyright permission, or data use permission where required.

Using personal data, confidential documents, or participant information in violation of ethical and legal obligations.

6. Ethics Committee Policy

For quantitative, qualitative, mixed-method, experimental, clinical, observational, survey, interview, focus group, scale development/adaptation, and similar research conducted with human participants, as well as research conducted on animals, ethics committee approval must be obtained where necessary.

In studies requiring ethics committee approval, the name of the committee, date of decision, and decision/approval number must be clearly stated in the method section of the manuscript and in the bibliographic area deemed appropriate. Where necessary, participant consent, institutional permission, data use permission, and scale use permission information should also be declared.

In studies that do not require ethics committee approval, the reason for this should be clearly stated by the author; the final authority of evaluation belongs to the editorial office.

7. Evaluation Process

Studies submitted to the journal are first subjected to an editorial preliminary review. At this stage, compatibility with the aims and scope, minimum scientific adequacy, compliance with writing rules, anonymization, ethical declarations, copyright/license documents, and similarity report are checked.

Studies that pass the preliminary review are taken into a double-blind peer review process managed by an editor appropriate to the subject. Each scientific study is evaluated by at least two independent reviewers, preferably from different institutions.

In line with reviewer reports, a manuscript may be given a decision of “acceptance,” “minor revision,” “major revision,” or “rejection.” When deemed necessary, an additional reviewer may be assigned. The final decision belongs to the editorial office.

Authors must upload their revision requests to the system together with a justified response letter within the specified period. Revisions not uploaded within the specified time may be removed from process depending on editorial evaluation.

8. Similarity Screening Policy

All studies submitted to JGTTR may be screened through iThenticate, Turnitin, or similar academic similarity detection software. The editorial office evaluates not only the similarity rate but also the nature of the similarity, its source, and its context within the text.

If high similarity outside the references, methodological template expressions, and proper quotations, improper citation, excessive self-citation, or text recycling is detected, the study may be returned to the author, revision may be requested, or it may be directly rejected.

Authors are obliged to upload a similarity report to the system if requested at the time of submission. The final authority in similarity evaluation belongs to the editorial office.

9. Open Access, Copyright, and License Policy

Open Access Policy

Journal of Global Tourism and Technology Research (JGTTR) adopts an open access publishing model. All content published in the journal is made freely available to readers without any charge, subscription, or access barrier. Readers may freely access the full texts of published articles and may read, download, copy, share, and use these contents, provided that proper attribution is given.

JGTTR aims to enhance the public circulation of knowledge, academic visibility, and scholarly impact. For this reason, the journal supports the open, transparent, and accessible dissemination of research outputs.

Copyright and Licensing Policy

The copyright of articles published in JGTTR belongs to the authors. By submitting their work for publication in JGTTR, authors grant the journal the right of first publication.

Unless otherwise stated, all articles published in the journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license permits the sharing, copying, distribution, reuse, and adaptation of the work, provided that appropriate credit is given.

Authors are responsible for the originality of their work, for all opinions, findings, and evaluations contained in the manuscript, and for obtaining the necessary permissions for the use of tables, figures, images, scales, datasets, and similar materials. Any legal or ethical responsibility arising from the use of third-party materials belongs to the authors.

JGTTR clearly states the licensing information of each published article in the article metadata and/or full-text file.

10. Conflict of Interest, Complaint, and Appeal Policy

Authors, editors, and reviewers must notify the editorial office of any conflict of interest that may affect the evaluation process. Persons with a conflict of interest may not take part in the relevant process, or the process is reorganized through editorial evaluation.

JGTTR examines complaints and appeals from authors, reviewers, and readers impartially. Complaints may concern the peer review process, editorial decision, ethical violation, conflict of interest, delay, inappropriate language, or post-publication issues.

Appeals and complaints should be submitted to the editorial office in writing with justification. Applications are examined by the editorial board; when deemed necessary, the opinion of the publication board, ethics committee, reviewer, or relevant institution is obtained. Throughout the process, COPE principles are taken as a basis.

11. Correction, Retraction, and Post-Publication Procedures

If a significant error, ethical problem, data reliability issue, plagiarism, inappropriate authorship, or another serious violation is detected in a published manuscript, JGTTR may decide on a correction, editorial note, expression of concern, or retraction.

Retraction and correction procedures are conducted transparently; record integrity is preserved; where necessary, status information is clearly indicated on the electronic record of the manuscript.

12. Protection of Personal Data and Confidentiality

JGTTR processes the personal data of authors, reviewers, editors, and participants only within the scope of publishing activities and in accordance with the relevant legislation. Personal data are not shared with third parties except for legal obligations.

In data concerning human participants, the principles of confidentiality, anonymity, informed consent, and data security are observed. National legislation provisions regarding the protection of personal data are taken into consideration.

13. Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

JGTTR respects the intellectual property rights of all published studies. The editorial office carries out the necessary examination in cases of suspicion regarding copyright infringement, unauthorized use, permissions for visuals/scales/supplementary materials, and third-party rights.

Authors are obliged to obtain the necessary permissions for all tables, figures, visuals, scales, data sets, and other materials they use.

14. Final Provision

JGTTR follows national and international developments regarding publication ethics and academic integrity; when deemed necessary, it updates its publication policies. All authors submitting studies to the journal, all reviewers carrying out evaluations, and all editors taking part in the process are deemed to have accepted these principles.