Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

The Journal of Soft Computing and Artificial Intelligence (JSCAI) is committed to applying the highest standards of publication ethics and to adhering to the following principles of the Publication Ethics and Abuse Statement. The recommendations and guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) for journal editors and publishers have been adopted and implemented by our journal.

Journal of Soft Computing and Artificial Intelligence Publication Ethics and Policy

• Manuscripts submitted to the JSCAI Journal for publication must not have been previously published in or simultaneously submitted to another journal for publication.
• Manuscripts prepared on the basis of presentations made at scientific meetings may be submitted to the Journal, provided they are not published in full.
• Incoming articles will be pre-reviewed by the editorial board.
• Manuscripts that are not suitable for the journal's publication purpose may be rejected directly or returned to the author to make them suitable for the publication purpose and publication rules without being evaluated by a reviewer.
• Manuscripts that are suitable for the journal's publication purpose will be included in the double-blind peer review process.
• The Editorial Board is entitled to suggest necessary corrections and changes according to the comments and suggestions of the reviewers during the preparation of manuscripts sent to the journal or to reject the manuscript at any stage.
• After the accepted article has gone through the necessary corrections in the review process, it will be sent to the publisher to prepare the page layout.
• The proof of the manuscripts whose layout phase has been completed is sent to the respective (corresponding) author for final approval for printing.
• Once approved by the author, articles that have passed through these stages are published online for inclusion in the journal with page numbers.
• Our journal reserves the right to check submitted articles for plagiarism at any stage using special software.
• To this end, plagiarism or falsified data, forgery (falsification or manipulation of tables or research data), and investigations into inappropriate use of human or animal subjects in research may.
• Manuscripts that do not meet these standards will not be published in the journal. This rule also applies in the event that non-compliance with these standards is discovered in the post-publication phase and the article must be withdrawn from publication.
• Due to publication ethics, our journal will report cases of suspected plagiarism or duplicate publication.
• Our journal relies on the Publication Ethics Flowcharts developed by COPE in cases of possible abuse or violation of publication ethics.

Duties of the Author(s)

• Authors must ensure the originality of the manuscripts they submit.
• They must declare that the manuscript has not been previously published or intended for publication anywhere and in any language.
• They must comply with the applicable copyright agreements and laws.
• Copyrighted material such as tables, figures, or other quotations will be published in the journal only with valid permission and copyright clearance.
• Authors should appropriately cite other authors, contributors, or sources and acknowledge relevant sources.
• The author(s) of research type articles must have been involved in at least 3 stages of "designing the study", "collecting the data", "examining the data", "writing the article" and "confirming the accuracy of the data and analysis".
• Authors are required to declare any potential conflicts of interest or competing areas of interest (including financial relationships or personal overlap that may be related to the study) that should be known about the publication they sent to the journal and that could potentially influence the findings or scientific outcome of the study.
• They should clearly disclose any financial contributions, sponsorship, or project support for the study.
• A conflict of interest does not preclude publication of the study in question in the journal.
• If the author discovers a significant scientific error or discrepancy in his/her published article, he/she is obliged to contact the responsible editor as soon as possible to withdraw the manuscript or correct the error.

Duties of Reviewers

Reviewers should review and send the review comments in due time period. If the manuscript is not in the reviewer’s field of interest, then the manuscript must be sent back to editor so that the other reviewers can be assigned without losing time.

Contribution
Reviewers are the main members contributing to the quality of the journal being a peer reviewed one. The reviewers who feel unqualified to review the received manuscript must swiftly notify the editor and reject to review that manuscript.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Objectivity standards
Reviews should be objectively performed. Personal criticism of the author is unsuitable. Referees should frankly express their aspects with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should describe relating published study which has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also point out to the editor’s attention any vital resemblance or coincide between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal information.

Disclosure & conflict of interest
Reviewers should not take into account the manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest derived from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions linked to the manuscripts.

Duties of the Editor (s)

• The Editorial Board of the Journal of Soft Computing and Artificial Intelligence consists of the Editor-in-Chief, the Editors, and the Associate Editors.
• The board guarantees editorial independence.
• Articles in the journal: It evaluates its authors only on the scientific content, without regard to their ethnicity, gender, gender preferences, nationality, religious beliefs or political philosophies, or personal interactions that may exist with association leaders or volunteer leaders.
• It ensures that a fair peer review process is conducted for the publication of submitted manuscripts.
• It guarantees that all information about the submitted article will be kept confidential until it is published.
• The editors are responsible for the content and overall quality of the publication.
• It has adopted the principle of issuing corrections via correction and errata pages when necessary.
• Editor-in-Chief: He ensures that there is no conflict of interest or competing interest between authors, editors, and reviewers.
• In the Journal of Soft Computing and Artificial Intelligence, the Editorial Board is responsible for appointing reviewers and making positive or negative decisions on the publication of manuscripts.

Journal Policy

The article evaluation process

- Referee invitation validity period: 30 days.
- Additional time allowed for referee invitation: 15 days
- Time allowed for reviewer evaluation: 21 days.
- Time allowed for the author to make corrections: 30 days.
- Additional time allowed for the reviewer to evaluate the article: 7 days

Salary Policy
No fee is charged to authors for reviewing and printing articles sent to our journal.

Article retraction procedure
Withdrawal of a published article is done at the joint request of all authors of the article concerned. Information about the withdrawn article will be published under the title "RETRACTION" in the first issue that appears after the author(s) submits the request to our editorial office.