Ethics Statement and Ethics Committee Report
Authors must provide institutional ethical approval demonstrating the research's suitability for further processing. Sporda Teori ve Uygulama Dergisi (Journal of Theory and Practice in Sport) adopts COPE publication ethics (Committee on Publication Ethics) and open access policy. When a situation contrary to Scientific Research and Publication Ethics is detected in a manuscript submitted to the Journal of Theory and Practice in Sport, this situation is reported to the institution where the corresponding author works, and the manuscript is rejected. Furthermore, our Journal has the right to request output files of the analysis results from the authors according to the feedback given by the editorial and/or reviewers. Publication ethics and open access policy also require that all components of the publication process comply with ethical principles in line with the guidelines and policies published by the Publication Ethics Committee in open access (For example, "Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors"; ICMJE Recommendations, CSE White Paper on Publication Ethics, WAME resources, WMA policies, and ORI; WMA Declaration of Helsinki).
Publisher's Ethical Responsibilities
Journal publishers have adopted making free, non-profit publications bearing the ethical principles of publishing scientific works.
• The publisher, one of the stakeholders involved in a scientific study, should act within the scope of all these ethical principles.
• The publisher must use its communication power without any individual interest and correctly direct its target audience.
• The publisher protects the property and copyright of every work published in its Journal and undertakes the task of archiving every printed product.
• People should not hesitate to contact the publisher when encountering an unethical situation.
Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of Editors
• To reject the studies that are not suitable for the purpose and scope of the Journal.
• To consider the original value of the articles, their contribution to the field, the validity and reliability of the research method, the clarity of the expression, and the purpose and scope of the Journal when making a positive or negative decision about the articles.
• Taking the submitted papers to the pre-evaluation stage as long as they do not have significant problems, considering the reviewer's suggestions, not changing the decisions made by the previous Editor (s) unless there are serious problems, and contributing with constructive criticism.
• To implement the double-blind review and peer review process policies adopted by the Journal, keep the identity information of the reviewers confidential, and ensure that each article is evaluated impartially and in due time.
• To appoint independent reviewers from the author/s institutions to ensure independent peer review. • Submitting the articles considering the field editors' and reviewers' areas of expertise and supporting impartial and independent evaluations.
• To act in a balanced, objective, and fair manner in performing their duties without discrimination on the grounds of gender, religious or political beliefs, ethnic or geographical origin of the authors.
• To evaluate the studies submitted to the Journal according to their content, not giving any privilege to any author.
• To take the necessary measures to prevent possible conflicts of interest and to evaluate existing statements, if any. In the event of a conflict of interest, the Journal suspends the evaluation process of the article until the uncertainty is resolved. In this context, the Journal has the authority to request Ethics Committee Permission, Interviewer Voluntary Consent Forms, and documents to be submitted for the article from the corresponding author.
• To treat sponsored or specialty studies in the same way as any other study.
• To implement the necessary procedures by the Journal's policies and procedures in case of an ethical violation complaint.
• To allow the authors to respond to the complaint, not avoid the necessary sanctions, regardless of who the work belongs to.
• To consider also studies with negative results.
• To act responsibly and sensitively in publishing content such as revisions, explanations, apologies, and rebuttals.
Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers
In the Sporda Teori ve Uygulama Dergisi (Journal of Theory and Practice in Sport) article evaluation process, the principle of two-way blind review is applied, in which the author(s) do not know the reviewers and the reviewers do not know the authors. Therefore, reviewers cannot communicate directly with authors. Instead, article evaluation forms, notes on the text, and revision requests are forwarded to the author(s) by the editors through the journal management system. The reviewers who will evaluate the articles submitted to the Journal of Theory and Practice in Sport should bear the following ethical responsibilities:
• To contribute to the Editor's decision-making process, reviewers must objectively review the article only in time for the content of the study and agree to evaluate only studies related to their field of expertise.
• The reviewer should evaluate with impartiality and confidentiality. According to this principle, they should destroy the articles they have reviewed after the evaluation process and use them only after publication. Nationality, gender, religious belief, political belief, and commercial concerns should not impair the impartiality of the assessment.
• When the reviewers understand a conflict of interest, they should refuse to evaluate the article and inform the editors.
• Reviewers should decide constructively and courteously by academic etiquette; personal comments containing insults and hostility should be avoided.
• The reviewers should evaluate the article for which they accepted the evaluation within the time limit.
• The reviewer(s) should reject the review if it is a very similar study they are preparing or under evaluation.
• The reviewers should protect the confidentiality of the information provided by the Editor and the author, destroy the work they have examined by the confidentiality principle after the peer review process, notify the Editor if there is a situation contrary to a blind review, and should not evaluate the work.
• Reviewers should be aware of potential conflicts of interest (financial, institutional, collaborative, or other relationships between author and author) and alert the Editor for this article if necessary.
• Reviewers should continue to maintain the confidentiality of the study and evaluation process.
• Reviewers should inform the Journal if a situation may affect its main comments and feedback.
• Reviewers should try to respond to requests from the Journal regarding revision and re-evaluation.
Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
Scientific research ethical responsibilities of the author(s) submitting a manuscript to Sporda Teori ve Uygulama Dergisi (Journal of Theory and Practice in Sport):
• The author(s) should not send a manuscript that they have published elsewhere or sent for publication to the Journal of Theory and Practice in Sport simultaneously.
• The author(s) must submit an original study to the Journal of Theory and Practice in Sport.
• The author(s) should cite the sources they used while writing the manuscript with appropriate citation techniques in line with ethical principles.
• The names of people who do not contribute to the article should not be written as authors. Changing the author order, removing an author, or adding an author of an article applied for publication should not be suggested. The corresponding author uploads author names at the stage of uploading the manuscript to the system. Journal Editorial Board does not make any systematic changes.
• The author/s should notify the editors with a conflict of interest regarding the manuscript submitted to the Journal.
• If the author(s) requests information or raw data during the evaluation process, they should submit it to the Editors.
• The author(s) should document that they have obtained the right to use the data they use in their articles, the permissions for the research analysis, or the consent of the participants they have researched. As shown in the manuscript template, information about voluntary consent must be provided.
• The author(s) should contact the Editor within five days to inform, correct, or withdraw the error related to the manuscript in the evaluation and early view stage or published in the electronic environment.
• The author(s) states that they have received ethics committee approval for studies that require data collection by quantitative or qualitative methods, such as experiments, surveys, scales, interviews, observations, and focus group studies, which require an ethics committee decision, the name of the ethics committee, the date and the number of the decision, and the candidate article. It should be stated on the first and last page and in the method section, and the document showing the ethics committee's decision should be uploaded to the system with the submission of the article.
• The author(s) should present in the article evidence that they pay attention to ethical principles in the data collection process (such as obtaining permission to use other people's documents such as scales, questionnaires, photographs, or voluntary consent forms). It should be stated in the manuscript that research and publication ethics and copyright regulations for intellectual and artistic works are complied with. If the research was carried out on human and animal subjects, it should be reported that it was carried out by international reports, guidelines, etc. (Helsinki Declaration).
• Ethics committee approval is not required for review articles from the author(s). However, in works that do not require an ethics committee decision, it should be stated on the last page of the article that an ethics committee decision is not required.
Fundamentals of Policies
• Higher Education Council Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive • Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
• World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
• Budapest Open Access Declaration • Creative Commons
