Kırklareli University Journal of Engineering and Science is committed to fulfilling ethical duties and responsibilities based on the Directive on Scientific Research and Publication Ethics of Higher Education Institutions, the recommendations of the International Committee of Top Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the "Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers" of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Authors and reviewers are expected to act according to these principles.

In articles submitted to the journal, ethics committee approval must be obtained for clinical and experimental studies in all disciplines that require ethics committee approval, and information about this permission should be included in the method section and on one of the first/last pages of the article. When necessary, Kırklareli University Journal of Engineering and Science has the right to request the relevant documents.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

- Authors must not have previously published their manuscripts elsewhere or submitted them to another journal for publication.
- Authors must cite all quotations used in their articles.
- Authors must declare that the article is their own work, that they have not plagiarized and that all responsibility arising from plagiarism belongs to them. With this declaration, they accept that the journal has no responsibility for the issue.
- Authors should guarantee that they have made a scientific contribution to the article and it should be recognized that all authors have equal responsibility for the article.
- The corresponding author must guarantee that all co-authors named in the article consent to publication and to being named as co-authors. All individuals who have made significant contributions to the study should be named as co-authors, and other contributors should be acknowledged in the acknowledgements section.
- Authors are obliged to declare the organizations, financial sources or conflicts of interest that support their submitted work.
- Authors should provide access to the datasets included in the manuscript when necessary.
- Authors cannot request that the submitted manuscript be prioritized in any way.
- Authors should prepare the articles they submit for publication in the journal in accordance with the rules of research and publication ethics. Separate ethics committee approval must be obtained for the research conducted and for clinical and experimental human and animal studies that require ethics committee approval, and this approval must be stated and documented in the article.

Ethical Responsibilities of Referees

- If a reviewer realizes that he/she cannot adequately review the research, will take sides in a controversial issue due to his/her own findings, or cannot evaluate the article quickly, he/she should inform the editor and request to withdraw from the review process.
- Reviewers should keep the manuscripts they receive confidential and should not use the information obtained from the review process for their personal benefit.
- Reviewers should not share their reports or information about the manuscript with others and should not communicate directly with the authors without the editor's permission.
- If there is a suspicion of a violation of publication ethics in the article, the referees should explain this issue to the editor with evidence. In this case, they should not be the decision-maker and should leave it to the editor to examine and finalize the issue. This includes substantive similarity and overlap between the article under review and any other published work of which the reviewer has personal knowledge.
- Reviewing should be done in an impartial manner, with no personal criticism of the authors. Reviews should be constructive, honest and polite.
- Even if the reviewers reject the manuscript, they should communicate the reasons to the author and provide opportunities for improvement.
- Reviewers should consult with the editor before agreeing to consider a manuscript if there is a potential conflict of interest arising from a competitive, collaborative or other relationship or connection with any author.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Editorial Board

- It is the responsibility of the editorial board to decide on the articles to be published in the journal. The editorial board should evaluate manuscripts independently of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnicity, citizenship or political philosophy. Decisions should be based on the accuracy, validity and significance of the article and the appropriateness of the scope of the journal. Existing legal requirements such as libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism should also be taken into account.
- The editor or editorial board members should not disclose information about a manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding authors, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisors and publishers.
- Unpublished content described in a submitted manuscript should not be used in the editor or editorial board's own research without the express written permission of the author.

Similarity Rate Information Note

- Publications submitted to Kırklareli University Journal of Engineering and Science are pre-evaluated by the Technical Editor and/or Editorial Board. iThenticate program is used to check the similarity rate. According to the nature of the studies and the intensity of citation, studies with a similarity rate below 20% are taken into the evaluation stage. Studies with a similarity rate between 20% and 30% will be evaluated and subjected to review. Studies with rates above 30% will not be evaluated and will be returned to the author for editing or rejected.