For the Kocaeli University Journal of Social Sciences (KOSBED), it is crucial to comply with the standards of academic publication ethics, especially for the authors, editors, editorial board, and referees.
The KOSBED Publication Ethics Committee (COPE) is following the “Behavioral Principles and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” and “Behavioral Principles for Journal Publishers” (https://publicationethics.org/). In this context; authors, editors, and referees are expected to act in accordance with the following ethical principles.
• It is unacceptable to include people who do not actively contribute to the study among the authors (gift authorship) or not to include people who contributed (ghost authorship), and to change the order of authors in an unjustified and inappropriate way.
• The study should belong entirely to its authors. Authors should avoid plagiarism (YÖK, Scientific Research, and Publication Ethics Directive), in other words, presenting the original ideas, methods, data, or works of others as their own work without citing them in accordance with scientific principles.
• The authors are obliged to indicate the people, institutions, or organizations that supported their study and their contributions in the acknowledgment section.
• Authors should notify the editors of people who have a conflict of interest regarding the article.
• Authors should not submit their articles previously published in other journals with minor changes. However, it is unacceptable that the article has been submitted to another journal together with its submission to KOSBED.
• Authors are obliged to submit the data of their research when requested by the editor and the referees and keep this data after their articles are published.
• When authors detect a significant mistake or inaccuracy in their articles published in KOSBED, they must immediately notify the journal editor and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the article.
• Referees should only accept to review articles related to their field of expertise.
• The referees should review with impartiality and confidentiality. According to this principle, they should destroy the articles they have reviewed after the review process and use them only after their publishing. Nationality, gender, religious belief, political belief, and commercial concerns should not impair the impartiality of the review process.
• Referees should review the article in due time.
• Referees should not have a conflict of interest with the authors and/or supporting organizations.
• Referees should indicate published but not cited studies.
• The editor is obliged to make an effort to increase the quality of the journal and contribute to its development.
• The editor should support the freedom of expression of the authors.
• The editor should make sure that the sections in the journal that do not require referee review (letter to the editor, invitations, conference announcements, etc.) are clearly indicated.
• The editor should make an effort to ensure that the published articles are compatible with the knowledge and skills of the journal readers.
• The editor should evaluate the referees according to their timing and performance.
• The editor should create a database of referees and update the database according to the performance of the referees.
• The editor should remove the referees who have rude and unqualified comments or reply late from the referee list.
• The editor should constantly renew and expand the list of referees according to the referees' fields of expertise.
• The editor should constantly update the editorial guidelines and sample template regarding what he/she expects from authors.