The publication process in the Journal of Divinity Faculty of Kastamonu University constitutes to the development and distribution of knowledge objectively and in a respected way. For this reason, the applied processes are reflected on the quality of the writers’ and the quality of institutions works which support the authors. Reviewed articles reify and promote the scientific method. At this point, it is of importance for all the stakeholders of the process (writers, readers and researchers, publisher, reviewer and the editors) to be in accordance with standards about ethic principles. Journal of Divinity Faculty of Kastamonu University expects all stakeholders to carry on the ethic responsibilities below within the context of publication ethics.

The following ethical duties and responsibilities are written in the light of the guide and policies made by Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive and  Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

1. Autorship
· The bibliography must be complete.
· No place must be given for plagiarism and false data.
· The same study must not be tried to be published in more than one journal, rules of the scientific research and publication ethics must be obeyed.
Actions against the scientific research and publication ethics are:

a) Plagiarism: Presenting others’ ideas, methods, data, practices, writing, forms or studies partly or wholly without referencing to the owners according to scientific rules,
b) Forgery: Producing data that is not based on research, editing or changing the presented or published study by basing it on fictitious data, reporting or publishing these, showing an unmade research as if it were made,
c) Distortion: Falsifying the obtained data and the research records, showing the methods, devices and materials that were not used in the study as if they had been used, not taking the data that are not inappropriate to the research hypothesis into consideration, juggling with data and/or results to make them be appropriate to the related theory and presuppositions, falsifying or manipulating the research results in accordance with the advantages of the people and the institutions that support the researcher,
d) Dissection: Dissecting the results of a study in a way that would destroy the integrity of the study and inappropriately, and using these in associate professorship exam evaluations by making a lot of publications of them without referencing each other and presenting these as separate studies in academic promotions,
e) Undeserved authorship: Including those who don’t have an active contribution in authors, not including those who have an active contribution in authors, changing the ranking of authors without a reason and inappropriately, excluding the names of those with active contribution from the study during publication or in next publications, making one’s name included – by exerting influence – in authors despite having no active contribution,
f) Other types of violation of ethics: Not stating openly the people, institutions and organizations and their contributions to the study in the publication of the researches that are made by the support of those, not following the ethic rules in studies done on humans or animals, not respecting the rights of patients in the publications, reviewer’s sharing the knowledge in a study, which is to be reviewed, with others before it is published, using the sources, places, opportunities and devices, which are provided or kept for scientific researches, out of their purposes, accusing someone of violation of ethics in a baseless, injudicious and malicious way (YOK Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Guideline, Article 8)

2. Author’s Responsibilities
· All authors should considerably contribute to the study.
· The statement that all the data in the article is real and authentic is necessary.
· All the authors should ensure withdrawal and correction of mistakes

3.Peer review / responsibility for the reviewers:
Judgments should be objective.
Reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders.
Reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited.
Reviewed articles should be treated confidentially.

4. Editorial Responsibilities
· Editors have all the responsibility and authority to accept or decline an article.
· Editors should not be in a conflict of interest about the articles they accepted or declined.
· Only the articles that would contribute in the field should be accepted.
· Editors should side a publication for correction or withdrawal when mistakes are found.
· Editors must keep the names of the reviewers hidden and must prevent plagiarism/false data.

Publication of Studies Based on Survey and Interview
Journal of Divinity Faculty of Kastamonu University adopts the principles of the Editorial Ethics Committee (COPE) "Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers" in order to create ethical assurance in scientific periodicals. In this context, the authors are requested to comply with the following issues in the studies submitted to the journal:
1) Ethics committee approval should be obtained for research conducted in all disciplines that require ethics committee approval, this approval should be stated on the first page of the article and the ethics approval document should be uploaded to the Dergipark system with the article.
2) In research that requires ethics committee permission, information about the permission (name of the committee, date and number) in the method section, and after the bibliography part of the article; In case reports, information about signing the informed consent/consent form should be included in the article.

Discovering Plagiarism
Submitted manuscripts that pass preliminary control are scanned for plagiarism using special software (iThenticate or Turnitin) If plagiarism/self-plagiarism will be found authors will be informed. Editors may resubmit the manuscript for similarity check at any peer-review or production stage if required. High similarity scores may lead to rejection of a manuscript before and even after acceptance.

Privacy
Personal information such as names and e-mail addresses entered into Journal of Divinity Faculty of Kastamonu University system will only be used for the scientific purposes of the journal. This information will not be used for any other purpose and will not be shared with third parties. The studies sent to the referees for evaluation are kept as hidden documents. The works are not shown to others and their contents are not discussed.

Correction, Retraction, Expression of Concern

Editor should consider publishing correction if minor errors that do not effect the results, interpretations and conclusions of the published paper are detected. Editor should consider retraction if major errors and/or misconduction that invalidate results and conclusions are detected. Editor should consider issuing an expression of concern if there is evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors; there is evidence that the findings are not reliable and institutions of the authors do not investigate the case or the possible investigation seems to be unfair or nonconclusive. The guidelines of COPE and ICJME are taken into consideration regarding correction, retractions or expression of concern.

ERRATUM
The correction requests submitted by the authors are reviewed by the Editorial Board and the corrections are applied based on the decision of the Editorial Board. In case of corrections in the published text, the readers are informed by publishing the Erratum text in the number following the correction. The edited article is updated on the journal web page and in the indexes when the journal is scanned.

The publication request of the articles that are found to be contrary to the accepted research and publication ethics standards during the article evaluation process is rejected. If the said contradiction is detected after the publication of the work, the work is removed from the publication.

A reader may file a report by sending an e-mail to ilafdergi@kastamonu.edu.tr when s/he finds a significant mistake or error in an article published in Journal of Divinity Faculty of Kastamonu University or when s/he has a complaint about the editorial content (plagiarism, repeated articles etc.). Since complaints provide opportunities for our development, we take them kindly and we aim to give feedbacks that are quick and constructive.