ETHICAL PRINCIPLES AND PUBLICATION POLICY

Publication Policy

Lycus is a scholarly, peer-reviewed, open-access e-journal published by Pamukkale University. The journal aims to share original scholarly studies prepared in the field of archaeology and related disciplines with the academic community. Lycus is available online through DergiPark: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/lycus  

The scientific content, data, sources, interpretations, and conclusions of the studies published in Lycus are the responsibility of the author(s). Articles published in the journal do not directly or indirectly reflect the institutional views of Lycus, the editors, the editorial board, or the publishing institution.

Lycus is committed to ethical principles, academic integrity, transparency, and responsible publishing in scholarly publication. The journal’s publication ethics policy is conducted in accordance with the publication ethics principles issued by COPE, good practice guidelines for editors and reviewers, and the principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing.

Relevant reference sources:

• COPE Core Practices: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices  
• COPE Guidelines: https://publicationethics.org/guidance 
•  Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing: https://publicationethics.org/guidance/guideline/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing 
• DOAJ Transparency and Best Practice: https://doaj.org/apply/transparency/ 
• OASPA: https://www.oaspa.org/ 

All submissions to the journal are evaluated in terms of originality, scholarly quality, ethical compliance, use of sources, copyright, conflicts of interest, use of visual/data materials, and publication policy.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Lycus Journal recognises that artificial intelligence–assisted tools must be used ethically, transparently, and responsibly in academic publishing processes. This policy has been prepared in accordance with the journal’s ethical principles and publication policies and adopts the “Ethical Guidelines on the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence” published by the Council of Higher Education of Türkiye.

Artificial intelligence–assisted tools may be used for language editing, translation assistance, proofreading, formatting checks, and limited preliminary preparation. However, the use of such tools does not relieve authors of their responsibility for the scientific originality and accuracy of their work or its compliance with publication ethics.

Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. Authorship requires assuming responsibility for the scientific content of the work, ensuring its accuracy and originality, maintaining compliance with ethical principles, and being accountable when necessary.

Authors who have used artificial intelligence–assisted tools during the preparation of their work must disclose such use openly and transparently. The disclosure must specify the name of the tool, the purpose for which it was used, and the stage of the work at which it was employed.

Authors bear full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, scientific validity, and compliance with publication ethics of any text, image, table, translation, bibliographic reference, or similar content generated, edited, or suggested by artificial intelligence tools.

Reviewers must not upload the text, data, images, or other content of manuscripts under review to artificial intelligence tools. Such tools must not be used in any manner that could compromise the confidentiality or impartiality of the peer-review process, data security, or intellectual property rights.

Ethics Committee Approval and Research Permissions

In studies involving human participants, human data, animals, surveys, interviews, questionnaires, scales, experiments, observations, focus groups, or similar methods, the necessary ethics committee approval must be obtained and this information must be clearly stated in the manuscript.

In studies requiring ethics committee approval, the name of the committee, approval date, and decision number must be included in the manuscript. For studies that do not require ethics committee approval, this must also be appropriately stated.

For studies based on excavation, survey, museum collections, archives, institutional data, private collections, inscriptions, coins, archaeological objects, visual documents, or cultural heritage elements, the necessary legal permissions, usage rights, and copyright information must be provided by the author.

When visual materials belonging to museums, excavation directorates, institutional archives, private collections, or third parties are used, obtaining the necessary permissions and indicating source/copyright information in the figure captions are the responsibility of the author.

Conflict of Interest

Authors must clearly declare all financial, academic, institutional, personal, or other conflicts of interest that may affect the results or interpretations of their work.

For studies with no conflict of interest, the following statement must be used:

“The author(s) declare that there is no conflict of interest.”

Editors and reviewers must also disclose any conflict of interest related to the manuscripts they evaluate and withdraw from the process when necessary.

Originality, Plagiarism, and Duplicate Publication

Submissions to Lycus must not have been previously published and must not be under consideration by another journal at the same time.

Authors acknowledge that the work is original, that all sources used are cited completely and accurately, and that individuals who have not directly contributed to the work are not listed as authors.

Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, salami slicing, use of fabricated data, failure to cite sources, copyright infringement, and inappropriate authorship are considered ethical violations.

Submissions to Lycus are subject to similarity checks. The similarity rate and the matches included in the similarity report are evaluated by the editors not only on the basis of numerical value, but also by considering the nature, context, and citation status of the matches.

Manuscripts found to be in violation of ethical principles may be rejected or removed from the publication process at any stage.

Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for presenting the data used in their studies accurately, transparently, and in a verifiable manner.

Archaeological data, catalogue information, measurements, drawings, photographs, maps, tables, analysis results, transcriptions, translations, and interpretations used in the study are the scholarly responsibility of the author(s).

Authors must cite all sources accurately and completely; when previously published data, visual materials, or assessments are used, the relevant sources must be clearly indicated.

Only individuals who have made a scientifically meaningful contribution to the study should be listed as authors. The order of authors and the corresponding author information must be clearly stated at the time of submission. All authors must have seen the final version of the manuscript and approved its publication.

Authors are responsible for informing the editorial board if they notice a significant error or omission in their published work.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers should agree to review only manuscripts that fall within their areas of expertise.

Reviewers must conduct their evaluations within the framework of confidentiality, impartiality, academic courtesy, and scholarly criteria. Personal criticism, derogatory language, or evaluations lacking scholarly justification should be avoided.

If reviewers detect missing citations, significant similarity, possible plagiarism, data problems, visual/copyright issues, or suspected ethical violations in the manuscript they review, they must inform the editors.

Reviewers may not use the information, data, ideas, or visual materials they access during the review process for their own work or share them with third parties.

Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are responsible for conducting the preliminary evaluation, peer review, and publication processes of submissions in accordance with impartiality, confidentiality, and scholarly criteria.

In evaluating manuscripts, editors consider only scholarly quality, originality, methodology, ethical compliance, and suitability for the journal’s scope, without regard to the authors’ gender, ethnic origin, religious belief, political view, institutional affiliation, or personal characteristics.

Editors do not share information about submitted manuscripts with third parties other than the author, reviewers, potential reviewers, members of the editorial board, and individuals involved in the publication process.

Editors evaluate issues that may arise during the peer review process, such as conflicts of interest, ethical violations, plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, visual manipulation, or copyright infringement, in accordance with publication ethics principles.

Ethical Violations, Corrections, and Retractions

Lycus takes possible violations of research and publication ethics seriously. Plagiarism, data fabrication, data falsification, visual manipulation, duplicate publication, inappropriate authorship, copyright infringement, concealment of conflicts of interest, and similar cases are considered ethical violations.

If a suspicion of ethical violation arises during the publication process or after publication, the editorial board conducts the necessary investigation. When deemed necessary, authors may be asked to provide explanations, documents, permission letters, raw data, or additional information.

If an error, omission, or ethical issue is identified in a published work, correction, editorial statement, or retraction procedures may be initiated.

For errors that do not invalidate the main conclusions of the study but require correction, a correction may be published. If an ethical violation or data problem that seriously undermines the scholarly reliability of the study is identified, the article may be retracted.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors may submit appeals regarding editorial decisions or the peer review process to the editorial board with scholarly justifications.

Appeals must clearly state the title of the manuscript, submission number, decision date, and grounds for appeal. Appeals are evaluated by the editorial board, and additional reviewer opinions may be sought when necessary.

Complaints concerning publication ethics, the evaluation process, conflicts of interest, copyright, plagiarism, data use, or similar matters may be submitted to the journal editorship. Complaints are evaluated in accordance with the principles of confidentiality and impartiality.

Open Access, Copyright, and Archiving

Lycus adopts an open-access policy. All content published in the journal is made freely available to readers from the moment of publication.

Readers may read, download, save, print, and link to articles published in Lycus, provided that proper citation is given.

All articles published in Lycus are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Under this license, readers may use, share, and distribute published works, provided that the author and the original source of publication are properly acknowledged.

License link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 

Authors may share their works published in Lycus on personal websites, institutional repositories, academic profile pages, and open-access archives, provided that proper citation is given.

The digital content of Lycus is made available through the DergiPark infrastructure and preserved within the framework of the digital archiving facilities provided by DergiPark.

DergiPark: https://dergipark.org.tr/

Fee Policy

Lycus is a non-profit scholarly journal that adopts an open-access policy. No fees are charged to authors at any stage of manuscript submission, preliminary evaluation, peer review, editorial processing, layout, or publication.

Lycus does not charge article processing fees, submission fees, review fees, or publication fees. The journal conducts its publication processes in accordance with scholarly quality, ethical responsibility, and open-access principles.

DOI Number

A DOI is a digital identifier that ensures the permanent identification and accessibility of scholarly works published electronically.

A DOI number may be assigned to works accepted for publication in Lycus. The DOI number contributes to the permanent identification of the work in the electronic environment and to the assurance of its official publication information.

Information on the DOI system: https://www.doi.org/ 

Protection of Personal Data

Manuscripts submitted to Lycus and information obtained during the publication process regarding authors, reviewers, and editorial procedures are protected within the framework of the Law on the Protection of Personal Data and relevant legislation.

Personal information belonging to authors and reviewers, submission files, review reports, correspondence, and process-related information are not shared with third parties or institutions except where required by the publication process.

Confidentiality is essential in the peer review process. Reviewer identities, author identities, review reports, and editorial correspondence are stored in a manner accessible only to authorized editorial units.

Personal Data Protection Authority: https://www.kvkk.gov.tr/ 

Publication Language

Lycus accepts scholarly studies prepared in Turkish and English.

Submissions to the journal are expected to be ready for publication in terms of grammar, academic style, terminology, and expression. During the evaluation process, authors may be asked to make linguistic and formal revisions when deemed necessary.

Publication Frequency

Lycus is published electronically twice a year, in June and December.

Special issues may be published by decision of the editorial board when deemed necessary.