The publication processes implemented in the Muş Alparslan University Journal of Health Sciences form the basis for the development and distribution of information in an impartial and respectful manner. The processes implemented in this direction directly reflect on the quality of their studies.

Peer-reviewed studies are studies that embody and support the scientific method. At this point, it is important for all stakeholders of the process (authors, readers and researchers, publisher, referees and editors) to comply with the standards regarding ethical principles.

Ethical duties and responsibilities were written in light of the guidelines and policies prepared by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Editors’ Responsibilities

The editor of the Muş Alparslan University Health Sciences Journal should have the following ethical duties and responsibilities based on the “COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors”, “COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) guidelines published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as open access:

General duties and responsibilities

Editors are responsible for every publication published in the Muş Alparslan University Health Sciences Journal. In the context of this responsibility, editors have the following roles and responsibilities:

Efforts to meet the information needs of readers and authors,
Continuously ensuring the development of the journal,
Conducting processes to improve the quality of studies published in the journal,
Supporting freedom of thought,
Ensuring academic integrity,
Continuing business processes without compromising intellectual property rights and ethical standards,
Showing openness and transparency in terms of publication on issues requiring correction and explanation.

Relations with readers

Editors should make decisions by taking into account the expectations of all readers, researchers and practitioners regarding the knowledge, skills and experience they need. They should ensure that the published studies contribute to the readers, researchers, practitioners and scientific literature and are original. In addition, editors are obliged to take into account the feedback from readers, researchers and practitioners and to provide explanatory and informative feedback.

Relationships with Authors

The duties and responsibilities of editors towards authors are as follows:

Editors should make positive or negative decisions based on the importance, original value, validity, clarity of expression and the journal's aims and objectives of the studies.
Studies that are suitable for the scope of publication should be taken to the preliminary evaluation stage unless there is a serious problem.
Editors should not ignore positive referee suggestions unless there is a serious problem with the study.
New editors should not change the decisions made by the previous editor(s) regarding the studies unless there is a serious problem.
The Blind Review and Evaluation Process must be published and editors should prevent deviations that may occur in the defined processes.
Editors should publish an Author Guide that includes in detail every issue that the authors will expect from them. These guides should be updated at certain intervals.
Authors should be notified and responded to in an explanatory and informative manner.

Relationships with Referees

The duties and responsibilities of editors towards referees are as follows:

Referees should be determined in accordance with the subject of the study.
It is responsible for providing the information and guides that the referees will need during the evaluation phase.

It is obliged to monitor whether there is a conflict of interest between the authors and the referees.

In the context of blind refereeing, the identity of the referees should be kept confidential.

It should encourage the referees to evaluate the work with an impartial, scientific and objective language.

It should evaluate the referees with criteria such as timely response and performance.

It should determine practices and policies that will increase the performance of the referees.

It should take the necessary steps to dynamically update the referee pool.

It should prevent rude and unscientific evaluations.
It should take steps to ensure that the referee pool consists of a wide range of people.

Relations with the editorial board

Editors should inform the members of the Scientific Advisory Board about the publication policies and keep them informed of the developments. It should provide the new members of the Scientific Advisory Board with the information they need about the publication policies.

Relationships with the Editorial Board

Editors should inform the members of the Scientific Advisory Board about the publication policies and keep them informed of the developments. They should provide the new members of the Scientific Advisory Board with the information they need about the publication policies.

Authors' Responsibilities

Author(s) who submit candidate articles to the Muş Alparslan University Journal of Health Sciences are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

The studies submitted by the author(s) are expected to be original. If the author(s) benefit from or use other studies, they must refer to and/or cite them completely and accurately.

People who did not contribute intellectually to the content of the study should not be stated as authors.
Any conflicts of interest and relationships that may exist in all studies submitted for publication should be disclosed.
The raw data regarding their articles may be requested from the author(s) within the framework of the evaluation processes, and in such a case, the author(s) should be ready to present the expected data and information to the editorial board.
The author(s) must have the rights to use the data used, the necessary permissions regarding the research/analysis, or a document showing that informed consent has been obtained.

Referee Responsibilities

First of all, referees should only accept to evaluate studies related to their field of expertise.
They should not access the identity information of the author(s). If they access or guess the identity information of the author(s), they should end the evaluation process.
They should evaluate impartially and confidentially.
If they think they are faced with a conflict of interest during the evaluation process, they should refuse to review the study and inform the journal editor.
They can only use the studies they have reviewed after the study is published. No information should be shared about a rejected study.
They should indicate related studies that have not been cited.
They should evaluate objectively and only with respect to the content of the study. They should not allow nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political beliefs and commercial concerns to affect the evaluation.
They should evaluate constructively and politely. They should not make derogatory personal comments that include slander and insult.
They should carry out the studies they accept to evaluate on time and in accordance with the above ethical responsibilities.

Publisher Responsibilities

The people responsible for all processes of the studies are the editors. Since the decision-makers are the editors, the publisher undertakes to create an independent editorial decision.
It protects the ownership and copyright of each published article and undertakes the obligation to keep a record of each published copy.

It has the responsibility to take measures against all kinds of scientific misconduct, citation fraud and plagiarism regarding editors.

When creating ethical duties and responsibilities, the guidelines and policies published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) as open access have been taken into consideration.

Ensuring the Accuracy of Scientific Information

Ethics in reporting research results: The scientific method is based on the reproducibility and verifiability of observations. Data cannot be fabricated or changed to obtain a specific result or support hypotheses, including by manipulating visual materials. A portion of the data or findings cannot be ignored in order to obtain a more desired and convincing result.

If there is an unintentional error in the writing, the author must announce this error to the readership when he/she notices it after the article is published. To do this, he/she must first notify the editor and publisher of the error and ensure that the correction is published. Each correction must be published on the web and made accessible to readers.

Storage and sharing of data: In case of doubts regarding the accuracy of the research report, the author must submit the data to the editor. If the author does not submit the data, the article will be rejected without further evaluation. The researcher must keep the data, application procedures and other materials for at least 5 (five) years from the date of publication of the research. After the article is published, if other [qualified] researchers request the research data, they must share the data. However, before sharing the data with other researchers, all codes and data that can be associated with the identification of the subjects/participants must be deleted. If the research is funded by an institution, the necessary precautions must be taken to protect the rights of this institution and to ensure proper attribution. A written agreement text that includes the purpose of use of the data, scope of use, conditions and limitations, limits and conditions of sharing with third parties must be signed and recorded between the researcher who wants to share the data and the researcher who owns the data.

Re-publication of data or publication in parts: Re-publication of data is the publication of findings obtained from the same data in a second journal or another source as if they were published for the first time. Re-publication also results in a violation of legal regulations regarding copyright. Because the author cannot grant copyright to more than one institution for the same work. A previously published work, in its entirety or a part that exceeds the amount that can be cited with reference, cannot be published a second time and in another source. A work with the same content or substantially similar to a previously published article cannot be submitted for consideration for publication. Articles that have been presented as a paper but have not been published can be submitted for consideration in a journal by indicating in a footnote that they were presented as a paper. However, published papers cannot be submitted for consideration for publication in journals.

In rare cases, if the author wishes the research results to be accessible to a different audience, it may be possible to publish the results in a new source provided that the following conditions are met:

The re-published material is relatively shortened compared to the original text.
It should be clearly stated in a footnote that the information has been published before and the previous publication should be fully referenced.

Previously published tables, graphs and visuals should be stated as [reprints] in the text and as footnotes.

The original publication should be clearly and correctly included in the references.

The data obtained from a study should be presented in its entirety and should not be divided into parts. It may be misleading to publish the study by dividing it into parts. However, in cases where it is appropriate to extract more than one publication from the results of large-scale, long-term or interdisciplinary studies, more than one publication can be extracted from the same source or from different sources. In interdisciplinary studies, it may not be appropriate to publish research findings in a single source. In long-term studies, if the results of the analyses made at different stages of the study provide an original contribution to scientific knowledge, the analyses at different stages can be published as separate studies but by specifying the stage of the research. In this case, publications based on the previous stages of the research should be cited. In publications based on long-term studies, information provided in publications made in the early stages of the same research should not be repeated, and references should be made to previous information to inform the reader.

If more than one study based on the same research is submitted for evaluation, this issue should be explained to the editor and the editor should evaluate whether the second study meets the criteria for publication as a separate study.

Plagiarism and self-plagiarism: Authors cannot write information and ideas belonging to others as their own. Similarly, they cannot publish their own previously published studies or parts of these studies without citing or citing them.

Protection of Participants' Rights and Interests

The confidentiality of the information provided by the participants must be protected and secured. Therefore, the research report should not contain information that would allow the identification of the participants. In the event that a subordinate-superior relationship or teacher-student relationship exists in the collection of data from the participants and the obtaining of their consent for the use of the data, care must be taken to ensure that this relationship does not put the subordinate under pressure to provide the requested information and consent. Especially for academics, seeing their students as "natural subjects" can create a serious bias in the research and may also result in the violation of the students' rights to provide or not provide information of their own volition.

If the subject of the research is the evaluation of a service or product, the researcher should not have a commercial relationship with the relevant institution or any conflict of interest. If the researcher has a relationship that can be considered as a conflict of interest, this relationship should be expressed as a limitation, even if there is no conflict of interest that will affect the objectivity of the research process.

Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

Authorship is a right gained by making a significant contribution to a study and accepting responsibility for the published work. Making a significant contribution means formulating the problem or hypothesis, structuring the experimental design or application procedures, performing statistical analyses, interpreting the results, and writing a portion of the study. Those who make significant contributions are listed as authors. However, the names and contributions of those who make other contributions that cannot be listed as authors should be indicated in footnotes. Other contributions that do not grant authorship but should be indicated include providing support in the creation of the data collection tool, making suggestions on data analysis techniques, collecting or entering data, ensuring the presence of participants, and performing routine observations.

In general, when listing the names of authors, the contributions of each author are taken into account, and the author names are listed starting from the author who contributed the most. If the contributions of the authors are equal, this issue can be clearly stated and the order can be made alphabetically. Institutional or professional titles and statuses are not taken into account in listing the names of authors.

According to Article 35 of Law No. 5846 on the Protection of Intellectual and Artistic Works (and Law No. 4630 amending this Law), quotation and reference must be made. According to Law No. 4630, the legal framework for quotation or reference is defined as follows:

“Article 35 – It is permissible to quote from a work in the following cases:

Including some sentences and paragraphs of a publicized work in an independent scientific and literary work;
Including parts of a published composition, mostly themes, motifs, passages and ideas, in an independent musical work;
Including publicized works of fine art and other published works in a scientific work to a degree justified by the purpose and for the purpose of clarifying their content;
Displaying publicized works of fine art in scientific conferences or lessons using projections or similar means in order to clarify the subject.

The quotation must be made in a way that is obvious. In scientific works, in addition to the name of the work used and the author of the work, the place from which this part was taken is indicated.”

Exceeding the limits of quotation and reference specified in this article, violating this article constitutes a crime and the penalties to be applied in case of this crime are regulated by Article 71 of Law No. 4630:

“Article 71 - (Amended article: 01/11/1983 -2936/11. Article; Amended article: 23/01/2008-5728 S.K./138. Article)

By violating the moral, financial or related rights related to intellectual and artistic works protected in this Law:

Those who process, represent, reproduce, modify, distribute, transmit to the public by means of any means of transmitting signs, sounds or images, publish or offer for sale, sell, rent or lend or otherwise distribute works that have been processed or reproduced illegally, purchase for commercial purposes, import or export, for personal use Anyone who possesses or stores these items outside the country shall be sentenced to imprisonment from one to five years or a judicial fine.