Ethical Principles and Publication Policy



Ethical Principles and Publication Policy


Publishing processes and policies implemented in the Journal of Architectural Sciences and Applications (JASA) form the basis for developing and distributing information in a neutral and respected manner.
The JASA transparent about their ethical requirements for authors and published works.
JASA has strongly adopted the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing set by DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
The processes implemented in this direction are directly reflected in the quality of the authors' work and the institutions supporting the authors. Reviewers are studies that embody and support the scientific method. At this point, all stakeholders of the process (authors, readers, researchers, publishers, referees, and editors) must comply and have the following ethical responsibilities with the standards for ethical standards.

Fundamentals of Ethical Principles and Publication Policy of JASA
• Higher Education Institutions (YÖK) Scientific Research And Publication Ethics Directive (Türkiye)
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
• The World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
• The Declaration of Budapest Open Access
• Creative Commons

In the articles to be published in the Journal of Architectural Sciences and Applications, the "ETHICAL COMMITTEE PERMIT" will be mandatory for the publications that started in 2020. The rules of Scientific Ethics and Publication Ethics must be strictly followed in the articles to be published in the journal. It should be stated in the article whether it is necessary to obtain an ETHICAL BOARD PERMIT and/or a LEGAL / SPECIAL PERMIT. If these permits are required, they should be presented from which institution, on which date, and with which decision or number the permit was obtained.

Researches requiring Ethics Committee Permit;
• Any research carried out with qualitative or quantitative approaches requiring data collection from participants using survey, interview, focus group work, observation, experiment, or interview techniques,
• Use of humans and animals (including material/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,
• Clinical studies on humans,
• Research on animals,
• Retrospective studies by the Law on Protection of Personal Data,
• In the case reports, it was stated that the "Informed consent form" was taken,
• Obtaining and expressing permission from the owners for the use of scales, questionnaires, and photographs belonging to others,
• Indicating that copyright regulations are observed for the ideas and works of art used.
The following ethical duties and responsibilities have been prepared by considering the guidelines and policies published by COPE, YÖK Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive, Declaration of Helsinki, The Declaration of Budapest Open Access, etc.

Authors' Ethical Responsibilities
Author(s) who submit their manuscript to JASA are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:
• The manuscripts submitted by the author (s) are expected to be original. If the author (s) benefit from other studies or use other studies, they must cite or quote completely and accurately.
• People who do not contribute to the content intellectually in the creation of the study should not be specified as a writer.
• If there is a conflict of interest in all manuscripts submitted for publication, their situations, and relations that may constitute should be explained.
• Raw data about the articles can be requested from the author(s) within the framework of the evaluation processes. In such a case, the author(s) should be ready to present the expected data and information to the editorial board and the scientific board.
• The author(s) must have the right to use the data they use, Have the necessary permissions regarding research/analysis, or have a document showing that the test subjects have obtained their consent.
• Suppose the author (s) notices a mistake or error regarding the published, early view, or evaluation phase. In that case, there is an obligation to inform the journal editor or the publisher to cooperate with the editor in the correction or withdrawal.
• Authors cannot simultaneously keep their manuscripts in the application of more than one journal. Each application can be started following the completion of the previous application. The article published in another journal cannot be sent to us.
• Changing author responsibilities (such as adding authors, changing author order, or removing authors) of a study whose evaluation process has started cannot be offered.

Plagiarism Policy of JASA
All papers submitted to the Journal of Architectural Sciences and Applications (JASA) should fulfill the expectations regarding the authenticity of the paper. If plagiarism is identified, the COPE guidelines on plagiarism will be followed. There is a zero-tolerance policy towards plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) in our journal. Papers are screened for plagiarism before, during, and after publication, and if found they will be rejected at any stage. After the review process has been completed and the manuscript has been accepted as a possible publication in JASA authors will be asked to submit a similarity report in PDF format by using plagiarism software which determines the similarity rates such as Turnitin/ iThenticate/ Academic Paradigms for Plagiarism/Grammarly-Plagiarism Checker. The Plagiarism-Similarity report must be in a PDF format for the entire text including tables, and figures (excluding references). The plagiarism rate of the accepted manuscript must be not exceeded the rate of 18%.

Editors' Ethical Assignments and Responsibilities
JASA editors and field editors must have the following ethical duties and responsibilities based on the guidelines of "COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as Open Access;

General Assignments and Responsibilities
Editors are responsible for every publication published in the journal. In the context of this responsibility, editors have the following roles and obligations:
• make efforts to meet the information needs of readers and authors,
• ensure the development of the journal continuously,
• carry out the processes for improving the quality of the articles published in the journal,
• support freedom of thought,
• provide academic integrity,
• continue their work processes without compromising intellectual property rights and ethical standards,
• show clarity and transparency in publication on issues requiring correction and explanation.

Relations with The Reader
Editors should decide by considering readers, researchers, and practitioners' knowledge, skills, and experience expectations. The reader should pay attention to the fact that the published studies contribute to the reader, researcher, practitioner, and scientific literature and be original. In addition, editors must take into account feedback from readers, researchers, and practitioners and provide explanatory and informative feedback.

Relationships with Authors
The assignments and responsibilities of the editors toward the authors are as follows:
• Editors should make a positive or negative decision based on the importance of the manuscript, its originality, validity, clarity of its expression, and the goals and objectives of the journal.
• The suitable manuscripts for publication should be taken to the preliminary evaluation stage unless they have a severe problem.
• Editors should only ignore the positive referee suggestions if there is a severe problem with the manuscript.
• New editors should only change the decisions made by previous editors for the manuscript if there is a severe problem.
• "Blind Review and Evaluation Process" must be published, and editors must avoid any deviations that may occur in the defined processes.
• Editors should publish an "Author's Guide" that contains detailed information on each topic expected by the authors. These guides should be updated at specific time intervals.
• Editors should provide descriptive and informative notifications or feedback to the authors.

Relations with Reviewers
The assignments and responsibilities of the editors toward the reviewers are as follows:
• Editors should identify the reviewers by the subject of the manuscript.
• They must provide the information and guides the reviewers will need during the evaluation phase.
• Editors must look for any conflict of interest between the authors and reviewers.
• Editors should keep the reviewers' credentials private for blind review.
• They should encourage reviewers to evaluate manuscripts impartially, scientifically, and objectively.
• They should evaluate the reviewers with criteria such as timely return and performance.
• Editors should determine practices and policies that increase the performance of the reviewers.
• They should take the necessary steps to update the reviewer pool dynamically.
• They should prevent unkind and unscientific reviews.
• Editors must take steps to make the reviewer's pool a wide range.

Relations with the Editorial Board
Editors should ensure that all editorial board members advance the processes by their editorial policies and guidelines. The editorial board should inform the members of the editorial policies and inform the developments. Editors should educate new editorial board members on editorial policies and provide the necessary information.
In addition, Editors;
• Should ensure that editorial board members evaluate the manuscript impartially and independently.
• Should identify new editorial board members who can contribute and have appropriate qualifications.
• Should send manuscripts suitable for editorial board members' expertise for evaluation.
• Should regularly interact with the editorial board.
• Hold meetings with the editorial board periodically to develop editorial policies and the journal.

Relations with The Journal Owner, Hosting Platform, and Publisher
The owner of the Journal is Prof. Dr. Atila GÜL. JASA's hosting and process management platform is Dergipark ( https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/). The publishing house is Süleyman Demirel University. JASA provides the entire online hosting service and editorial workflow management system through the DergiPark (TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM) platform.
The relationship between the editors, the journal owner, the hosting platform, and the publisher is based on the principle of editorial independence. All decisions and practices taken by the Editors are independent of the Hosting Platform, Publisher, and Journal Owner. In addition, JASA is an e-Journal published on the Dergipark platform. The publishing house of Süleyman Demirel University ( https://sdu.edu.tr and https://w3.sdu.edu.tr/sayfa/5725/e-dergi) does not have any right, authority, or responsibility.

Editorial and Blind Review Processes
Editors must apply the "Blind Review and Evaluation Process" policies included in the journal's publication policies. In this context, editors ensure that each article is completed on time in a fair and impartial evaluation process.

Quality Assurance
Editors are responsible for publishing every article published in the journal by journal publishing policies and international standards.

Protection of Personal Data
Editors are obliged to protect personal data related to the subjects or images included in the evaluated manuscripts. They are responsible for refusing the manuscript unless there is a document showing the consent of the individuals used in the works. Editors are also responsible for protecting the individual data of authors, reviewers, and readers.

The Ethics Committee, Human and Animal Rights
Editors must protect human and animal rights in the evaluated manuscripts. They are responsible for refusing the manuscript when there is no ethics committee approval and permissions for experimental research for subjects used in the studies.
Measure Against Possible Abuse and Misconduct
Editors are obliged to take action against possible abuse and misconduct. In addition to conducting a rigorous and objective investigation regarding the identification and evaluation of complaints regarding this situation, sharing the findings on the subject is among the editor's responsibilities.

Ensuring Academic Publication Integrity
Editors should ensure that articles with errors, inconsistencies, or misleading are quickly corrected.

Protection of Intellectual Property Rights
Editors are obliged to protect the intellectual property right of all published articles and to defend the rights of the journal and author(s) in possible violations. In addition, editors are obliged to take necessary precautions so that all published articles do not violate the intellectual property rights of other publications.

Positivity and Openness To Debate
Editors;
• Should take into account persuasive criticism of the articles published in the journal and take a positive attitude towards these criticisms.
• Should grant the right to reply to the author(s) of the criticized manuscripts.
• Should pay attention to studies with negative results.

Complaints
Editors must carefully examine complaints from the author, referee, or readers and respond in an illuminating and descriptive manner.

Political and Commercial Concerns
Journal owners, publishers, and no other political and commercial factors affect the editorial decision-making of editors.

Conflicts of Interest
Editors consider conflicts of interest between authors, reviewers, and other editors, ensuring that the article is completed independently and impartially.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers
• Evaluation of all studies with "Blind Review" directly affects the quality of the publication. This process provides confidence through the objective and independent evaluation of the publication. The evaluation process is carried out with the principle of double-blind peer review. The reviews cannot contact the authors directly; the reviews and comments are conveyed through the journal management system. The review forms and the reviewer's comments on the full texts are sent to the author (s) through the editor. In this context, reviewers evaluating manuscripts for our journal are expected to have the following ethical responsibilities:
• They should only agree to evaluate manuscripts related to their area of expertise.
• They should evaluate neutrality and confidentiality.
• If the referees consider that they face a conflict of interest during the evaluation process, they should refuse to review the study and inform the journal editor.
• After the evaluation process, they must destroy the manuscript they have reviewed per the principle of confidentiality. They can only use the final versions of the studies they have studied only after their publication.
• They should perform the evaluation objectively only on the content of the study. Reviewers should not allow nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political thoughts, and commercial concerns to influence evaluation.
• They should evaluate positive and courteous language. They should not make humiliating personal comments that include hostility, slander, and insults.
• They should carry out the manuscript they accepted the evaluation on time and with the above ethical responsibilities.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Journal Editorial Board
The Journal Editorial Board acts with the awareness of the following ethical responsibilities:
• Editors are responsible for all processes of the manuscript submitted to the journal. In this framework, decision-makers are editors regardless of economic or political gains.
• They are committed to the creation of an independent editor decision.
• JASA protects the property and copyright of every published article and undertakes to keep a record of every published copy.
• It is responsible for taking all precautions against scientific abuse, improper citation, and plagiarism.

Open Access Statement
JASA adheres to the Budapest Open Access Initiative and defines its Open Access policy according to the definition developed in the original BOAI:
By “open access” to [peer-reviewed research literature], we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited. [See, http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/boai-10-recommendations]
JASA views open access to academic publications and research as an immutable part of academic endeavor. The publisher recognizes the essence of public good provided by the journal and hence accepts its responsibility as a public service to academic and intellectual betterment.
The publisher via its host-providing institution Dergipark uses Lockss for the archiving and preservation of its online content. Authors retain their intellectual property: All articles published on JASA are licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International Licence and the journal does not require a transfer of copyright.

Copyright
In addition to being available on JASA authors are encouraged to post any version of their manuscript in their institutional repositories or on their websites at any stage of the pre-and post-publication process. As an open-access journal, we do not require authors to transfer the copyright to JASA to publish in the journal. Authors retain full control of their intellectual property and we use the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 license for all works published in the journal.
The copyright of each article in JASA is reserved by the author (s) of that article under the Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) copyright license, and this means that the original work can be copied, redistributed, rearranged and in any non-commercial medium or format, provided that the original work is properly cited. It allows creating a new study by using the material in the study. The author grants the non-exclusive publishing right to JASA Journal to publish their work.

Archiving Policy
JASA is accessed via the Dergipark platform ( https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/) which utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. In addition, Metadata and full texts of all articles published in the JASA Journal are stored in XML and .pdf format on a 3rd party cloud server in a closed way.

Publication Language
JASA publishes articles written only in English and Turkish.

Publication Frequency
JASA is published "online" twice a year, in July and December. If the Editorial Board deems it appropriate, symposium, congress, workshop, and special themed topics, etc. A Special Issue may be published once a year.
For articles in Special Issues, the same research article publication processes and policies are applied.

Privacy Policy
Personal information entered into the JASA site is used only for the specified purposes of this journal, and cannot be used or shared for other purposes. This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record and the journal.

If you encounter an Unethical Situation
If you find that our journal does not comply with the ethical responsibilities mentioned above and you encounter unethical behavior or content, please report it to atilagul@sdu.edu.tr via e-mail.