Ethical Principles and Publication Policy
Official journal of Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University Faculty of Medicine, Medical Journal Of Western Black Sea is a peer-reviewed journal which aims to reach all national and international institutions and individuals free of charge.
In the scientific articles sent to our journal, the recommendations of ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) and the International Standards of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) for Editors and Authors are taken into consideration.
Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers
Peer Reviewers,
- respect the confidentiality of the manuscript, do not discuss it and do not reveal any details of it.
- inform the editor about any conflict of interest.
- provide objective and constructive explanations for their suggestions.
- do not allow the decisions related to the article to be influenced by the subject of the manuscript or the way of writing.
- do not contact the authors directly and request their previous articles unless there is a strong scientific reason.
- do not duplicate any part of the article or information reviewed in any of their own work before it is published by the authors.
- agree to accept the reviews only within their expertise and finish the review process within a reasonable time.
- do not intentionally prolong the review process which leads to a delay for the publication of the article.
- use a language refrained from being hostile and avoids making derogatory personal comments.
- destroy the manuscript and associated material after reviewing.
https://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_guidelines_for_peer_reviewers_0.pdf
Ethical Guidelines for Authors
Authors and co-authors,
- meet the following criteria for authorship defined by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE);
a. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
b. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
c. Final approval of the version to be published;
d. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
- ensure that submitted articles are original and are not sent to different publishers.
- are responsible for any falsification, alteration or plagiarism which are defined as abusing research before or during the research or while reporting the findings of it.
- inform the editor if there is any conflict of interest in the submitted articles.
- inform the editor for correction or withdrawal if any mistake is noticed after publication or during the process of pre-control or evaluation.
- do not suggest reordering, adding or dropping author names after article submission.
- state, if the research requires the decision of the ethics committee, that they have the ethics committee approval with the name of the ethics committee and the date and number of the decision in the first and last page of the article and the methods section, also upload the ethics committee approval document to the system along with the application of the article.
- state in the article that they have the consent form for the case reports.
- comply with the copyright regulations for the ideas and works of art used in the article.
- provide statements for Author Contribution, Conflict of Interest, Disclosure and if necessary, Acknowledgements.
http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf
https://www.ease.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/doi.10.20316.ESE_.2018.44.e1.tr_.pdf
Ethical Guidelines for Editors
Editors:
• The readers should be informed about who provides financial support to the study or other scientific studies and whether there is any role of sponsors in the study or publication, and if there is any, what the contribution is.
• Editors should base their decisions of acceptance or rejection on the importance, originality and clarity of the article, validity of study and its relevance to the remit of the journal.
• Editors should not reverse decisions to accept submissions unless serious problems are identified with the submission.
• New editors should not overturn decisions to publish submissions made by the previous editor unless serious problems are identified.
• A description of peer review processes should be published, and editors should be ready to justify any important deviation from the described processes.
• Journals should have a declared mechanism for authors to appeal against editorial decisions.
• Editors should publish guidance to authors on everything that is expected of them. This guidance should be regularly updated and should refer or link to this code.
• Editors should state the authorship criteria suggested by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
• Editors should provide guidance to reviewers on everything that is expected of them including
• the need to handle submitted material in confidence. This guidance should be regularly updated and should refer or link to this code
• Editors should require reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.
• Editors should have systems to ensure that peer reviewers’ identities are protected unless they
• use an open review system that is declared to authors and reviewers. Editors should provide new editorial board members with guidelines on everything that is expected of them and should keep existing members updated on new policies and developments.
• Editors should make decisions on which articles to publish based on quality and suitability for the journal and without interference from the journal owner/publisher.
• Editors should have a written contract(s) setting out their relationship with the journal’s owner and/or publisher. The terms of this contract should be in line with the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors.
• Editors should strive to ensure that peer review at their journal is fair, unbiased and timely.
• Editors should have systems to ensure that material submitted to their journal remains confidential while under review.
• Editors should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish, recognizing that journals and sections within journals will have different aims and standards.
https://publicationethics.org/files/Code%20of%20Conduct.pdf
Manuscripts that do not comply with the journal's guidelines will be returned to the authors without scientific evaluation. Articles submitted in accordance with the journal's guidelines are reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief or Assistant Editor, who will appoint them to referees. The review process is one-blind. The Editor writes the decision letter in line with the recommendations of the referees, the opinions of the field editors and the contribution of the publication to the literature. All unexamined manuscripts are returned within 10 days, and the decision letters of the manuscripts are sent within 3-6 months.
Control Checklıst
For the observational studies, STROBE checklist and criteria (https://www.equator-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/STROBE-Turkish-translation.pdf) must be attented.
Our publication policy suggests the PRISMA checklist for the review article (https://www.equator-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/PRISMA-ScR-Fillable-Checklist-1.pdf) and the CARE checklist for the case report (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5db7b349364ff063a6c58ab8/t/5db7bf175f869e5812fd4293/1572323098501/CARE-checklist-English-2013.pdf)
Open Access Policy
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
All journal papers are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source.
Article Processing Charges
As Zonguldak Bulent Ecevit University is supporting publishing costs of Medical Journal of Western Black Sea, article processing charge and any other publication fees in the journal are free for authors.
Copyright notice
Authors have copyright but license exclusive rights in their article to the publisher*.
Authors have the right to:
• Share their article according to the "Personal Use rights"** so long as it contains the end user license and the DOI link to the version of record in this journal.
• Retain intellectual property rights (including research data).
• Proper attribution and credit for the published work.
* This includes the right to make and authorize commercial use.
** Personal use rights
Authors can use their articles, in full or in part, for scholarly, non-commercial purposes such as:
• Use by an author in the author’s classroom teaching (including distribution of copies, paper or electronic)
• Distribution of copies (including through e-mail) to known research colleagues for their personal use (but not for Commercial Use)
• Inclusion in a thesis or dissertation (provided that this is not to be published commercially)
• Use in a subsequent compilation of the author’s works
• Extending the Article to book-length form
• Preparation of other derivative works (but not for Commercial Use)
• Otherwise using or re-using portions or excerpts in other works
Copyright Notice
Medical Journal of Western Black Sea allow the author(s) to hold the copyright without restrictions. Also the journal allow the author(s) to retain publishing rights without restrictions.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
Peer Review Policy
General information
We ask authors and referees to submit their articles and reports via our online system Dergipark (https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/mjwbs). There is an online help guide to assist in using this system, and a helpdesk email account for any technical problems.
Editorial decisions
Editorial decisions are not a matter of counting votes or numerical rank assessments, and we do not always follow the majority recommendation. We try to evaluate the strength of the arguments raised by each reviewer and by the authors, and we may also consider other information not available to either party. Our primary responsibilities are to our readers and to the scientific community at large, and in deciding how best to serve them, we must weigh the claims of each paper against the many others also under consideration.
Reviewers are welcome to recommend a particular course of action, but they should bear in mind that the other reviewers of a particular paper may have different technical expertise and/or views, and the editors may have to make a decision based on conflicting advice. The most useful reports, therefore, provide the editors with the information on which a decision should be based. Setting out the arguments for and against publication is often more helpful to the editors than a direct recommendation one way or the other.
Double blind peer review
Medical Journal of Western Black Sea offers a double-blind peer review option. Neither the peer reviewers nor the authors are revealed to each other. Authors may suggest preferred and non-preferred reviewers during manuscript submission. However, the ultimate selection of the reviewers will be determined by the editor(s).
We ask reviewers not to identify themselves to authors while the manuscript is under consideration without the editor's knowledge. If this is not practicable, we ask authors to inform the editor as soon as possible after a reviewer has revealed his or her identity to the author.
Peer review process
The peer-review process is the main mechanism for ensuring the quality of published articles. To this end, the submitted articles are rigorously peer-reviewed to ensure the high quality submissions are accepted and published. The decision to accept a manuscript is not based solely on the scientific validity and originality of the study content; other factors are considered, including the level of innovation, extent and importance of new information in the paper as compared with that in other papers being considered, the Journal's need to represent a wide range of topics, and the overall suitability for Journal. Peer review process is follow as below mention steps:
1. At first, editor(s) acts as a first filter by evaluating each manuscript for novelty, interest for our readers and chances to compete in peer review. Yet the process avoids futile cycles of review for manuscripts that are better suited for a more specialized journal, saving time for authors and reviewers. Modifications/corrections may be requested from the authors at this stage before starting the peer review.
2. In the second step, editors select typically two reviewers, experts in the topic. Often, we also include one expert for statistics or a particular technique. peer reviewers will make suggestions to the editor(s).
3. The authors can monitor the progress of the manuscript throughout the review process in his/her profile.
4. Submitted manuscripts will be rendered one of the following decisions: Accept Submissin: The submission will be accepted without revisions. Revisions Requierd: The submission will be accepted after minor changes have been made. Resubmit for Review: The submission needs to be re-worked, but with significant changes, may be accepted. It will require a second round of review, however. Decline Submission: The submission will not be published with the journal.
5. If the author(s) believe that the journal has rejected their article in error, perhaps because the reviewers have misunderstood its scientific content, an appeal may be submitted by e-mail to the editorial office (journal's email). However, appeals are ineffective in most cases and are discouraged.
Editing referees' reports
As a matter of policy, we do not suppress reviewers' reports; any comments that were intended for the authors are transmitted, regardless of what we may think of the content. On rare occasions, we may edit a report to remove offensive language or comments that reveal confidential information about other matters. We ask reviewers to avoid statements that may cause needless offence; conversely, we strongly encourage reviewers to state plainly their opinion of a paper.
Timing
Medical Journal of Western Black Sea is committed to rapid editorial decisions and publication, and we believe that an efficient editorial process is a valuable service both to our authors and to the scientific community as a whole. We therefore ask reviewers to respond promptly within the number of days agreed. If reviewers anticipate a longer delay than previously expected, we ask them to let us know so that we can keep the authors informed and, where necessary, find alternatives.