PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

The Journal of Muallim Rıfat Faculty of Education is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards in the processes of knowledge production, evaluation, and sharing. Our publication policy and ethical guidelines are established on the basis of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) principles, the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, the ICMJE (Vancouver) Recommendations, the Berne Convention, and the APA (American Psychological Association) standards. All stakeholders of our journal (Authors, Editors, Reviewers, and Readers) are required to comply with the principles and responsibilities outlined below.
1. Duties and Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
• Originality and Plagiarism (Berne Convention and APA): Authors must declare that their submitted work is entirely original. When the ideas, materials, or data of others are used, they must be fully and accurately cited in accordance with APA citation standards and academic integrity. Plagiarism in any form is strictly unacceptable.
• Ethics Committee Approval and Institutional Permissions (Declaration of Helsinki): In qualitative and quantitative field research in educational sciences (e.g., surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations), an Ethics Committee Approval document obtained from universities must be submitted with the article. Furthermore, for studies conducted in schools or institutions affiliated with the Ministry of National Education (MoNE), it must be declared that the relevant institutional research permissions have been obtained.
• Participant Confidentiality and Vulnerable Groups: "Informed Consent" is strictly required for research involving students, teachers, or individuals in disadvantaged/vulnerable statuses (e.g., groups under temporary protection, students with special educational needs, adult education participants). For minor participants, a "Parent/Guardian Consent Form" must be obtained. No information that could disclose the identities of participants or institutions may be included in the manuscript.
• Transparent Authorship Criteria (ICMJE/Vancouver Guidelines): Individuals who have not made a significant intellectual contribution to the manuscript cannot be included in the author list (gift authorship is firmly rejected). The Corresponding Author guarantees that all co-authors have approved the final version.
• Transparency and Conflict of Interest: Any financial support or relationships that could potentially influence the research results must be explicitly disclosed upon submission.
• Data Access: Authors must be prepared to provide the raw data of their research for editorial review and are obligated to retain this data for a reasonable period after publication.
• Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Transparency: AI tools (ChatGPT, LLMs, chatbots, etc.) cannot be listed as "Authors" on the manuscript. If authors use these tools for writing, editing, translation, or data analysis, they must explicitly declare this in the "Methodology" or "Acknowledgements" section. Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and ethical compliance of the content generated by AI.
2. Duties of the Editor-in-Chief and Section/Associate Editors
• Publication Decisions and Impartiality (COPE Standards): The decision to publish a manuscript is based solely on the scholarly merit and relevance to the journal's scope. The demographic or political backgrounds of the authors cannot influence the evaluation process.
• Process Management and Double-Blind Peer Review: Editors ensure the flawless execution of the double-blind peer review process, guaranteeing mutual anonymity of authors and reviewers, and preventing potential conflicts of interest.
• Open Access and Accessibility (BOAI): Editors coordinate the free and unrestricted provision of accepted articles to the scientific and educational communities in line with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI).
• Investigation of Ethical Violations: Allegations of plagiarism, data fabrication, or malpractice are rigorously investigated. Editors reserve the right to reject, retract, or publish an erratum when a violation is detected.
3. Duties of Reviewers
• Objectivity and Constructive Criticism (COPE): Reviews must be conducted objectively, using academic language, and must be evidence-based. Reviewers are obligated to provide constructive feedback.
• Confidentiality and AI Usage: Manuscripts are confidential documents. Reviewers must not share them with third parties and must not upload manuscripts to AI tools for evaluation (as this constitutes a breach of data privacy).
• Competence and Detection of Ethical Violations: Reviewers should only accept manuscripts within their expertise. They must promptly notify the editor if they suspect plagiarism, data manipulation, or notice significant uncited relevant literature.
4. Duties and Ethical Responsibilities of Readers and Third Parties
The journal believes that scientific knowledge is a universal public good. Accordingly, researchers, educators, and third parties who utilize our published works must adhere to the following guidelines:
• Right of Access and Use of Information (BOAI): Readers have the right to freely read, download, copy, distribute, or link to the full texts of our articles, provided it is for non-commercial purposes.
• Fair Use and Proper Citation Responsibility (Berne Convention): When using data or ideas from our articles, readers must provide full and proper citation to the original authors and our journal (in APA format).
• Use of Educational Materials: When readers and educators use lesson plans, scales, qualitative interview forms, or educational materials published in the journal in their own classrooms or research, they must remain faithful to the principle of honest transmission of scientific knowledge.

Editorial Policy

Peer Review and Publication Process
1. Originality: Manuscripts submitted to the Journal of MRFE must be original and not currently under review elsewhere. Articles derived from theses or conference presentations (provided the full text has not been published) are welcome, provided they include an explanatory footnote. Authors bear all scientific and legal responsibility for their work.
2. Review Procedure: Submissions that pass the initial editorial screening for scope and formatting undergo a double-blind peer review process.
o Each manuscript is evaluated by at least two independent reviewers.
o The standard review period is 30 days.
o In case of conflicting reports, a third reviewer is consulted.
o Authors are required to complete requested revisions within 30 days.
3. Finalization: Accepted papers receive a DOI number and are published in the "Early Access" section before being assigned to a specific issue. Manuscripts currently in the review phase cannot be withdrawn.
4. Anonymity: The journal guarantees that the identities of both authors and reviewers remain confidential throughout the process.
Plagiarism Screening
All submissions must be accompanied by a similarity report from software such as iThenticate© or Turnitin©.
• The overall similarity index must be below 15%.
• The editorial board reserves the right to reject any manuscript with an unsatisfactory similarity profile.
Open Access Policy
The Journal of Muallim Rıfat Faculty of Education is a fully Open Access journal. All content is available immediately to the public to support the global exchange of knowledge. Published works are licensed under the "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License" (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Users may share and copy the material with proper attribution, but cannot use it for commercial purposes or distribute modified versions.
Publication Fees
The Journal of MRFE does not charge any submission, processing, or publication fees.