Since our journal is in the process of being indexed by the ULAKBİLİM TR index, an ethics committee document is required from research articles.
There is no fee for submission, article-editorial processing, or publication (page or color charges) of manuscripts.
The compliance of manuscripts with QSS/NSB publication principles and research ethics principles are the main conditions for publication. The article may be withdrawn if it is found to be contrary to ethical principles. Ethics committee approval must be obtained for research, clinical and experimental studies, this approval must be stated in the article and the sample of the document must be uploaded. Authors must observe the high standards of publication ethics set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Plagiarism is unacceptable; plagiarism includes falsifying or deriving data, copying the author's own work without proper citation, and/or misuse of the work.
In case we identify that author(s) of the manuscript use(s) falsified and fabricated data, then we will report this to the institution of the authors. Editorial members of the journal and/or the reviewers reserve the right to ask author(s) to provide raw data and plagiarism analysis (from Turnitin, intihal.net and iThenticate). If deemed necessary by editorial board members, editors have the right to demand similarity report (%25 or below) originated from Turnitin, intihal.net or iThenticate websites.
This journal uses double-blind review, which means that the identity of the author(s) is concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not give away their identity. Submitted studies are accepted by the journal according to the evaluation report of at least two reviewers.
The Responsibilities of the Editorial Board
• Editorial Board determines and performs journal policies as publication, blind review, evaluation process and ethical principles.
• Editorial Board prepares a “Guide for Authors” to inform authors and “Reviewer Forms” to inform reviewers about evaluation processes.
• Editorial Board determines incentive policies for the authors.
• Editorial Board keeps records of every article electronically.
The Responsibilities of Editors
• Editors try to inform reviewers, authors, researchers and readers, to answer their questions clearly within the principles of clarity.
• Editors, during the publication process, consider that the articles should be original and contribute to the literature, the readers and researchers.
• While editors are making decisions about the article publication, they consider originality, contribution to the field, clarity of expressions, content and validity and reliability of the articles.
• Editors consider the positive views of reviewers, and they do not change the reviewers' decisions unless there is a major flaw.
• Editors implement the policies of blind review and evaluation processes, keep private personal identity information of the authors, and provide impartial evaluation processes in due time for the articles.
• Editors send the articles to reviewers considering their professional fields and care that the articles are evaluated impartially and independently.
• Editors should consider if there are conflicts or collaborations between authors and reviewers.
• Editors ensure that journal publishing processes are operated in accordance with publishing policies and guidelines, and inform those who are in the process of the developments on publishing policies.
• Editors communicate effectively with everyone involved in the publishing processes.
• Editors provide protection of personal data in assessed articles; they keep personal data of authors, reviewers and readers.
• Editors pay utmost attention to the protection of human rights in the articles, emphasize that the clear approval of the participants of the article is documented, and reject the articles without the necessary ethics committee approval.
• Editors take precautions against misconduct. When there are complaints about the abuse of duty, they share the findings about the subject by conducting an objective investigation.
• Editors should highlight errors, inconsistencies, or misleading errors in articles and ask authors to correct them. Editors also take the necessary precautions to ensure that the content of the published articles does not infringe the intellectual property rights of other publications; they can ask authors to check authenticity-similarity.
• Editors consider consistent critiques for the articles published in the journal and enable authors to answer these critiques.
Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers
• Reviewers should only accept to evaluate the articles related to the field of their specializations.
• Reviewers should make the evaluation impartially and confidentially. In accordance with this principle, the articles they review should be annihilated after the evaluation process, but they may be used after publication. Nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political beliefs and commercial concerns should not distort the impartiality of the evaluation.
• When reviewers realize that there is a conflict or collaboration with authors, they should inform the editors and refuse to review the article.
• Reviewers must evaluate articles with a constructive attitude in accordance with the academic etiquette rules; they should refrain from insulting and hostile personal comments.
• Reviewers should inform editors about their availability in 15 days and if they agree to review an article.
Ethical Responsibilities of the Authors
The ethical responsibilities of the authors are as below:
• The authors should not send an article already published or in a review of another journal.
• The authors should send original articles to QSS.
• Persons who do not contribute to the articles should not be listed as authors, and it should not be proposed to change the author order of a published article and to add authors.
• Authors must notify the editors of the possible conflicts and collaborations about the article. Authors should declare any conflicts/no conflicts of interest between co authors. A contribution statement should be provided by authors for an accepted article explaining each authors' contribution to the manuscript.
• In the evaluation process of the articles, the authors should provide the editors with information about the articles or the raw data if required.
• The authors must document the rights to use the data they use in their articles, the permission for research or the approval of the participants whom they have interviewed.
• Authors should communicate with the editors to provide information, correct the article, or withdraw if they notice a typo, error, or misleading data analysis in early view or the published article in electronic form. Authors can publish their work in preprint archives. Publications within this scope are not considered duplication or plagiarism.
Post publication retractions and corrections
Articles published in the Qualitative Social Sciences journal should be reported to the editors in case of errors in the last published file. In case of errors in the last published version of the articles, the articles notified to the editor within 4 days from the date of publication can be reviewed and corrected. This correction request can be sent by the authors or readers to the journal editors by e-mail or by message via Dergipark. Editors make the necessary arrangements within 5 days and publish the article at the same address with the same DOI and name stating that the article went under minor corrections.
RetractionIn articles in the Qualitative Social Sciences journal, where an error (e.g., in analysis or methods) invalidates the results in the article, leads to research or publication abuse (e.g. research without necessary ethical approvals, fabricated data, manipulated images, plagiarism, duplicate publication, etc.) articles may be retracted. This retraction is announced by the editors on the main page of the journal. The retracted article and a file indicating that the article is retracted will be added to issue. The decision to retract an article will be made in accordance with COPE guidelines and will include an investigation with the editors. Authors and institutions may request that their articles be retracted if their reasons meet the retraction criteria provided by COPE. COPE withdrawal guidelines can be found on the
COPE website. https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines.
Retraction requests will be considered in the following cases:
There is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable as a result of unethical behavior (eg data generation or image manipulation) or inadvertent error (eg miscalculation or experimental error).
Findings have been previously published elsewhere without proper reference, permission, or justification (for example, cases of a different publication or repeated publication).
In the case of plagiarism
Undeserved, or gift authorship.
Where there is evidence that peer review has been compromised.
If there is evidence of unethical research.
Funding
Authors are requested to reveal who provided financial support for the conduct of their research. If there is no funding received, then this should be stated in the article.
Data Sharing
Authors are encouraged to share their data on data repositories they choose. However, authors are not mandated to share their data associated with their article. Authors who choose to share their data should provide the relevant link of the chosen repository. This should be done at the end of manuscript and before the reference section.
June 30, 2025
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