Publication Ethics Statement

ODU Medical Journal adheres to the standards in publication ethics in research in health science and also adopts the ethical publishing principles published by Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive of the Council of Higher Education, Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). The address for the principles expressed under the title of Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing is given below.
https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing
Submitted studies must be original, unpublished, and not in the evaluation process of another journal. Each article is double-blindly evaluated by one of the editors and at least two referees. Plagiarism, duplication, false authorship/denied authorship, research/data fabrication, article slicing, publishing by slicing, copyright infringement and concealment of conflict of interest are considered unethical behaviors.
All articles that do not comply with ethical standards are removed from the publication even if accepted. This also applies to articles with possible irregularities and inconsistencies detected after publication.

Research Ethics
• Compliance of the articles with ethical rules is the responsibility of the authors.
• The ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki must be complied with in studies on humans.
• Consideration should be given to ethical principles in the design, review and conduct of research.
• The research team and participants should be fully informed about the purpose of the research, the rules of participation and the risks, if any.
• Confidentiality of the information and answers given by the research participants should be ensured. Research should be designed in such a way as to preserve the autonomy and prestige of its participants.
• Those who will participate in the research should take part in the research voluntarily and should not be under any coercion.
• The research should be planned in a way that does not put the participants at risk.
• Research should be clear and unambiguous about its independence. If there is a conflict of interest, it should be stated.
• In experimental studies, written informed consent must be obtained from participants who decide to participate in the research. The consents of the legal guardians of children, ones under guardianship and those with a confirmed mental illness must be obtained.
• If the study will be carried out in an institution or organization, the necessary approval must be obtained from this institution or organization.
• In studies with human, it should be stated in the “methods” section that “informed consent” was obtained from the participants and ethics committee approval was obtained from the institution where the study was conducted.

Authors Responsibility
Compliance of the articles with scientific and ethical rules is the responsibility of the authors. The author must provide assurance that the article is original, has not been previously published elsewhere, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere and in another language. Applicable copyright laws and agreements must be observed. Copyrighted material (for example, tables, figures, or large quotations) should be used with appropriate permission and acknowledgements. The work of other authors, contributors, or references should be used appropriately and cited in references.
All authors must have a direct academic and scientific contribution to the submitted manuscript. So, “author” is someone who contributes to the conceptualization and design of a published research, the obtaining, analysis or interpretation of data, writing the article or critically reviewing it in terms of content. Other conditions for being an author are planning or executing and/or revising the work on the manuscript.
Funding, data collection, or overall supervision of the research group alone does not confer authorship. All individuals listed as authors must meet all the criteria listed, and any individual who meets the above criteria may be listed as an author. The order of the authors’ names should be a joint decision. All authors must indicate the author rank on the Copyright Agreement Form signed.
All individuals who did not meet the criteria for authorship but contributed to the study should be listed in the "acknowledgments" section. Examples of these are people who only provide technical support, help with writing, just provide general support, and financial and material support.
All authors must declare financial relationships, conflicts of interest, and competition of interest that have the potential to affect the results of the research or scientific evaluation. If an author detects a significant error or inaccuracy in his or her published article, it is the responsibility to immediately contact and cooperate with the editor for correction or retraction of these inaccuracies.

Editor and Reviewer Responsibilities
The editor-in-chief evaluates articles regardless of the authors' ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religious beliefs, and political philosophy. S/he ensures that the articles submitted for publication undergo a fair double-blind peer-review. S/he guarantees that all information regarding the submitted articles will remain confidential until the article is published. The editor-in-chief is responsible for the content and the overall quality of the publication. If necessary, it should publish an error page or make corrections.
The editor-in-chief does not allow any conflict of interest between authors, editors and referees. It has full authority to appoint a referee and is responsible for making the final decision on the articles to be published in the journal.
Reviewers should not have conflicts of interest with the research, the authors and/or the financial supporters of the research. They should reach an impartial judgment as a result of their assessment. They should ensure that all information regarding the submitted manuscripts is kept confidential and should report any copyright infringement and plagiarism on the part of the author to the editor. The referee should notify the editor of this situation and state that s/he cannot be a referee in cases where the subject of the article is not his area of expertise or s/he cannot return on time.
Reviewers and editorial board members cannot discuss articles with other people. Attention should be taken to keep the identity of the referees confidential. In some cases, with the decision of the editor, the comments of the relevant referees for the manuscript can be sent to other referees who comment on the same manuscript.