Research Article
Aim & Scope
Online Science Education Journal, OSEJ, focuses on serving individuals, especially future generations, to acquire knowledge and skills, and adopts them as its vision. In this sense, OSEJ sees it as its mission to contribute to the development of science education activities in all levels and subject areas from pre-school to higher education and to serve all stakeholders.
OSEJ provides all kinds of scientific studies in all areas of science education.
It is obligatory that the manuscript to be submitted for publication has to be appropriate in accordance with the manuscript rules and publication conditions of our journal.
Research articles that discuss and analyze the topics from different perspectives, teaching application examples, and review studies are given priority. However, the book review that is thought to contribute to our journal's stakeholders in the field of science education, and studies on the introduction of education and didactic theories may also be published.
The evaluation process of the manuscripts sent to our journal starts and is completed electronically. The manuscript submitted by the author(s) is reviewed firstly by the editorial board in terms of appropriateness of content to the OSEJ. After this, the journal editor will appoint two reviewers with a doctorate degree. Once the two referees have issued a decision for publication as positively, the article has prepared in terms of the rules of writing and quotes of OSEJ and investigated the appropriateness of plagiarism and so on (this review process does not change the responsibility of the author).
Writing Rules
Click here to download the template.
Manuscript Writing Rules
Title of the Study and Authorship Information
Author’s name: The author’s name and last name should be 10 points, Times New Roman font, bold. After the author’s name, institution information and e-mail address should be italic and separated from each other by a comma (,) sign.
Abstracts
Abstract: Abstract should be 10 points and Times New Roman font. “Abstract” headings should be written in left justified. Abstract describes the aim, the method, results and
conclusion and it should not exceed 100-250 words. It should not include any references.
Keywords: Keywords should be 10-points, Times New Roman font. 3-5 words that would represent the study.
Sections And Sub-Sections
All text should be written in 12 points, Times New Roman font, justified. Line spacing between the paragraphs should be in single. Paragraph indentation should be started in one-tab. It should not include space in between paragraphs. The main headings (Introduction, Method, Finding, Result and Discussion) should be written in centered, 12 points, bold and capital letters. Sub-sections headings (The second level headings) should be written in 12-points, capital for the first letters, bold, justified on the left. The third level headings should be written in justified on the left, capital for only the first letter of the first word, 12 points, bold and italic. Care must be taken to ensure that the Turkish abstract does not contain any linguistic errors.
The sections of the article should generally include the following headings:
INTRODUCTION METHOD Study Design Study Group/Participants Data Collection Data Analysis FINDINGS CONCLUSION, DISCUSSION and SUGGESTIONS REFERENCES |
Table and Figure
Table: Tables should be numbered and on the title of the table should be written with 10 points, capital for the first letters, justified on left. Table number should be specified in bold, and the table name should be in italics. The contents of the table should be prepared in 10 points and tables to be used should be prepared in accordance with APA 6 (Tables should not include vertical lines and important headings should be separated by horizontal lines).
Figure: Figures should be numbered, the figure’s number and name should be under the figure. Figure number should be specified in bold, and the table name should be in italics
Authors need to revise their table and figure and check for APA 6 compliance.
Citation
In the "OSEJ ", the use of the APA style created by the American Psychological Association is preferred.
To see the Basic Principle of Referencing by APA Style, click APA Style CENTRAL®
APA style is usually based on the following format: Author. (Year). Title. Publication Information.
You can also prepare your manuscript in terms of the given explanations.
1. In the text
In the text, first the author's surname and second the year of publication of the study are given:
1.1. Single Author
“... (Nelson, 1976)”; “According to Nelson (1976) göre ...”; “Nelson (1976) ...”
Direct quotations must be included page number.
Examples: (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2005, p. 10); (Shimamura, 1989, Chapter 3)
1.2. Two Authors
When using two authors’ name within the text, should be used to word “and” between two authors. In parentheses, authors’ name is connected by a and (&) sign.
”... (Mather & Knight, 2006).”; “Mather and Knight (2006) ...”; According to Mather and Knight (2006)...”
1.3. Three-Five Authors
Last names of the authors are given according to the sequence they are given in the study:
“... (Charles, Mather, & Carstensen, 2003).”; “Charles, Mather, and Carstensen (2003) ...”; According to Charles, Mather and Carstensen (2003)...”
If it is required to cite the same study for the second time, only the first author’s last name is given together with the “et al.” expression:
“(Charles et al. 2003)”
1.4. Six and more authors
Only the first author’s last name is given together with the “et al.” (not italic) expression within the text.
“(Rosler et al. 2005)”
1.5. Institutions
When citing the institution (organizations, associations, government offices and study groups…), its full name is written within the text.
In some cases, group or institutional author’ name is used full at the first time, is used abbreviation at the second time within the text.
In case of lengthy names, easy to understand or known abbreviation, should be used abbreviation. In case of short name or unknown abbreviation, should be used full name each time.
1.6 Two or more works by the same author
1.6.1. Works published in different years
When citing two or more works written by the same author(s), the author’s surname is written once and the publication years are taken into consideration. References to the works that are currently in press are left to the end.
Example: (Gogel, 1990, 2006, in press)
1.6.2. Works published in the same year
When citing two or more works written by the same author(s), the year is followed by a, b, c and so on. This lettering is also specified in the reference list.
Example: Many studies (Derryberry & Reed, 2005a, 2005b, in press-a; Rothbart, 2003a, 2003b)
1.7. Citing works by different authors in the same parenthesis
While citing the works by different authors in the same parenthesis, the authors’ surnames are listed in alphabetical order and a semicolon is used between different authors.
Example: In many studies (Miller, 1999; Shafranske & Mahoney, 1998)
1.8. Citing secondary sources
If the original work is not accessible or it is not available in English, the original work is written in the text and the reference is given to the secondary source.
Example: If Allport’s diary is cited in Nicholson’s work and the diary has not been read, it should be cited as “Allport’s diary (as cited in Nicholson, 2003)”.
2. Reference list
At the end of your paper, and before the appendices (if any), the sources by authors or institutions should be given in alphabetical order, taking into account the first letter of the first author’s surname and the names of the institutions.
The references should be written in 10 pt. and without spacing.
Only the first word and proper nouns (if any) in the title and sub-title of periodicals should be capitalized.
The title of periodical and punctuation marks should never be written in italics.
The pages should be written as “32-50” instead of “p.32-50”.
All lines after the first line of each entry can be indented 1.5 cm from the left margin.
SAMPLE SOURCES
2.1. Article with single author
Basic citation format for articles:
Author’s Surname, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number), pages.
Anderson, A. K. (2005). Affective influences on the attentional dynamics supporting awareness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 154, 258-281.
2.2. Article with two authors
Light, M. A, & Light, I. H. (2008). The geographic expansion of Mexican immigration in the United States and its implications for local law enforcement. Law Enforcement Executive Forum Journal, 8(1), 73-82.
2.3. Article with three to six authors
Carretie, L. Hinojosa, J. A, Martin-Loeches, M., Mecado, F., & Tapia, M. (2004). Automatic attention to emotional stimuli: Neural correlates. Human Brain Mapping, 22, 290-299.
2.4. Journal articles in press (accepted for publication)
Briscoe, R. (in press). Egocentric spatial representation in action and perception. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Retrieved from http://cogprints.org/5780/1/ECSRAP.F07.pdf
2.5. Books
2.5.1. Book with single author
Basic citation format for books:
Author’s Surname, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year). Title of book. Location: Publisher.
Çepni, S. (2012). Araştırma ve proje çalışmalarına giriş. Trabzon: Celepler Matbaacılık.
2.5.2. A Translation
Jenson, E. (2006). Beyin uyumlu öğrenme (A. Doğanay, Çev.). Adana: Nobel Yayınevi. (Original printing, 1999).
2.5.3. Article or chapter in an edited book
Yücel, C. ve Gülveren, H. (2006). Sınıfta öğrencilerin motivasyonu. M. Şişman ve S. Turan (Ed.), Sınıf yönetimi içinde (s. 74-88). Ankara: PegemA
2.6. Works downloaded
MEB, (2005). PISA 2003 projesi: Ulusal nihai rapor. Retrieved July, 9, 2009 from http://earged.meb.gov.tr/pisa/dokuman/2003/ rapor/PISA_RAPOR_2003.pdf.
2.7. Lecture/Seminar/Conference presentation
2.7.1. Works presented
Basic citation format:
Author’s Surname, First Initial. Second Initial., Author’s Surname, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year, Month). Title of work. In First Initial, Second Initial, Surname (chairperson), title of the event. Name of the organizing body, Location.
Muellbauer, J. (2007, September). Housing, credit, and consumer expenditure. In S. C. Ludvigson (Chair), Housing and consumer behavior. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Jackson Hole, WY.
2.7.2. Works published in conference proceedings
Herculano-Houzel, S., Collins, C. E., Wong, P., Kaas, J. H., & Lent, R. (2008). The basic nonuniformity of the cerebral cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, 12593-12598. doi: 1 0.1 073/pnas.08054171 05
2.8. Thesis
Basic citation format for master’s and doctoral theses, published
Author’s Surname, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year). Title of thesis (Doctoral thesis /master’s thesis). Name of database, Accession or order number.
Basic citation format for master’s and doctoral theses, unpublished
Author’s Surname, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year). Title of thesis (Unpublished doctoral thesis/ master’s thesis). Name of Institutions, Location.
Güneş, G. (2010). Öğretmen adaylarının temel astronomi konularında bilgi seviyeleri ile bilimin doğası ve astronomi öz yeterlilikleri arasındaki ilişkinin incelenmesi (Unpublished doctoral thesis/ master’s thesis). Çukurova Üniversitesi, Adana.
Example
Name 1: National Institute of Mental Health (1999)
First use: (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 1999)
Subsequent use: (NIMH, 1999)
Name 2: University of Pittsburgh (1993)
All uses within the text: (University of Pittsburgh, 1993)
Ethical Principles and Publication Policy
Online Science Education Journal (OSEJ) is published once every 6 months, thus twice a year (June and December) in Kastamonu, TURKIYE. OSEJ is a peer-reviewed journal, which includes translated works, book reviews, and original research and review articles reporting qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-method studies in the field of science education. Articles can be submitted in Turkish or English language. As of 2020, only English articles are considered.
At OSEJ, it attached high importance to the integrity of our academic content, publication ethics, and process as well as maintaining authors’ research integrity. To this end, A number of ethical policies have been developed by the editorial team and the editorial board to ensure the impartiality and ethics of the work to be published in the OSEJ. It is also best to follow the guidelines and resources provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to reach and maintain international publication standards by the editorial office. Here, it is outlined basic principles that we apply to our journal, which we believe will be useful for researchers and authors who wish to publish their articles in our journal.
Editorial Board and Editorial Process
OSEJ works with experts in the context of science education. Manuscripts that are submitted for evaluation go under initial screening for compliance with our publication ethics and malpractice statement under the supervision of the Chief Editor. Reviewers are appointed for the manuscripts that are approved by the Editorial Board after the preliminary examination regarding content. The manuscripts that are not approved by the Editorial Board shall be rejected. Each article is sent to two reviewers. If one of the reviewer’s reports is negative, the manuscript is sent to the third reviewer. In accordance with the reviewers’ reports, it is decided that the manuscript should be published, revised, or rejected. The authors are notified of this decision.
In case of corrections given to the manuscript, the corrections must be made within the period specified by the Editorial Board and sent to the Board. The manuscripts that are not revised in time shall be rejected. All submitted manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with OSEJ manuscript guidelines. The manuscripts that are considered inadequate in terms of language, regardless of content, are sent back or rejected. Prior to their submission, authors are advised to have their manuscripts proofread.
Either referee(s) nor author(s) do not know the personal information of each other. All this privacy policy is under the responsibility of the editing office. OSEJ editorial team never discriminates against authors or peer reviewers based on personal characteristics or identity. If OSEJ editorial team identifies malpractice in the manuscripts submitted or articles published, the editorial board will deal with the issue immediately and can take action including withdrawal, retraction, or correction.
The editorial team of OSEJ should hold the following ethical responsibilities that are based on the guides "COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" published as Open Access by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
The editors have the following roles and responsibilities:
- Ensuring the development of the journal in the national and international sense.
- Managing processes to improve the quality of published studies
- Conducting processes to apply ethical rules for all shareholders of the journal.
- Updating publishing and ethical policies with the purpose of bringing a contribution to the development of the journal.
- Organizing and updating the website of the journal.
For the authors, OSEJ, recommends applying the following principles before they submit their manuscripts, and assumes that the authors accept the principles.
- Authors are not to submit their studies to application processes of multiple journals, and also they should not submit any published study to the OSEJ. Moreover, any under-review study submitted to another journal is not to be submitted to OSEJ.
- The authors are responsible for the contents and appendices (pictures, drawings, maps, documents, etc.) included in the articles submitted to OSEJ. It is assumed that the authors submitting their manuscripts have accepted this responsibility. They confirm that their articles' content does not bind the owner, editor, co-editors, or advisory board members of OSEJ.
- No contract is required for the transfer of copyright from authors. It is regarded that the authors of the manuscripts that are submitted and accepted after the reviewing process transfer all copyrights to OSEJ. The authors are included in the publication process by agreeing to hand over all copyrights to OSEJ. Manuscripts may not be published elsewhere without written permission from the OSEJ editor.
- For translated works, the translator should receive permission from the author(s) of the relevant article. Copyright costs for translated articles are to be covered by the translator/author.
- OSEJ does not charge any article submission, editorial processing, article publication (page or color), or subscription charges.
- All authors who contributed to the conduct of the research including any part of the research process should be listed as an author. Any process such as adding-removing an author, or changing the order of authors cannot be demanded by a study under review process. Names that do not contribute to the study are not to be specified as authors. Conflicts of interest or relationships must be explained (if available). Authors’ names and surnames, affiliations, e-mail addresses, and ORCIDs must be clearly stated in the manuscript if their manuscript is accepted and approved.
- The corresponding author is responsible for the whole process and content of the manuscript and acting on behalf of all co-authors in responding to queries from all sources post-publication.
- Authors must declare that their articles are original and have not been published previously or are not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
- Raw materials of the submitted article(s) can be requested within the framework of evaluation processes. Authors must submit the requested data and information to editorial and science boards.
- Authors have the right to request a withdrawal, retraction, or correction(s) of their articles at any time before they are published. However, they can only request retractions or corrections of their articles within five days after their article is published in an issue.
Also, the author(s) have rights. Author(s) can;
- detect the reviewers to whom the studies should not be sent due to conflict of interest and/or other ethical reasons,.
- withdraw their unpublished study during the review process,
- oppose reviewer reports and editor decisions,
- demand erratum for information errors or problem areas in the given study to be published in the first issue due to errors in fact during the publication process.
For reviewers, OSEJ expects to review articles according to the following principles.
- Reviewers are expected to read the publishing principles of the OSEJ.
- Studies submitted to the OSEJ are reviewed by at least two reviewers in the related field. Ideas of the editor or a third reviewer are asked in case of equity between negative and positive views on the article during reviewing process.
- A double-blind review process has been adopted in the OSEJ, authors, and reviewers are not aware of each other’s identity. Reviewers should refuse to review when they realize they cannot be objective. Reviewers should also refuse to review in case of a conflict of interest and inform the editor about it.
- Reviewers should accept to review only the studies in their specialty fields, and not accept reviewing the manuscript in the field in which they are not experts even for have information about the topic of the given article. Reviewers should make sure that the review is related to the content of any given manuscript.
- Reviewers should complete the review process in a certain period of time, and review on unbiased and confidential terms.
- Reviewers should be reviewing the manuscript in constructive and polite language, and not comment on personal views such as hospitality, insult, and reflation.
- Reviewers should pay attention not to bring the effect of religion, race, sex, political views, and so on into the review process.
- The manuscripts submitted to OSEJ must not have been previously published or submitted to be published in any printed/digital publications. The publication process shall be immediately canceled if it is found that the manuscripts submitted to OSEJ and taken in the reviewing process have been submitted to another publisher and/or have been previously published in the same or similar format.
- OSEJ editorial team takes serious measures to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and thus they do not encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.
- If the OSEJ editorial team identifies or has grounds for suspecting research misconduct, they will deal with allegations appropriately. The OSEJ editorial team is always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
- Authors can only request retractions or corrections of their articles within five days after their article is published in an issue.
- OSEJ never tolerates plagiarism and self-plagiarism and has the right to check all submissions using tools such as Turnitin and Ithenticate. OSEJ accepts manuscripts up to a maximum similarity rate of 20%. Except for exceptional cases, this limit cannot be exceeded, and any submitted article that has a higher rate of similarity than mentioned here will be rejected.
- All authors must comply with both national and international academic, and scientific ethical rules.
- The authors have unilateral responsibility for the issues such as citations and plagiarism within the framework of the relevant laws.
- In the manuscripts prepared from the master’s or doctoral theses, the authors must state that the manuscript is prepared from such a study. Otherwise, it is considered within the frame of plagiarism. In the name order, the name of the owner of the thesis is written first; the supervisor and other authors cannot be written before the owner of the thesis. The contribution of authors other than the owner of the thesis and the supervisor is stated in the manuscript.
OSEJ is a fully open-access journal and it provides free and unlimited access to the articles that it publishes without any form of restriction, subscription, or requirement. Thus, OSEJ lets researchers remix, adapt, and build upon the articles published on its website non-commercially, as long as they credit OSEJ and license their new work under identical terms.
License Policy
All the articles published on the OSEJ website are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-SA). Because of its open-access policy, OSEJ does not accept others to commercially share the articles that it publishes.
Plagiarism Detection
Papers submitted to OSEJ will be screened for plagiarism using iThenticate or Turnitin plagiarism detection tools. OSEJ will immediately reject papers leading to plagiarism or self-plagiarism.
Publication Fee
OSEJ is a completely free journal. There is no author’s submission fee or another publication-related fee since every cost for the publication process is supported by the publisher; therefore, it is an open-access journal.
In the review process of the articles, OSEJ makes use of double blind refereeing method, and the identity of authors and referees are concealed.
The articles submitted to the OSEJ are first subject to preliminary review of writing rules and journal template suitability by the Secretariat, and then forwarded to the Editor-in-chief with the purpose of referee assignment. If the submitted articles are unsuitable in terms of writing rules, originality, and accordance with the publication principles, it is returned to their author without a referee review. In the preliminary review, the editors inspect the introduction, literature review, method, findings, results, assessment, and discussion sections of the articles with respect to suitability with the publication principles and content of the journal. The articles which are found to be eligible are taken under referee review.
Referee Review Process
The articles are sent to the referees according to the content and referee speciality. The article which is found to be eligible by the editors is forwarded to at least two referees for review along with a review form. The referees are given 30 days for the review. It is obligatory to fill out the "Revision Template” which is prepared by the referees or the editors containing revisions within 30 days. The referees may decide on the suitability by inspecting the readjustments as well as requesting multiple revisions.
Many factors take role in the selection of referee. Experience, suitability of field, past experiences between the editor and referee are the determining factors. Author(s) may request to exclude certain referees for the reason of conflict of interests.
Review Results
The feedback received from the referees is examined by the editors within two weeks at the latest. A new referee may be assigned following the review process; in addition, there may be an approval, revision or rejection decision.
How Long Is The Publication Process?
It is anticipated that the evaluation process of the articles submitted to OSEJ concludes in approximately 2 months, if everything right. However, this period of time may extend depending on revision requests, duration of the revisions, and re-evaluation of the articles.
Revision Directions and Uploading Guide
At OSEJ, in review process, one or more revisions may be requested by the editors and/or referees for the articles. The authors are obligated to apply the requested revisions. The authors should make the revisions by using “Track changes” feature or by using the red colour on the original document. The authors should upload revised document with track changes and the prepared by using the revision template.
Post-Acceptance
At OSEJ, the articles approved after review are gone through; plagiarism re-inspection, reference list organizing, citation control, layout and typesetting, respectively.
Archiving
OSEJ uses DergiPark hosting services and an editorial workflow management system provided by TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM. DergiPark system saves each document and manuscript uploaded to the system electronically. In the event that OSEJ starts to use a different hosting service and an editorial workflow management system, all the backups will be transferred to that system, and access to the new website will be preserved.
Ownership and Management
OSEJ is published by Prof. Dr. Mehmet Altan KURNAZ, who owns the journal and is a science education researcher at Kastamonu University in Kastamonu/Turkey. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Altan KURNAZ, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hafife Bozdemir Yüzbaşıoğlu, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ebru Ezberci Çevik, Assist. Prof. Dr. B. Deniz Altunoğlu act as the publishing supervisor for all the management and editorial processes.
For more detailed information about the Management Board and Editorial Board, please visit the related pages of the journal.
The Website
OSEJ is hosted, managed, and published electronically on https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/ofed. On this website, all stakeholders can reach the archive of previous issues, and find out other useful information regarding the journal.
OSEJ editorial team does its best to ensure high ethical and professional standards. They also do their best to keep the website up-to-date.
Publishing Schedule
OSEJ is an electronic academic journal published in June and December, twice a year.
Name of the Journal
Online Science Education Journal (Online Fen Eğitimi Dergisi, in Turkish), OSEJ, is published with e-ISSN: 2548-0065.
Price Policy
Open Access Policy
Open access to information benefits the humanity as it improves the global value of information, and thus, Online Science Education Journal adopts open access policy.
All articles published in Online Science Education Journal are licensed with "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License". This license entitles all parties to copy, share and redistribute all the articles, data sets, figures and supplementary files published in this journal in data mining, search engines, web sites, blogs and other digital platforms under the condition of providing references. Open access is an approach that eases the interdisciplinary communication and encourages cooperation among different disciplines. Online Science Education Journal, therefore, contributes to its own field by providing more access to its articles and a more transparent review process.
Online Science Education Journal guarantees that it will not ask for any publication fees from any library or reader to access the electronic articles, and recommends that libraries include the article contents into library catalogue records.
Online Science Education Journal claims no fees for article review or printing and for access to articles.
