Studies requiring ethics committee approval (those involving surveys or scales, interviews, and observations; studies developed by others and requiring permission for use, such as documents, images, surveys, etc.) must have the necessary approvals from ethics committees or commissions obtained prior to conducting the research. These approvals must be stated in the article content and submitted as an appendix. If these permissions are not obtained, the manuscript will be returned to the author during the pre-publication review stage.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University Journal of Education (REFAD) commits to applying scientific publication ethics to the highest standards and to complying with the following basic practices, as recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for journal editors.
• Articles submitted to REFAD must not have been previously published, included in a publication program, or entered into the evaluation stage for publication in another journal.
• REFAD adopts the standards set by COPE in the application of publication ethics. In this context, it refers to the publication ethics flowcharts (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts) developed by COPE in cases of misuse or violation of publication ethics.
• In accordance with its double-blind peer review process, REFAD guarantees the anonymity of authors, field editors, and reviewers during the submission of manuscripts for peer review.
• The confidentiality of information about the author is the responsibility of the journal. However, this information may be shared in a possible investigation to investigate potential misconduct. REFAD defines its principles regarding potential misconduct within the framework of COPE's guidelines and shares them with its stakeholders on its website.
• Texts in which sections of a text are used in multiple publications by the author without being indicated are not acceptable to REFAD. In such cases, the journal applies the relevant COPE guidelines.
• REFAD defends and protects freedom of expression under all circumstances. In addition, the journal considers any racist, sexist, or discriminatory content to be hate speech and reserves the right to reject such content without further consideration.
• In the event of a conflict of interest regarding an article, REFAD clearly sides with intellectual and ethical standards; it defines the ethical principles to which authors, reviewers, editors, and the editorial board are bound in relation to the subject matter.
• In the event of a conflict of interest, REFAD suspends the evaluation process of the article until the uncertainty is resolved; in this context, the Journal has the authority to request an Ethics Committee Permit, Interview Consent Forms, and any other required documents from the submitting author.
• REFAD acts responsibly and sensitively when publishing content that constitutes corrections, clarifications, apologies, or retractions.
• The editors and publishers of the journal are obligated to comply with legal advice in cases where repetitions in an article, i.e., overlaps with another publication, infringe on intellectual property rights.
Copyright Regulation and Conflict of Interest Policy
• REFAD believes that potential conflicts of interest among its stakeholders may harm scientific publication ethics. The journal defines the obligations of all stakeholders to identify and prevent conflicts of interest.
• By submitting a publication application to REFAD, the author declares that they accept the terms of the Copyright Transfer Form.
Principles Regarding Potential Misuse Claims
• REFAD adopts COPE's measures regarding “potential misuse” situations against cases of misconduct and misuse. In this regard, the Publication Ethics Principles detail the obligations of the publisher, editors, reviewers, editorial board, and authors regarding potential misuse before, during, and after publication.
• In cases where the same work is submitted to different publications, REFAD aims to provide key benefits. These include comparing different versions of the same work submitted to different journals and comparing explanations compiled from authors and investigators regarding the submitted work. REFAD also cooperates and makes efforts to investigate suspected misconduct. It acts jointly in investigations involving investigators, authors, and their institutions.
• REFAD shares information about authors, field editors, and reviewers solely to prevent suspected research misconduct and fulfill its response obligations, maintaining confidentiality throughout the publishing process.
• Journal editors should conduct initial inquiries before sharing information in suspicious cases. Information sharing happens only if the author does not respond, the response is insufficient, or more than one journal may be affected by potential misconduct.
• When deemed necessary, information is shared only with subject editors who are believed to have relevant knowledge on the matter.
• Editors commit to protecting communication confidentiality to the fullest extent possible.
Publisher
• The publisher commits to ensuring that the journal's publication ethics principles are applied by relevant stakeholders, that open access to journal content is provided free of charge and continuously, and that publications are archived and preserved.
• The Publisher is responsible for taking the necessary steps to clarify the situation in cases where there is suspicion of a violation of scientific publication ethics, such as misconduct, plagiarism, conflict of interest, copyright infringement, or text recycling.
Publication Board
• REFAD's Publication Board meets at least twice a year.
• Publication Board members accept REFAD's publication ethics principles and policies and evaluate decisions related to these principles and policies.
• They decide on the themes of REFAD and to whom to offer theme (or guest editor) editorship for the relevant number of themes.
• They make member recommendations for REFAD's Advisory Board.
• They make recommendations to increase the national and international recognition of REFAD.
• In cases where there is suspicion of violations of scientific publication ethics, such as misconduct, plagiarism, conflict of interest, copyright infringement, or text recycling, they inform REFAD's editorial team to clarify the situation.
• They suggest search indexes that REFAD could be included in to enhance its academic quality.
Editors
• Articles submitted to REFAD are evaluated by editors independently of the authors' race, ethnicity, gender, worldview, and beliefs.
• Articles submitted to REFAD are submitted for evaluation by the relevant field editors. During the editorial evaluation stage, the field editor may request corrections from the author or recommend to the editor that the article be rejected without being included in the peer review process.
• Reviewers provide detailed and constructive evaluations of the articles they review.
• If necessary, the editor may develop comments and suggestions regarding the publication type under which the submitted article could be published in the journal and share this openly with the author. In this case, the final decision rests with the author and/or the editor.
• Editors act as the liaison between the field editor, author, and reviewer for articles entering the peer review process. They conduct the peer review process with academic courtesy from the date the article is submitted to the journal through publication, meticulously documenting each step. Regarding the evaluation process, editors do not hesitate to document the evaluation steps for each article, if necessary (provided that the personal rights of the field editor, author, and reviewer, and the journal's privacy principles are respected).
• If two reviewers express different opinions on an article under evaluation, editors seek the evaluation of a third reviewer.
• If any of the editors has a conflict of interest or a relationship that could cause a conflict of interest with the articles submitted to the journal, they will leave the decision of whether or not to include the article in the peer review process and the follow-up of the publication process entirely to the assistant editors. Since Field Editors evaluate articles anonymously, this prevents conflicts of interest with the author from arising. The editorial staff does not use any information obtained from the evaluated article for personal gain.
• If editors identify an error in a published article and this error invalidates the work or significant parts of it, contains plagiarism, or is unethical, they will retract the article in question. In such cases, editors are responsible for making a clear statement indicating that the article has been retracted and for publicly making an explanation of the reasons for retraction available to all readers on online platforms, with a link connecting the two versions of the journal.
Authors
• Authors have academic, ethical, and social responsibilities.
• Authors cannot submit more than one article to the same issue of the journal.
• Article submission dates comply with the article submission dates specified in the call for papers for the issue currently in preparation for publication. Authors are responsible for submissions made after the submission date, which will not be considered for evaluation.
• Authors are responsible for not committing ethical violations such as plagiarism, theft of work, improper citation, omission of references, or failure to mention the names of scholarship and support institutions in relation to the article they submit. If such a situation is detected, the article will be rejected.
• When submitting a paper in any type or format, authors are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that could create or be perceived as creating bias in the work. In this context, submitting authors sign and upload the Copyright Transfer Form to the system.
• Authors are responsible for ensuring that the ideas and statements in the work they submit for publication have not been used in other previously published works. If these ideas and statements have been used previously, they must be acknowledged with appropriate citations where necessary. Otherwise, authors are obliged to correct the overlapping parts at the request of the editors or, if the article has been published, to do what is required to publish a new correction. Articles to be sent to REFAD must be unpublished, not included in the publication program, or not published in another medium.
• For each part of the work, they must be accountable for validity and ethical issues.
• If there are multiple authors contributing to the work, they are responsible for ensuring that the order of names submitted during the application is a joint decision.
• They are responsible for including only those who have made an active contribution to the work as authors, not including those who have not made an active contribution, and for providing appropriate justification for any request to change the author order or the author order during the review process. Authors are obligated to provide any explanations requested by the editors if deemed necessary.
• If they identify errors or omissions after their articles are published, they must immediately notify the journal editors so that appropriate action can be taken.
• They may not publish the same article, in whole or in part, in more than one journal without permission or cross-reference, without providing a valid reason. They are obligated to comply with the Copyright Transfer Agreement they have signed.
• They accept that articles that do not pass REFAD's pre-publication preparation stages—APA checking and proofreading processes—will not be published, even if the peer review process has been completed.
Reviewers
Before the Review:
• Adheres to the double-blind review process and fulfills its requirements.
• Must respond positively or negatively within two weeks of receiving a review request.
• Must disclose any lack of expertise in the subject matter or inability to review the entire work.
• They must agree to evaluate within the agreed time frame and inform the editors if there is a possibility of delay.
• They must disclose to the editors any conflict of interest that could create bias in their opinions regarding the manuscript and, if such a situation exists, they must refrain from reviewing the manuscript.
• If a manuscript is very similar to a work they are preparing or evaluating, they must decline to review it.
During the Review Process;
• They should notify the journal if they discover a conflict of interest that did not exist at the time of acceptance.
• They should keep all manuscripts and reviewer evaluations confidential.
• They should guarantee that their evaluations are purely scientific and will not be influenced positively or negatively by personal, financial, or intellectual bias.
• They should not make personal comments about the author or make unsubstantiated accusations.
• They should be specific in their criticism; for example, they should substantiate a general statement such as “a study that has been done before”; this will help editors treat authors fairly in the review and decision-making process.
• They should remember that the text they are evaluating is the author's work and, if the work is written in clear and concise language, they should not attempt to rewrite it in their preferred style; however, suggestions for clarifying the language are important.
• Authors should not contact the journal directly without informing the editors.
• They should recognize sensitivities that may arise from writing in another language and express these with respect and in an appropriate manner.
• When reviewing articles sent to them, they are responsible for informing the editors if they detect text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism.
• Should not suggest that their work be cited solely to increase their/their colleagues' citation count or visibility. If a suggestion is made, it must be scientifically justified.
After the Review;
• Must continue to maintain the confidentiality of the work and the review process.
• They should inform the journal if a situation arises that could influence their main comments and feedback.
• They should try to respond to requests from the journal regarding corrections and re-evaluation.
• They should not use any information in the reviewed article that falls within their area of interest before the article is published.
Plagiarism Review Policy
• Plagiarism and other ethical violations, such as intellectual theft, are unacceptable to REFAD, and it is primarily the responsibility of the author(s) to ensure that such violations do not occur in submitted manuscripts.
• All manuscripts submitted to REFAD are checked for similarity using Turnitin or iThenticate before being accepted for the review process.
• If the similarity rate exceeds 15%, the editors will reject the manuscript without accepting it for review and will share the report results with the author.