Journal of Limitless Education and Research (J-LER) undertakes to implement publication ethics at the highest standards and to comply with the following principles of publication ethics. These principles have been prepared based on the recommendations and guidelines developed for journal editors by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Council of Science Editors (CSE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Also Journal of Limitless Education and Research (J-LER), undertakes to follow the Code of Conduct and Implementation Guide (Principles of Transparency and Best Practice) prepared by COPE (Committee of Publication Ethics). Following the Cope Guidelines for Editors is within the scope of the editors' duty, and the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers must be followed by the journal referees. J-LER has adopted ethical rules and responsibilities in accordance with the Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive, taking into account the "Actions Contrary to Scientific Research and Publication Ethics" in the Second Section. The ethical rules and responsibilities to be followed are listed below.

1.  Ethical Rules

By the agreement made by the Dergipark system with Intihal.net, our journal has approved receiving the similarity report through the system. A similarity report will be prepared while the authors upload their articles to the system, and after the similarity report is prepared, the article submission steps will be completed. The resulting file will be sent to the author by e-mail by the system.

In articles submitted to J-LER, If it will be taken by the author; a similarity report must be obtained and uploaded to the relevant section of the Dergipark system according to the following rules.

1. The similarity report is prepared by the author using similarity programs such as Turnitin, iThenticate and uploaded to the relevant section of the Dergipark system along with the article.

2. When creating a similarity report, only the following settings should be used: "Exclude Bibliography" and "Exclude sources that are less than: 5 words".

The following principles apply when reviewing similarity reports:

1. Studies that have more than 15% similarity throughout the entire work or more than 3% similarity from a single source are not considered for preliminary evaluation.

2. The manuscript is returned to the author with the necessary explanations.

3. Manuscripts with a similarity rate below 15% are checked in terms of;

- Whether the source cited at the end of each quoted sentence is checked. (In some cases, a quotation consisting of 4-5 sentences is made and the source is only cited at the end of the last sentence. In such cases, the quoted expression should be placed in quotation marks and shown in italics)
- Whether the source is cited for sections where similarity is found. (In some cases, a source may not be cited even though a quotation is made)
- Whether the similarity is from the main source or a different source, (as in some cases, a quotation may be taken from a different source and referenced to the main source rather than the source)

4. Whether there are block quotations in the study, if the references to sections where similarities are found are not made, or if the similarity belongs to a source other than the main source and there is no reference to the source. In such cases, the manuscript is not evaluated.

5. The preliminary evaluation process of manuscripts that pass these reviews is completed.

6. Authors are solely responsible for any ethical violations.

The following ethical rules are expected to be followed in articles submitted to J-LER.

For all articles, except for the compilation type, that will be submitted for publication in all journals indexed in TR DİZİN (Turkish Academic Network and Information Center's Index) in 2020 and under evaluation, as per the decisions taken by the relevant committees of TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM TR DİZİN, the authors are required to;

1. State and document on the final page and methodology section of the candidate article that ethical committee approval was obtained for research requiring data collection through methods such as scales, questionnaires, interviews, and observations (ethics committee name, decision date and number),

2. Include information in the article that informed consent was obtained and signed,

3. Present evidence in the article that ethical principles were followed in the data collection process (such as obtaining permission to use scales, questionnaires, and documents from others),

4. State in the article that research and publication ethics were followed.
 

2. Responsibilities

a. Author Responsibilities
 

Ethical rules and responsibilities that authors submitting articles to J-LER should adhere to;

1. The submitted article must be original and not contain plagiarism from other publications.

2. Citations in the article should be accurate, complete, and follow scientific rules.

3. Figures and visuals taken from others should be referenced and specified in the reference list.

4. The article should be prepared paying attention to fraud, distortion, republication, slicing, unfair authorship, and other ethical rules.

5. The contributions of institutions, organizations, and individuals supporting the research should be mentioned.

6. Permission should be obtained to use data from unpublished theses.

7. Permission should be obtained from relevant individuals and institutions to use surveys and scales.

8. Authors should obtain all necessary permissions related to the research.

9. Data and information obtained from individuals and institutions should be used to the extent allowed.

10. Journals and books not utilized or not available should not be included in the reference list.

11. The article should not have been published elsewhere or be under consideration for publication in another journal. 

12. All authors should have played active roles in the study individually and taken the necessary responsibility.

13. All authors should have seen and approved the final version of the submitted article.

14. The authors’ responsibilities should not be changed, new authors should not be added, author order should not be changed, or authors should not be removed during the evaluation process.

15. Any conflicts of interest and relationships that may create a conflict of interest should be disclosed in the submitted works.

16. As double-blind peer review is applied in our journal, author information should not be written in the article file.

17. Authors should only communicate with the editor during the evaluation process. 

18. Even after the evaluation process is over, authors should not directly contact the field editor and referees. Nor should they request information.

b. Editor Responsibilities 

The decision-making process for the articles to be published in our journal is the responsibility of the editor. Therefore, the ethical rules and responsibilities that J-LER editors and assistants must comply with are as follows;

1. The editor must manage the necessary communication process with the authors and referees effectively. 

2. The editor must conduct an initial review of the submitted work with regards to writing rules and format.

3. The editor must review the article in terms of ethical principles such as compliance with scientific rules, plagiarism report, and copyright infringement.

4. The editor must ensure that two referees are assigned to the article within the appropriate time. 

5. If necessary for an objective evaluation, the article should be sent to a third referee.

6. The editor must monitor the evaluation status of the article within the prescribed time.

7. The editor must inform the author and referees in a timely manner. 

8. As our journal applies double-blind peer review, the identity of the author and referees must be kept confidential.

9. The editor must make the decision to publish the article based on its originality, significance, validity, timeliness, and suitability for the journal. 

10. The editor must not share the information in the article to be published with others without the author's permission.

11. The editor and assistants must not disclose information about the article to be published.

12. The editor and assistants must not use the method, form, visual, data, and materials in an unpublished article in their research without the author's permission.

13. The responsibility for the views and claims expressed in the articles belongs to the authors. They may not represent the views of the publisher and editors.

14. Any views or claims put forth in the articles do not imply endorsement by the publisher and editors.

c. Responsibilities of Reviewers

The J-LER Management and Editorial Board expect reviewers to adhere to certain principles when conducting evaluations. These are as follows:

1. Peer review is an essential part of the scientific publishing process. Therefore, it should be based on mutual respect between the reviewer and the author.

2. The main objective of peer review is to evaluate whether a study is in compliance with scientific research rules and to demonstrate its scientific value.

3. Comments, feedback, and suggestions made in the peer review process should be aimed at enhancing the quality of the study.

4. The comments provided by the reviewer should be written in a clear and understandable language and based on objective evidence.

5. The reviewer should not share the content, methods, techniques, or results of the manuscript they have reviewed with anyone until it is published. 

6. The reviewer should not use the content, methods, techniques, or results of the manuscript they have reviewed in their own work without the author's permission.

7. The reviewer should not communicate with the author directly, except through the editor.

8. The entire review process is conducted through the dergipark system, except for communications with the editor.

9. Serving as a reviewer for J-LER is based on voluntary participation. 

10. Those who wish to volunteer as a reviewer for our journal can register through the following link: (https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/journal/1523/reviewer-request/send).

PUBLICATION PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES

The Journal of Limitless Education and Research is an international scientific peer-reviewed journal. The principles, policies, processes, and procedures followed during the publication process are listed below.

a. Publication Policy

• The Journal of Limitless Education and Research is an internationally peer-reviewed electronic journal. It is not printed.

• The journal is published electronically as one volume of three issues per year in March, July, and November.

• The J-LER Publishing and Editorial Board decides to publish the journal in two languages, Turkish and English.

• Members of the Journal's Publishing and Editorial Board may submit articles to the journal, but they cannot be involved in the publication process during the evaluation period of their articles.

• The average evaluation period for articles submitted to our journal is two months. The preliminary review period is 10 days, the peer-review period is 30 days, and the manuscript editing period is 10 days.

• One reviewer may be assigned multiple articles in one issue.

• Any changes in the journal's publication policies and processes are announced on the journal's official website.

b. Payment Policy

• J-LER is an open-access journal. 

• No article processing charges are demanded for manuscripts submitted to the journal.

• No fee is paid to the author(s) for published articles.

• The journal does not provide fee to the editorial board and peer reviewers.

• The author is responsible for all financial copyright procedures related to translations.

• From the date the manuscript is submitted to the Journal of Limitless Education and Research, the author is assumed to have accepted full financial, legal, and academic responsibility.

c. Privacy Policy

• All papers submitted to J-LER are kept confidential and are not shared with third parties except for the reviewers of the paper.

• The information of the authors and reviewers is kept confidential. Reviewer reports are only shared with the relevant author. 

• Published papers are archived in an open archive and made available for everyone to use. 

• Unpublished papers are kept in the archive and not shared with other publishers without the author's permission.

d. Evaluation Policy

Double-blind peer review is applied to ensure the objective and unbiased evaluation of the works submitted to the Journal of Limitless Education and Research. For this purpose;

• The identities of the reviewers and authors are kept confidential.

• Communication between the reviewer and author is facilitated through the editorial unit.

• The article is sent to a third reviewer if necessary.

• It is ensured that the recommendations of the reviewers are applied by the author.

• The following procedures are carried out in the assignment and evaluation of reviewers for the articles:

1. After the editor evaluates the article for compliance with journal requirements, two or more scientific reviewers are assigned. At this stage, an invitation to review is sent to the reviewer's email address.

2. The reviewer must respond to the email within 5 days, confirming acceptance of the review. The editor may extend this period and send a reminder if necessary.

3. At this stage it is expected from the reviewer; 

The expected evaluation criteria for the study include its relevance to the journal's scope, alignment of the title with the content, the adequacy of the abstract in reflecting the study, the structural and formal quality of the study, the comprehensibility of the language used, the understandability of tables and figures, the sufficiency of the references, the originality of the study, and its contribution to the field. The evaluation should also answer the questions, "Has the article text provided an explanation of adherence to scientific ethics?" and "General evaluation regarding the study."

4. The normal duration for the review process to be completed is 15 days. If more time is needed, the reviewer may request an extension, or the editor may automatically extend the time period.

5. After reviewing the study, the reviewer selects one of the following outcomes:

• Acceptable as it is,

• Acceptable with specified changes,

• Unacceptable.

6. If the reviewer selects "Acceptable with specified changes," and answers "yes" to the question "Would you like to review the article again after the author's revisions?", the study is sent back to the reviewer for re-evaluation after the author's revisions. 

7. At this stage, as a reviewer, you are expected to make a general decision about the study after considering the extent to which the requested corrections have been made and deciding whether or not to provide further corrections. If the article is accepted or rejected, the review process is completed.

8. When the author uploads the revised study, he/she indicates the changes made in accordance with the reviewer's suggestions or explain why certain suggestions could not be implemented. 

9. The editor contacts the reviewer to provide information about suggestions that could not be implemented by the author.

10. The reviewer may provide notes to the author and editor through the system without revealing his/her identity in the notes sent to the author.