Seatific Journal is committed to upholding the highest standards in publication ethics and adheres to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing as published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

The subjects covered in the manuscripts submitted to Seatific Journal for publication must be in accordance with the aim and scope of the Seatific Journal. Only those manuscripts that have been approved by each individual author and that have not been previously published in or sent to another journal are accepted for evaluation.

Omitting, adding, or changing the position of an author’s name in papers submitted to Seatific Journal requires written permission from all declared authors.
Plagiarism, duplication, authorship fraud/denied authorship, research/data fabrication, salami publication, breach of copyrights, and conflict of interest are considered unethical behaviors. All manuscripts not in accordance with the accepted ethical standards will be removed from publication. This also covers any possible malpractice discovered post-publication.

Plagiarism

Submitted manuscripts that pass the preliminary check are scanned for plagiarism using iThenticate software. If plagiarism or self-plagiarism is found, the authors will be informed. If required, editors may resubmit a manuscript for a similarity check at any peer review or production stage. A high similarity score may lead to a manuscript being rejected, whether before or even after acceptance. The overall similarity score is generally expected to be less than 10% based on the type of article.

Double Blind Peer-Review

After the plagiarism check, eligible manuscripts are evaluated by the editor-in-chief for their originality, methodology, the importance of the subject being covered, and compliance with Seatific Journal's scope. The editor provides a fair double-blind peer-review of the submitted articles, after which the papers that meet the formal rules are handed over to at least two national/international referees for evaluation; then the editor gives the green light for publication once the authors have made the necessary modifications in accordance with the referees’ requests.

Research Ethics

• Seatific Journal adheres to the highest standards in research ethics and follows the principles of international research ethics as defined below. The authors are responsible for ensuring their manuscripts comply with the ethical rules.
  
• The principles of integrity, quality, and transparency should be maintained while designing, reviewing, and conducting the research.
• The research team and participants should be fully informed about the aim, methods, possible uses, and requirements of the research, as well as the risks of participating.
• The confidentiality of the information provided by the research participants and the confidentiality of the respondents should be ensured. The research should be designed to protect the participant’s autonomy and dignity.
• Research participants should participate in the research voluntarily without any form of coercion.
• Any possible harm to participants must be avoided. The research should be planned in such a way that the participants are not exposed to any risk.
• The independence of the research must be clear, and any conflict of interest must be disclosed.
• For experimental studies with human subjects, written informed consent must be obtained from the participants who decide to participate in the research. In the case of children, those under guardianship, or those considered legally insane, consent must be obtained from the legal guardian.
• For studies to be carried out in any institution or organization, approval must be obtained from this institution or organization.
• For studies with human subjects, the method section of the manuscript must note that informed consent has been obtained from the participants and that permission has been obtained from the ethics committee approval board of the institution where the study is to be conducted.

Authors' Responsibilities

The authors are responsible for ensuring that their article is in accordance with scientific and ethical standards and rules. Authors must also ensure that the submitted work is original. They must certify that the manuscript has not been previously published elsewhere and is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere, even if in another language. Applicable copyright laws and conventions must be followed. Copyrighted material (e.g., in tables, figures, or extended quotations) may be reproduced only with the appropriate permission and acknowledgment from the source. Any work or words from other authors, contributors, or sources must be appropriately cited and referenced.

All authors of a submitted manuscript must have provided direct scientific and academic contributions to the manuscript. The author or authors of an original research article is defined as the person or persons who have been significantly involved in the conceptualization and design of the study; data collection; data analysis; writing of the manuscript; review of the manuscript with a critical perspective; and planning, conducting, and/or revising of the study’s manuscript. Fund raising, data collection, or supervision of the research group are considered insufficient roles on their own for acceptance as an author. The author or authors must meet all these criteria described above. The order of names in the author list of an article must be a joint decision and must be indicated in the Copyright Agreement Form. Those who do not meet the authorship criteria but who have contributed to the study must take place in the acknowledgment section. Individuals who’ve provided technical support, assisted in writing, provided general support, or provided material or financial support are examples of those who are to be indicated in the acknowledgment section.

All authors must disclose any issues concerning financial relationships, conflicts of interest, or competing interests that may potentially influence the results of the research or its scientific judgments.

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published paper, they are obligated to promptly cooperate with the Editor-in-Chief in providing retractions or corrections of the mistakes.

Editor and Reviewer Responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief evaluates manuscripts for their scientific content without regard to authors’ ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, citizenship, religious beliefs, or political philosophy. The Editor-in-Chief provides a fair double-blind peer-review of the submitted articles for publication and ensures that all the information related to the submitted manuscripts is kept confidential prior to publication.

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication and must publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
The Editor-in-Chief does not permit any conflicts of interest among the authors, editors, and reviewers. Only the Editor-in-Chief has the full authority to assign a reviewer and is responsible for the final decision regarding which manuscripts are to be published in Seatific Journal.

Reviewers must state no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors, and/or the research funders. Reviewers must have objective judgments.
Reviewers must ensure that all the information related to the submitted manuscripts is kept confidential and must report to the editor if they become aware of any copyright infringement or plagiarism on the side of the authors.

A reviewer who feels unqualified to review the topic of a manuscript or knows that a prompt review is not possible should notify the editor and excuse themself from the review process.

The editor is to inform the reviewers that the information provided in the manuscripts is confidential and that the reviewer’s work is considered a privileged interaction. The reviewers and editorial board may not discuss the manuscripts with other persons. The anonymity of the referees must also be ensured. In particular situations, the editor may share a review from one reviewer with other reviewers in order to clarify a particular point.

Statement on Peer-Review Policies

Submitted manuscripts that pass the preliminary checks are scanned for plagiarism using iThenticate software. After the plagiarism check, eligible manuscripts are evaluated by the editor-in-chief in terms of originality, methodology, the importance of the subject being covered, and compliance with the Seatific Journal's scope.

The editor hands over papers that meet the formal rules to at least two national/international referees for evaluation and gives the green light for publication once the authors make the necessary modifications in accordance with the referees’ requests.

The reviewers for Seatific Journal are chosen from among experts in the subjects mentioned in the manuscripts due to their objectivity and scientific knowledge. All reviewers who will make assessments are informed about what Seatific Journal expects from them. Each reviewer is asked to fill out an evaluation form and, if necessary, prepare a separate report. Persons who disagree with the topic of a manuscript will not be allowed to perform the evaluation (e.g., someone who has contributed to or collaborated with one of the authors, someone who is unable to provide an objective opinion about the work, an employee or competitor of an institution whose work is being reviewed, or people with personal political or ideological views). These people should contact the editorial board and state a possible difference of opinion/conflict of interest before the manuscript gets submitted to the referee committee.

Reviews are expected to be professional, honest, courteous, punctual, and constructive. The essential elements required for a high-quality assessment are:

• Reviewers should identify and comment on the weaknesses and strengths of the work’s organization and methodology.
• Reviewers should accurately and constructively criticize the author or authors’ ability to handle data while taking into account that the data may be limited.
• Reviewers should identify the strengths and weaknesses of the work as a written communication tool, regardless of its composition, methodology, results, or handling.
• Reviewers should express their thoughts on whether the study has content that may raise ethical concerns or whether it has low scientific standards.
• Reviewers should provide helpful advice to the authors so that the work can be improved.
• Reviewers' criticism should be constructive and professional toward the author or authors.
• The review should provide the editor with the correct perspective and content so that the editor can decide upon the acceptance and/or revision of the work.
• Reviewers are expected to identify unused references and to use citations to indicate which elements of the work have been cited previously. Reviewers should also report striking similarities between the reviewed text and any work that has been previously published in another journal or submitted to Seatific Journal.
• Reviewers are expected to be sensitive and to not contact the author directly. In many cases, opinions from two experts will be sought; however, the views of these experts may not be the same as the editor's final decision regarding the manuscript in question. Receiving advice from a reviewer, even partial, may give authors the wrong impression of the review process.

The Peer-Review Process

Manuscripts submitted to Seatific Journal will go through a double-blind peer review. Each submission will be reviewed by at least two external, independent peer reviewers who are experts in their fields in order to ensure an unbiased evaluation. The editorial board will invite an external independent editor to manage the evaluation process for the manuscripts submitted by editors or by the editorial board members of the journal. The Editor-in-Chief is the final authority in the decision-making process for all submissions. The language of the journal is English.

Reviewers are to strictly review all articles submitted for publication for their:

• Originality
• Methodology
• Importance
• Quality
• Novelty
• Ethical nature
• Suitability for the journal

Seatific Journal uses a well-constructed scheme for the evaluation process. The journal’s peer-review flow chart is shown below (for more information, please read "Author Instructions"). The reviewers should consider the following points when evaluating papers:

1. Does the paper offer a new and original contribution to the field? (For review articles, is it publishable?)
2. Is the content of the paper properly formatted and relevant to the scope of Seatific Journal?
3. Is the paper free of typographical and grammatical errors and unfounded/controversial arguments?
4. Does the title of the paper sufficiently and clearly reflect the topic?
5. Does the abstract contain a sufficient summary of the work being done?
6. Does the introduction present the importance of the topic, a recent literature review, and a clear objective?
7. Has the analysis (and/or model) been clearly presented?
8. Has the experimental portion been clearly presented (with an error analysis)?
9. Have the results been sufficiently discussed?
10. Are the conclusions sound and justified?
11. Is the presentation clear to readers familiar with the field?
12. Are all the figures and tables necessary and acceptable?
13. Are the citations adequate and appropriate?
14. Would you be willing to review a revision of this manuscript?

The Editorial Board of Seatific Journal encourages reviewers to comment on possible research or publication misconduct, such as unethical research design, duplication, or plagiarism. Plagiarism is a serious problem and the most common ethical issue afflicting medical writing. Seatific Journal does not allow any form of plagiarism. In accordance with Seatific Journal’s policy, submitted manuscripts are screened with plagiarism software (iThenticate and others) to detect instances of overlapping and similar text at least twice, once during the evaluation process and again after acceptance. If the reviewers have any suspicions, the editors can provide them with information obtained from the plagiarism screening tools.

Seatific Journal requests that reviewers treat the manuscripts in confidence. The contents of the manuscripts must not be used or shared in any way until they have been published.

Seatific Journal also thanks the reviewers by publishing an annual reviewer list in its last issue of the year, as well as on the website after each issue.

Author Policy

Manuscript submission applies to works that have not been previously published (except in summary form, as part of a published conference or academic thesis, or as an electronic preprint); submissions are not to have been evaluated anywhere else for publication. Submitting a manuscript also explicitly implies that all authors or authorities responsible for the work have given their consent to its publication without the need for express or public declaration. Upon being accepted, the work’s copyright, whether in English or another language, prohibits it from being published elsewhere, including electronically, without the permission of the owner (Yildiz Technical University).

All articles submitted to Seatific Journal will be uploaded into the iThenticate software to check the work’s similarity rate. Seatific Journal will immediately reject any article with a similarity rate greater than 10%.

• The average time for preliminary assessment is 10 days
• The average time for the manuscript review is 40 days:
• The average time for an article to be published in an issue is 100 days.

Editor Policy

Seatific Journal asks its editors to write a short commentary regarding any views they may have that could potentially be seen as influencing their unbiased assessment. Such transparency is an ethical obligation to authors and readers, as well as an equivalent response to the expression of opinion expected from authors, editors, and reviewers. The editorial staff is expected to distance themselves from decision-making arrangements that could potentially introduce a disagreement.

The editors’ duties entail:

• The Publishing Decision
• Impartiality
• Security
• Disagreements and Statements
• Collaborations to take part in research

Data Access

All data regarding the manuscripts must be available as a supplementary file or stored on an external channel. These data should also be made available upon request.

Changes to Authorship

Seatific Journal acknowledges the addition, deletion, or rearranging of authors’ names prior to publishing an accepted work. Before publishing an accepted work, the corresponding author should forward requests regarding adding, removing, or rearranging the names of the authors to the Seatific Journal Secretary. This request should include the reason for adding, removing, or rearranging the name in question, as well as individual written consent from all the authors (e.g., by e-mail, fax, or letter) stating that they agree to this addition, removal, or rearrangement. The request should also include the explicit approval of the author being added or removed in such cases.

Requests that are not originally sent by the corresponding author will be sent by the Seatific Journal Secretary directly to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure outlined above. The following should be noted:

1. The Seatific Journal Secretary will notify the journal’s editorial board of such requests
2. Publication of the accepted work in the press will be halted until a consensus is reached regarding the authorship changes.

After a work is published, requests to add, remove, or rearrange author names will no longer be considered.

Developing the Evaluation Process

Seatific Journal’s editors routinely review manuscripts for quality. Evaluation-attributed grading and other evaluator performance characteristics are periodically reviewed to ensure optimal efficiency for Seatific Journal. Performance measures such as review completion time should be used to review changes during processes that will contribute to Seatific Journal’s effectiveness. Individual performances are kept confidential. Editors who do not contribute to the quality of Seatific Journal may be removed from the editorial board.

Privacy

Information and ideas gained as a referee during the evaluation process are to be kept confidential and may not be taken advantage of in any way. As the submission contains privileged information, it is to be kept strictly confidential.

• Reviewers are to only receive submissions to perform their evaluation; they are not to take control or copy a submission for personal reasons.
• The submission cannot be taken or copied by the evaluators. In addition, reviewers cannot share a submission with their colleagues without the express written permission of the editor.
• Reviewers and editors may neither professionally nor personally use the data, interpretations, or topics in a submitted work unless directly related to the evaluation or editorial writings/commentaries on the work before its publication without the express permission of the authors.
• In the case of any difference of opinion or conflict of interest, the evaluator should immediately notify the editorial board.
• Reviewers should notify Seatific Journal if they are unable to review any work or if they can only do so with some delay.
• Reviewers should objectively evaluate the quality of the work in question; make clear, unbiased, and constructive criticisms; and avoid personal criticism of the authors. No harm is had in letting the authors know or seeing the comments referees have made. Therefore, the opinions of the referees should be clearly stated and supported so that the authors can understand the basis of the comments and evaluations.
• Reviewers can easily report any suspected violation to the editor and, at the same time, must without exception not share the status with other parties unless they have been informed by Seatific Journal to do so.

Open Access Statement

Seatific Journal is an open-access journal whose content is freely available without cost to the user or their institution. Apart from commercial purposes, users are allowed to read, download, copy, print, search, or link the full text of articles in Seatfic Journal without asking prior permission from the publisher and/or author/authors. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

The open-access articles in Seatific Journal are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Copyright Notice

Authors publishing in Seatific Journal retain the copyright to their work as licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International license and grant the Publisher the non-exclusive commercial right to publish the work. CC BY-NC 4.0 license permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.