This document sets out the ethical principles and publication policy of Socioinformatics and the responsibilities of all parties involved in the publication process. It applies to the editors, the editorial board, reviewers, authors, and the publisher. The policy is grounded in the principles and flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the authorship recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the Diamond Open Access Standard (DOAS). Because the journal takes artificial intelligence and data as both its subject and its method, it holds itself to an especially explicit standard on data ethics, the use of artificial intelligence, and research reproducibility.

1. General Principles

•       The journal is committed to publishing original, high-quality scholarship at the intersection of the social sciences with artificial intelligence and data science, and to upholding the integrity of the scholarly record.

•       All parties are expected to act honestly, transparently, and fairly, and to avoid any conduct that could compromise the trustworthiness of published research.

•       Editorial decisions are based solely on the scholarly merit and scope fit of a manuscript, independent of the authors' identity, institution, nationality, gender, or any other personal characteristic.

•       The journal adopts the COPE Core Practices and applies the relevant COPE flowcharts when handling ethical concerns.

2. Editorial Independence and Decision-Making

The editor-in-chief holds final responsibility for deciding which manuscripts are published and exercises this responsibility independently of commercial, political, or institutional pressure.

•       Editorial decisions are made on the basis of reviewer reports, scope fit, originality, methodological soundness, and ethical compliance.

•       The publishing institution guarantees the editorial independence of the journal and does not intervene in individual editorial decisions.

•       Editors recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have a competing interest, and such manuscripts are assigned to another editor.

3. Responsibilities of Editors

•       To evaluate manuscripts fairly, without discrimination, and solely on intellectual and scholarly grounds.

•       To safeguard the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and of the identities of authors and reviewers throughout the double-blind process.

•       To take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of research misconduct, and to act on credible concerns raised about published or submitted work.

•       To ensure that the peer-review process is timely, rigorous, and free of conflicts of interest, and to seek additional reviews where needed.

•       To issue corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions promptly and transparently when warranted.

•       Not to use unpublished material from a submitted manuscript for their own research without the authors' written consent.

4. Responsibilities of Reviewers

•       To assist editorial decisions through objective, constructive, and timely evaluation, and to decline review where they lack the relevant expertise or cannot meet the timeline.

•       To treat every manuscript as a confidential document and not to share, discuss, or use its content outside the review process.

•       To declare any conflict of interest, including personal, financial, or intellectual competition, and to recuse themselves where appropriate.

•       To identify relevant published work not cited by the authors and to alert the editor to any substantial similarity between the manuscript and other work.

•       To raise, rather than exploit, any ethical concern regarding the data ethics, artificial-intelligence use, or research integrity of the manuscript.

5. Responsibilities of Authors

•       To submit only original work that is not under simultaneous review elsewhere and has not been previously published, and to cite all sources and prior work appropriately.

•       To ensure the accuracy of their data and analysis, to retain records where possible, and to provide access to underlying data and code in line with Section 10.

•       To disclose all sources of funding, conflicts of interest, ethics-committee approvals, and any use of artificial intelligence, as set out in Sections 7–9 and 11.

•       To promptly notify the editor of any significant error discovered in their own published or submitted work and to cooperate in issuing a correction or retraction.

•       To ensure that all listed authors meet the authorship criteria and that no eligible contributor has been omitted.

6. Peer Review Policy

The journal operates a double-blind peer-review process in which the identities of authors and reviewers are mutually concealed.

•       After an editorial scope and integrity check, manuscripts that proceed are evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with relevant expertise.

•       Reviewers assess originality, theoretical and methodological soundness, ethical compliance, and fit with the journal's scope.

•       Final decisions (accept, minor or major revision, or reject) rest with the editor and are communicated with the reasoning behind them. No guarantee of timing, issue, or acceptance is given.

7. Research Ethics

•       Research involving human participants must comply with recognised ethical standards, including the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki where applicable.

•       Where ethics-committee approval is required, the approving body, date, and decision number must be stated in the manuscript; where such approval is not required, this must be declared with justification. For studies collecting data after 2020 that require approval, approval is mandatory.

•       Informed consent must be obtained and documented for research involving identifiable individuals, and additional safeguards must be described for research involving vulnerable groups.

8. Data Ethics and Digital Trace Data

Given the journal's focus, many studies rely on social media, platform records, or other digital trace data. For such research the journal requires that authors:

•       Explain the legitimacy of data collection with respect to platform terms of use and applicable data-protection law (e.g., GDPR and national equivalents).

•       Practise data minimisation and anonymise or remove usernames, verbatim quotations, and any detail enabling re-identification unless strictly necessary and justified.

•       Treat public availability as distinct from consent to research use, and take contextual integrity into account.

•       Assess and mitigate potential harms, particularly where sensitive groups or topics are involved, and report these considerations in the manuscript.

9. Artificial Intelligence Use Policy

As a journal devoted to the study of artificial intelligence, Socioinformatics expects exemplary transparency in the use of generative and other AI tools.

•       Authorship. Artificial-intelligence tools cannot be credited as authors; accountability for the entire work rests with the human authors.

•       Declaration. Any use of generative AI in writing, coding, translation, data labelling, or analysis must be disclosed in a dedicated declaration stating the tool, version, and purpose.

•       Methodological transparency. Where AI is used as an analytical instrument, prompt design, model version, date, inter-coder reliability, and human validation must be reported so that the procedure can be assessed and reproduced.

•       Accountability. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of AI-assisted output and for the authenticity of all cited sources; fabricated references or unverified claims are treated as research-integrity violations.

•       Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts to third-party AI systems in a way that would breach confidentiality.

10. Data and Code Availability (Open Science)

Reproducibility is treated as a marker of quality. The journal encourages open-science practices while respecting ethical and legal limits.

•       Authors are encouraged to deposit data and analysis code in a persistent repository with a DOI, as far as ethical and legal constraints allow.

•       Every article should include a Data and Code Availability statement; where data cannot be shared, the reason must be given and alternatives such as anonymised, derivative, or synthetic data, or an access protocol, considered.

11. Research Integrity: Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification

•       All submissions are screened with similarity-detection software. High similarity, whether overall or concentrated in a single source, is examined by the editor.

•       Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, data fabrication, image or data manipulation, redundant publication, and citation manipulation are unacceptable and are handled under the relevant COPE flowcharts.

12. Authorship, Contribution, and Conflicts of Interest

•       Authorship follows the ICMJE criteria; every author must have made a meaningful contribution, and contributions are declared using the CRediT taxonomy.

•       Changes to authorship after submission require the written agreement of all authors and editorial approval. ORCID is required for all authors.

•       All conflicts of interest and all sources of financial support, including funder and project number, must be disclosed; where none exists, this must be stated.

13. Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

•       Honest errors that affect the record are corrected through a published correction linked to the original article.

•       Where findings are shown to be unreliable owing to misconduct or substantial error, the article is retracted with a clear, public retraction notice, following COPE guidance. The original article is retained and marked as retracted rather than removed.

•       An expression of concern may be published where a well-founded but unresolved concern exists.

14. Complaints, Appeals, and Allegations of Misconduct

•       Complaints about editorial process, ethics, or conduct may be submitted to the editorial office and are handled promptly, confidentially, and fairly.

•       Authors may appeal an editorial decision with a substantive, reasoned response; appeals are considered by the editor and, where appropriate, additional reviewers.

•       Allegations of misconduct against authors, reviewers, or editors are investigated in line with COPE procedures, giving those concerned an opportunity to respond, and may involve the relevant institutions where necessary.

15. Open Access, Copyright, and Licensing

•       Diamond open access. The journal charges no article-processing charge (APC) or submission fee to authors and no access fee to readers; publication costs are met by the publishing institution.

•       Articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence, and copyright is retained by the authors.

•       Authors retain the right to archive and disseminate their published work with proper attribution.

16. Archiving, Preservation, and Transparency

•       The journal assigns persistent identifiers (DOI via Crossref) and maintains interoperable metadata to ensure long-term discoverability.

•       Digital preservation and long-term access to published content are ensured through appropriate archiving arrangements.

•       In line with the Diamond Open Access Standard (DOAS), the journal maintains transparency about its funding, governance, and costs, and does not carry advertising that could compromise editorial independence.

This policy is reviewed periodically and updated as standards evolve. Questions may be addressed to the journal's editorial office on DergiPark.