Sakarya University Journal of Education

Sakarya University Journal of Education (SUJE) aims to be a scientific source of reference in which academicians studying on educational sciences and teacher training field can publish their studies, and also they have access to related studies. The main aim of the journal is to increase and disseminate the literature in educational sciences and teacher training field.

Sakarya University Journal of Education (SUJE) is an international peer-reviewed and scientific journal which is published triannually. SUJE publishes high quality original research articles (quantitative, qualitative) which contribute to educational sciences and teacher training field. The publication language of the journal is English and Turkish.

A) General Information

1.The publication language of SUJE is English and Turkish. After the acceptance of a Turkish manuscript, its English translation is also required. The facsimile versions of the articles written in Turkish language are published in Turkish and English. The Turkish version of the articles that is sent in English is not required. Turkish title, abstract and keywords have to be in the articles submitted in English.

2. SUJE journal is published online triannually in April, August and December. Only “Original Research Articles” are published in SUJE. 

B) Writing Rules

1. The manuscripts to be sent to SUJE journal have to be prepared by taking into consideration the in-text and end-text references, tables and figures specified in APA6 Turkish and English versions.

Please click on the below link to access the APA6 Turkish version:

https://www.tk.org.tr/APA/apa_2.pdf

Please click on the below link to access the APA6 English version:

https://www.apastyle.org/manual

2. The manuscripts sent to SUJE journal have to be prepared by taking into consideration the explanations given in the template file of the journal and be prepared by using SUJE journal template.

Please click on the below link click here for SUJE journal Turkish template:

https://dergipark.org.tr/download/journal-file/12486

Please click on the below link click here for SUJE journal English template:

https://dergipark.org.tr/download/journal-file/12487

3. There should not be any information about the author(s) in the manuscripts submitted to SUJE journal. If there should be any description about the submission, it should be stated in the section of “Note to the Editor”.

4. In the article, the first level titles have to be set as 11 point, left aligned, bold and all capital letters and have to be numbered as in the template respectively. Second-level and lower-level headings are not enumerated. These headings are left-aligned, 10 points and thick, and only the first letters of the words have to be written in capital.

5. The length of the manuscript should not exceed 8000 words including bibliography.

6. TRDİZİN stated that the date of the meeting where the ethics committee permission was obtained and the issue number of the relevant article should be stated in the method section of the article in studies that require ethics committee approval. This information will be added to the home page and last page of the article by the typesetting manager after the article is accepted for publication.

7. According to TRIndex criteria, the information regarding the Contribution Rate of the Researchers, Statement of Support and Acknowledgment, if any, and Statement of Conflict must be uploaded in the article application. Our journal requests this information on a title page. The title page should be properly prepared and loaded. Sample templates should be included below.

Please Click for Turkish Template

https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/journal-file/24939 

Please Click for English Template

https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/journal-file/24940 

PUBCLICATION POLICY

The publication language of SUJE is English and Turkish. After the acceptance of a Turkish manuscript, its English translation is also required. The facsimile versions of the articles written in Turkish language are published in Turkish and English. The Turkish version of the articles that is sent in English is not required. Turkish title, abstract and keywords have to be in the articles submitted in English.
SUJE only publishes original research studies that have qualifications stated below. Manuscripts other than this will not be evaluated.
An original research is that produces new knowledge instead of summarizing what is already known in a new form. There are many ways to produce new knowledge: observations, experiments, new approaches to solving existing problems, descriptive, surveys etc. In these senses, the original article is an article with no copies written or printed elsewhere before. An article is considered original research if...
· It is the report of a study written by the researchers who actually did the study and have intellectual contribution.
· The researchers describe their hypothesis or research question and the purpose of the study with a literature review describing the problem situation.
· The researchers detail their research methods.
· The results of the research are reported.
· The researchers interpret their results and discuss possible implications.
* SUJE does not evaluate the contributions of the authors other than the advisor (and co-advisors) and the thesis writer's as an intellectual contribution in the manuscripts created from the doctorate/master's thesis.
** SUJE journal does not evaluate the manuscripts submitted to the journal before and finished as negative for the re-evaluation process.

Peer Review Process
Blind review is a method used to make sure scientific publications are produced with the highest quality. This method is fundamental to the objective review of scientific studies and is preferred by many scientific journals. All manuscripts submitted to SUJE are blind reviewed according to the steps below:

Blind Review Method
SUJE uses the double blind review method in the review process of all studies. In this method the identities of the authors and reviewers are confidential.

Pre-Review Process
In the pre-review process, first of all, the appropriateness of the study with the journal writing rules is checked and plagiarism check is performed. Authors should submit the plagiarism report (similarity report) of their work together with the submission of the manuscript. Studies without plagiarism report will not be evaluated. If the plagiarism rate of the submitted manuscript is below 25% and it is found to be in accordance with the journal writing rules, it is assigned to the relevant field editor. Candidate manuscripts that do not comply with the journal writing rules and do not have plagiarism report are returned to the author by the assistant editors at the latest within one month. While preparing plagiarism report, the author names and information about the authors must be removed from the text. A detailed report showing which parts of the report are similar to the sources scanned must be sent, not the screen shot of the report. In addition, while the report is being prepared, the "Extract citiations" option must be unchecked (off) and the report must be prepared and sent with the option checked (on) "Remove Less than Five Word Simulations" "Extract Bibliography". The corrections requested from the authors at the pre-review process must be sent within 15 days. Otherwise, the study is removed from the evaluation process.

Field Editor Pre-Revies Process
In the field editor pre-review process, the field editors evaluate the introduction and literature, method, findings, results, discussion parts of the studies in detail with respect to the publishing policies and scope of the journal as well as originality. At this stage, the studies which are not related with the journal's aim and scope, weak in terms of language and wording, lack originality, contain critical scientific mistakes and do not meet the publishing criteria are rejected. The authors of such studies are informed in one month following the submission date. The studies deemed acceptable, on the other hand, are forwarded to at least two reviewer related with the subject of study that the work focuses on.

Reviewer Process
The field editors assing at least two reviewers that they deem appropriate according to the content of the study and the referees' field of expertise to evaluate the study.

Reviewers obligated to guarantee that they will not share any document or detail about the study they review.

Reviewer Reports
In general, the reviewer reports are based on the originality of the studies, methods, ethical considerations, consistent presentation of the findings and results and analysis of the studies with respect to literature. This evaluation is done according to the following:

Literature: the reviewer report includes views about the presentation and aims of the problem addressed in the study, the importance of the topic, the gaps in the literature about the topic, the scope of the related literature, the originality and topicality of the study.
Method: the reviewer report includes views about the appropriateness of the research method, sample choice and properties, validity and reliability issues, as well as data collection and data analysis.
Findings: the reviewer report includes views about the presentation of the findings obtained through the method, the accuracy of the analysis methods, the consistency of the aims and findings of the study, the presentation of tables, diagrams and visuals that are needed, and the conceptual evaluation of the scales.
Evaluation and Discussion: the reviewer report includes views about discussions based on findings, suitability with the research question(s) and hypothesis(ses), generalizability and applicability.
Results and Suggestions: the reviewer report includes views about contribution to literature, recommendations for future studies and suggestions about applications in the field.
Style and Wording: the reviewer report includes views about whether the title comprises the content of the study, whether the Turkish language is used accurately and whether APA6 rules are observed in giving references and in-text references in parallel with the language of the full text.
In the review process, reviewers are not expected to redact the study according to its galley features.

Reviewing Process
Reviewers are given 5 weeks for review. Referees who do not return during this period are given an additional 2 weeks. At the end of this additional period, if there is no return from the reviewer, the field editor is requested to assing another reviewer. It is compulsory for the authors to complete the editing of their work within 1 month according. The manuscripts that are not sent within the specified period are rejected. Reviewers may ask multiple editing of a study if they deem necessary. The reviewers are given 2 weeks for the evaluation requests that are sent to the reviewers for the second time and aim to check the corrections.

Review Results
The field editor evaluates the review by reviewers within 4 weeks at the latest and as a result of this evaluation the field editor informs the editorial board about his/her final decision regarding the study.

Editorial Board Decision
Based on the review done by the field editor and reviewers, editors report the views of the editorial board to the author(s) in two weeks at the latest along with the suggestions made by the field editor and reviewers. In this process the studies that are not accepted for publication are returned to author(s). The final decision about the accepted studies is made based on the results of the plagiarism detection report by editorial boardi

How long does the Publication Review Process last?
It is anticipated that the publication review process of the studies submitted to SUJE be completed in about 12 weeks if pre-review complated. However, the period during which editors or reviewers ask the author(s) to do editing and the author(s) complete the editing is not included in this time frame.

ETHICAL POLICY

SUJE journal is completely free. SUJE does not charge any pre-release or post-publishing fees. All publications are published as open access.

Measures Against Ethical Violations

SUJE journal can take some decisions when it deems necessary, regarding ethical violations and undertakings that it detects. While SUJE journal takes these decisions, within the data available, SUJE may suspend the submission of articles to the journal temporarily by the authors it believes have attempted these situations. It may temporarily include the authors involved in this attempt to the list of attempted ethical violations.

Ethics Committie Approval
1-In accordance with the TR Index criteria for the publication of a study in SUJE, “the ethics committee approval for researches in all disciplines (including social sciences) and for clinical and experimental studies on humans and animals requiring an ethical committee decision must have been obtained separately, and also information about the approval must be included in the article”. The researchers who are not members of the university can apply to the Ethics Committees in their region.

2- Candidate studies that “Require Ethics Committee Permission” were defined by TRDİZİN as follows:

· All kinds of researches conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection using survey, interview, focus group work, observation, experiment, interview techniques.

· Use of humans and animals (including material / data) for experimental or other scientific purposes.

· Clinical studies on humans.

· Research on animals.

· • Retrospective studies (investigating what happened in the past) in accordance with the Law on Protection of Personal Data.

3- Besides these,

· It should be noted that “informed consent form” was taken in case reports.

· It is required to obtain permission from the owners for the use of the scale, questionnaire, photographs of others and to state this situation in the method section of the study.

· It is should be stated that copyright regulations are complied with for the ideas and works of art used.

4- Along with these, the Ethics Committee reports should include the following information:

· The date, decision and number number of the ethics committee report should be specified on the first and last page of the candidate study. It should be noted that the research ethics comply with the publication ethics in the method section.

· Including purpose and subject of study, corresponding and other researchers, data collection tools to be used in the research, and research method, the ethics committee application form or Ethics Committee report attachments included in the appendix of the ethics committee document and filled in by the researchers to receive an ethics committee report should also be uploaded to the system.

· If the study requires the use of human and animal subjects, it should be declared that the study was carried out in accordance with international declaration, guidelines, etc.

· The articles to be published in the journals should indicate whether an ethical committee permit and / or legal / special permission should be obtained.

· If these permits are required, it should be clearly presented from which institution, on what date and with which decision or number the permission was obtained.

**Ethics committee document to be uploaded to the system should be uploaded in "pdf" file format together with an official letter with wet signature or electronic signature.

***There is no such thing as an ethical committee requirement is not necessary for studies carried out before 2019 or 2020. TRDİZİN brought the ethical committee obligation at the end of 2019 and at the beginning of 2020. In this transition period, TRDİZİN only states that "retrospective ethics committee approval is not required for articles that have been used before 2020, produced from master's/doctoral studies (must be specified in the article), send to the journal in the previous (2019) year, accepted but not yet published". forwarded to journals. This decision was taken temporarily during the transition period. TRDİZİN required the journals and all studies that met the above-mentioned criteria to obtain an ethics committee certificate in 2020 and after, even if the data were collected in previous years.

Publication Ethics
All parties included in the publication process (authors, readers and researchers, publisher, reviewers and editors) carried out by SUJE comply with the standards of ethical considerations.Our journal adopts guidelines and policies published by the Turkish Council of Higher Education and Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) on ethical duties and responsibilities.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
The authors who submit their manuscripts to SUJE are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

Author(s) must submit original studies to the journal. If they utilize or use other studies, they must make the in-text and end-text references accurately and completely.
People who have not contributed to the study at the intellectual level should not be indicated as author.
If the manuscripts submitted to be published are subject of conflicting interests or relations, these must be explained.
During the review process of their manuscripts, author(s) may be asked to supply raw data. In such a case, author(s) should be ready to submit such data and information to the editorial and scientific boards.
Author(s) should document that they have the participants' consent and the necessary permissions related with the sharing and research/analysis of the data that are used.
Author(s) bears the responsibility to inform the editor of the journal or publisher if they happen to notice a mistake in their study which is in early release or publication process and to cooperate with the editors during the correction or withdrawal process.
Authors cannot submit their studies to multiple journals simultaneously. Each submission can be made only after the previous one is completed. A study published in another journal cannot be submitted to SUJE

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors
The editor and field editors of SUJE 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).

General duties and responsibilities

Editors are responsible for each study published in SUJE. In this respect, the editors have the following roles and responsibilities:

Making efforts to meet the demand for knowledge from readers and authors,
Ensuring the continuous development of the journal,
Managing the procedures aimed to improve the quality of the studies published in the journal,
Supporting freedom of expression,
Ensuring academic integrity,
Following the procedures without making concessions on intellectual property rights and ethical standards,
Being transparent and clear in issues that require correction or explanation.

Relationships with Readers
Editors must make decisions taking into consideration the knowledge, skills and expectations of all readers, researchers and practitioners need. They must also ensure that the published studies contribute to literature and be original. Moreover, they must take notice of the feedback received from researchers and practitioners and provide explanatory and informative feedback.

Relationships with Authors
Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with authors:

Editors must make positive or negative decisions about the studies' importance, originality, validity, clarity in wording and suitability with the journal's aims and objectives.
Editors must accept the studies that are within the scope of publication into pre review process unless there are serious problems with the study.
Editors must not ignore positive suggestions made by reviewers unless there are serious problems with the study.
New editors, unless there are serious issues, must not change the previous editor's decisions about the studies.
"Blind Review and Review Process" must be published and editors must prevent possible diversions in the defined processes.
Editors must publish an "Writing Rules" that is comprehensive enough in answering queries by authors. This guide must be updated regularly.
Authors should be provided with explanatory and informative feedback.

Relationships with Reviewers
Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with reviewers:

Editors must

choose reviewers according to the subject of the study.
provide the information and guidance reviewers may need during the review process.
observe whether there are conflicting interests between reviewers and authors.
keep the identities of reviewers confidential in blind review.
encourage the reviewers to review the manuscript in an unbiased, scientific and objective tone.
evaluate reviewers regularly based on criteria like performance and timing.
develop practices and policies that increase the performance of reviewers.
take necessary steps to update the reviewer pool dynamically.
prevent unkind and unscientific reviews.
make effort to ensure the reviewer pool has a wide range.

Relationships with the Editorial Board
Editors must make sure that the members of the editorial board follow the procedures in accordance with the publication policies and guidelines, and must inform the members about the publication policies and developments. The editors must also train new members of the editorial board and provide the information they need.

Moreover, editors must

ensure that the members of the editorial board review the manuscripts in an unbiased and independent manner.
select the new members of the editorial board from those who can contribute to the journal and are qualified enough.
send manuscripts for review based on the subject of expertise of the editorial board members.
regularly communicate with the editorial board.
arrange regular meetings with the editorial board for the development of publication policies and the journal.

Relationships with the Journal's Owner and Publisher
The relationship between the editors and publisher is based on the principle of the independency of editors. All the decisions made by the editors are independent of the publisher and the owner of the journal as required by the agreement made between editors and publisher.

Editorial and Blind Review Processes
Editors are obliged to comply with the policies of "Blind Review and Review Process" stated in the journal's publication policies. Therefore, the editors ensure that each manuscript is reviewed in an unbiased, fair and timely manner.

Quality Assurance
Editors must make sure that articles in the journal are published in accordance with the publication policies of the journal and international standards.

Protection of Personal Information
Editors are supposed to protect the personal information related with the subjects or visuals in the studies being reviewed, and to reject the study if there is no documentation of the subjects' consent. Furthermore, editors are supposed to protect the personal information of the authors, reviewers and readers.

Encouraging Ethical Rules and Protection of Human and Animal Rights
Editors are supposed to protect human and animal rights in the studies being reviewed and must reject the experimental studies which do not have ethical and related committee’s approval about the population given in such studies.

Precautions against possible Abuse and Malpractice
Editors are supposed to take precautions against possible abuse and malpractice. They must conduct investigations meticulously and objectively in determining and evaluating complaints about such situations. They must also share the results of the investigation.

Ensuring Academic Integrity
Editors must make sure that the mistakes, inconsistencies or misdirections in studies are corrected quickly.

Protection of Intellectual Property Rights
Editors are responsible for protecting the intellectual property rights of all the articles published in the journal and the rights of the journal and author(s) in cases where these rights are violated. Also, editors must take the necessary precautions in order to prevent the content of all published articles from violating the intellectual property rights of other publications.

Constructiveness and Openness to Discussion
Editors must

pay attention to the convincing criticism about studies published in the journal and must have a constructive attitude towards such criticism.
grant the right of reply to the author(s) of the criticized study.
not ignore or exclude the study that include negative results.

Complaints
Editors must examine the complaints from authors, reviewers or readers and respond to them in an explanatory and enlightening manner.

Political and Economic Apprehensions
Neither the owner of the journal, publisher or any other political or economical factor can influence the independent decision taking of the editors.

Conflicting Interests
Editors, acknowledging that there may be conflicting interests between reviewers and other editors, guarantee that the publication process of the manuscripts will be completed in an independent and unbiased manner

Sakarya University Journal of Education is completely free and does not charge any fee for any process such as article evaluation and publication.