TOPKAPI Journal of Social Science (TJSS) takes into account of ethical principles from Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and UAK Research and Publication Ethics.

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES FOR AUTHORS

- The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation.
- Researchers should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation.
- Researchers should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others.
- Researchers should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarised, and has not been published elsewhere.
- Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and published work.
- The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting.
- Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed.

For the rest of issues not listed here, principles in https://publicationethics.org/files/International%20standards_authors_for%20website_11_Nov_2011_0.pdf applies

Wager E & Kleinert S (2011) Responsible research publication: international standards for authors. A position statement developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, Singapore, July 22-24, 2010. Chapter 50 in: Mayer T & Steneck N (eds) Promoting Research Integrity in a Global Environment. Imperial College Press / World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (pp 309-16). (ISBN 978-981-4340-97-7)

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES FOR EDITORS

- Editors are accountable and should take responsibility for everything they publish
- Editors should make fair and unbiased decisions independent from commercial consideration and ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process
- Editors should adopt editorial policies that encourage maximum transparency and complete, honest reporting
- Editors should guard the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct
- Editors should pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct
- Editors should critically assess the ethical conduct of studies in humans and animals
- Peer reviewers and authors should be told what is expected of them
- Editors should have appropriate policies in place for handling editorial conflicts of interest

For the rest of issues not listed here, principles in
https://publicationethics.org/files/International%20standard_editors_for%20website_11_Nov_2011%20%281%29.pdf applies.

Kleinert S & Wager E (2011) Responsible research publication: international standards for editors. A position statement developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, Singapore, July 22-24, 2010. Chapter 51 in: Mayer T & Steneck N (eds) Promoting Research Integrity in a Global Environment. Imperial College Press / World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (pp 317-28). (ISBN 978-981-4340-97-7)

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES FOR REFEREES

Professional Responsibility
When approached to review, agree to review only if you have the necessary expertise to assess the manuscript and can be unbiased in your assessment. It is better to identify clearly any gaps in your expertise when asked to review.

Competing Interests
Ensure you declare all potential competing, or conflicting, interests. If you are unsure about a potential competing interest that may prevent you from reviewing, do raise this. Competing interests may be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious in nature. If you are currently employed at the same institution as any of the authors or have been recent (e.g., within the past 3 years) mentors, mentees, close collaborators or joint grant holders, you should not agree to review. In addition, you should not agree to review a manuscript just to gain sight of it with no intention of submitting a review, or agree to review a manuscript that is very similar to one you have in preparation or under consideration at another journal.

Timeliness
It is courteous to respond to an invitation to peer review within a reasonable time-frame, even if you cannot undertake the review. If you feel qualified to judge a particular manuscript, you should agree to review only if you are able to return a review within the proposed or mutually agreed time-frame. Always inform the journal promptly if your circumstances change and you cannot fulfil your original agreement or if you require an extension. If you cannot review, it is helpful to make suggestions for alternative reviewers if relevant, based on their expertise and without any influence of personal considerations or any intention of the manuscript receiving a specific outcome (either positive or negative).


For the rest of issues not listed here, principles in
https://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_Guidelines_For_Peer_Reviewers_2.pdf applies.


Publication Policy

EVALUATION PROCESS

TOPKAPI Journal of Social Science (TJSS) require neither submission or publishing fee. In parallel, TJSS is an open access academic journal. For articles to be published in TJSS, they must not have been published elsewhere or accepted for publication. Papers presented at a scientific meeting can be accepted, provided that this is clearly stated in advance.
In order to maintain high standards of the journal, all articles submitted are subject to the process outlined below.

INITIAL MANUSCRIPT EVALUATION

All articles submitted for evaluation are first subject to plagiarism check through the Turnitin program. Article(s) that are concluded to have plagiarism are rejected and returned to the author(s). Then, the articles are checked for compliance with the journal template and spelling rules. The articles that pass these stages are sent to the Editor-in-Chief for the blind referee process. The author(s) of the article rejected in the pre-evaluation stage is/are informed within 2 weeks.

EDITOR IN CHIEF EVALUATION

The editor-in-chief decides to lead the article that passes the preliminary evaluation to the refereeing process or to reject without refereeing. The article rejected at this stage has at least one of the following flaws: it is outside the aim and scope of the journal, it is not unique enough, it has an insufficient and/or weak language (Turkish or English), it has conceptual/methodological flaws. The author(s) of the article rejected in the Editor Review phase is informed within 2 weeks of the article's submission to the Editor-in-Chief. The article found suitable for the referee process is sent to 2 referees who are experts in their fields.

DOUBLE BLIND PEER REVIEW

In the evaluation of the articles, a double blind peer review system is operated as a referee type and evaluation is made by two referees who are experts in their fields. In this process, both the authors' and the referees' information is kept confidential. The referees are asked to make objective comments to authors without revealing their identity information.
Although the language correction is not a part of the double blind peer review system, our referees can make suggestions for correcting the language and style of the articles they have reviewed.
The refereeing process of the articles is completed in approximately 2 months. In order the article to be published, both referees' positive reports are required. In cases where the referees' opinions contradict, the Chief Editor is authorized to decide whether to publish the article or not.

ETHICS COMMITTEE APPROVAL

- Ethics committee approval must be obtained separately for clinical and experimental studies on humans and animals, which are carried out in all disciplines and require an ethical committee decision, and this approval must be stated and documented in the article.
- Articles should include a statement about complying with Research and Publication Ethics.
- In studies that require ethics committee permission, information about the permission (name of the committee, date and number) should be included in the method section and also on the first/last page of the article.
- It is necessary to adhere to the copyright regulations for the intellectual and artistic works used.
- At the end of the article; Statement of Contribution of Researchers, Statement of Support and Acknowledgment, if any, and Statement of Conflict should be provided.

Studies that require the approval of the Ethics Committee are as follows:

- All kinds of qualitative and quantitative research that require data collection from the participants by 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 conducted on humans,
- Research conducted on animals.
Besides;

- Indicating that an “informed consent form” was taken in case reports,
- Obtaining permission and specifying it from the owners of scales, questionnaires, photographs or other belongings to use them,
- Indication of compliance with copyright regulations for the ideas and works of art used.

REFEREE POLICY STATEMENT

All articles submitted to TJSS are included in the comprehensive peer-review process. During this process, all articles are pre-examined by the relevant field editor. The study, which has been reviewed by the editor, is submitted to the evaluation of two referees on the subject within the framework of the double-blind refereeing practice. All correspondence between editors, authors and reviewers is confidential.