Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

The Journal of Traffic and Transportation Research (JTTR), accepts generating knowledge via scientific methods and distributing it in an objective manner as the basic principle in its publication policy. In line with this principle, our journal pays utmost attention to abiding by the publication ethics with highest standards. The processes taking place in this line are directly reflected on the studies which are considered in the scope of our journal. For these processes to proceed in line with the publication ethics, editors, reviewers, authors, and all other parties involved must comply with the ethical principles. For this reason, publication ethics and open access policy of the JTTR require all involved parties to comply with the guidelines and policies (such as Committee on Publication Ethics Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors) published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Ethical principles and standards with which editors, reviewers, and authors are expected to comply are stated below.

Responsibilities of the Editor(s) and the Editorial Board

Editors try to inform reviewers, authors, researchers, and readers, to answer their questions, and to act within the principles of clarity in situations that require additional explanation.
Editors pay attention to the originality and contribution to the scientific literature, the readers, and researchers, in manuscripts considered in the scope of JTTR.
In making decisions regarding articles, editors consider the scope of the journal, original contribution to the field, validity and reliability of the methods that are employed, clarity of the language.
Editors include the manuscripts in the pre-review process and consider positive evaluations of the reviewers as much as possible.
Editors, as stated in the publication policy, implement the blind review and evaluation processes, keep personal identity information of the authors private, and provide objective evaluation processes in due time for each article.
Editors take the professional fields of the reviewers into account when choosing them, and provide that the articles are evaluated objectively and independently.
Editors consider if there is a conflict of interest or common interest between the editors, reviewers, and author(s) in order to ensure objective evaluation of the article.
Editors work through generating a reviewer pool composed of researchers from a wide range of fields and updating it constantly.
Editors prevent communication of non-scientific evaluations that do not comply with academic etiquette.
Editors establish effective communication with all parties taking part in the publication process and arrange meetings periodically in order to maintain this communication.
Editors make sure that the personal data is protected in articles evaluated in the scope of the journal; they keep personal data of authors, reviewers, and readers in private.
Editors pay attention to the protection of human and animal rights in the articles evaluated in the scope of the journal, emphasize that the clear approval of the participants that contributed to the article is documented, and rejects articles if approval of the ethics committee is not provided.
Editors make sure errors, inconsistencies, or misleading errors in manuscripts in evaluation are corrected.
Editors protect the intellectual property rights of the published articles, defend the rights of the journal and the author(s) in case of a violation. Also, editors take the necessary precautions to ensure that the content of the published articles does not infringe the intellectual property rights of other publications.
Editors consider consistent critics for the articles published in the journal and allow author(s) to react to these critics.
Editorial Board determines, performs, and updates journal policies regarding various subjects such as publication, evaluation process and ethical principles. They are also responsible from taking necessary precautions against violation of intellectual property rights, non-scientific/unethical conduct, plagiarism, and citation abuse in evaluation and publication processes.
Editorial Board prepares a “Guide for Authors” that includes necessary information for authors and “Reviewer Evaluation Form” that reviewers can use in the evaluation process. The Board updates these forms constantly based on current needs.
Editorial Board determines incentive policies for the reviewers, author(s), readers, and all other parties involved.
Editorial Board archives records of each article in an easily accessible manner electronically.

Responsibilities of the Reviewers

In the article evaluation process of the JTTR, double-blind reviewing principle is applied. In the scope of this principle, reviewers and author(s) of an article do not recognize each other. Reviewers and authors cannot directly communicate. The article evaluation forms and the notes stated on the text and the correction requests are forwarded to the author(s) by the editors anonymously through the journal management system.
Reviewers who will evaluate the articles submitted to the JTTR bear the ethical responsibilities below:
Reviewers should only agree to evaluate articles suitable to their field of expertise.
Reviewers should pay attention to being objective and confidentiality when evaluating articles. In accordance with this principle, they should dispose of the articles they have reviewed at the end of the evaluation process, only use them after being published. Nationality, gender, religious belief, political stance, and commercial concerns should not affect the evaluation.
If the reviewers realize that there is a conflict of interest or a common interest, they should refuse to evaluate the article and inform the editors about the situation.
Reviewers should make the evaluation using constructive language in accordance with academic etiquette; avoid personal comments containing insult and hostility.
If they agree to evaluate, the reviewers should convey their reviews regarding the article within the time limit given to them.

Responsibilities of the Authors

Author(s) cannot send any article that they published or sent to be published elsewhere to the JTTR.
Articles submitted to the JTTR by author(s) must be original articles.
In line with ethical principles, author(s) must correctly cite the sources they used in writing the article.
The names of persons who did not sufficiently contribute to the article should not be added as authors, and changing the order, removing, or adding author(s) of the article submitted for evaluation should not be requested.
Individuals who have a conflict of interest or a common interest related to the article to be evaluated must be notified to the editors.
In case any information or raw data is requested during the evaluation process, the author(s) must present the requested information to the Editors.
The author(s) must document the rights to use the data they utilized in their articles, permission for research-analysis, or the consent of the participants who took part in their study.
The author(s) are expected to contact the Editor to inform, correct or retract their article in case they notice any error in the evaluation, early-view or electronically published article.
The author(s) must have obtained ethical approval for research that requires data collection from human or animal subjects with quantitative or qualitative methods such as experiments, questionnaires, scales, interviews, observations, focus group studies that require ethics committee decision. They must state that they have this approval, the name of the ethics committee, the date, and the number of decision on the last page of the manuscript they sent for evaluation, after Author Notes if they have and before References, and in the Methods section, to the JTTR. Additionally, they must upload the document showing the ethics committee decision to the system with the submission of the article. Also, case reports must include information about obtaining informed consent/obtaining consent form in the article.
The author(s) should present examples to their adherence to ethical principles in the data collection process (such as obtaining permission from others to use documents such as scale, questionnaire, photograph) in the article. It must be stated in the articles that all the processes were conducted in line with the copyright regulations for intellectual and artistic works, research and publication ethics. In case the research was carried out with human and animal subjects, it must be reported that the research was conducted in accordance with international reports, guidelines, and other standards.
Ethics committee approval is not required from the author(s) of review articles. However, in articles that do not require an ethics committee decision, it should be stated that this decision is not mandatory, on the last page and method section of the article.

Notifying the Editor of Non-Compliance with Ethical Principles

In case of any unethical situation related to any subject, person or event in the submission or evaluation processes of JTTR or a published article that is in early view or in the process of evaluation, it should be reported to tuad@metu.edu.tr address by e-mail. The editorial board will investigate the situations and holds the right to notify the ethical committees.