Publication Ethics and Wrong Practice Reports

All studies submitted to Trakya University Journal of Engineering Sciences must consist of original articles. Authors are advised to adhere to the ethical directive (COPE Guidelines) published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In addition, the obligation for the originality of articles must be ensured by authors and it is checked by the editorial board, with the use of Web-based iThenticate program, in order to protect the author and fulfil the responsibility of the journal. At this stage, not only the numerical result of the similarity is used, the citation methods used in the studies are also evaluated within the framework of universal ethical rules and a final decision is made on whether the article will continue to be examined scientifically in the journal.

Editorial Board and Editors' Responsibilities

Editorial board responsibilities and being able to make independent decisions:
All editors of Trakya University Journal of Engineering Sciences are independent in their evaluations and decisions in the journal. No external and / or internal factors can influence the decisions made. If the editors are subject to any positive and / or negative restrictions, they reserve the right to take legal action against those involved in the restriction. On the other hand, editors are responsible for their decisions in the journal. Editor in chief and assistant editors are responsible for journal content and timely publication.

Privacy and Conflict of Interest
Members of the editorial board of the journal are prohibited from sharing and using the submitted materials with third parties other than department editors, statistical editors, language editors, copy editors, design editors and, when necessary, ombudsman. If there is a conflict of interest / conflict in terms of cooperation or competition between an editor and the author or author's institution, another editorial board member is appointed to manage the evaluation process.

Publishing decisions
Editorial board members appoint at least two referee experts in the field and ensure the referee evaluation of the submitted articles. The editor-in-chief is responsible for the decision to publish an article, considering the importance of these concepts in the legal issues for articles, reviewer reports, plagiarism and copyright infringement for both researchers and readers. The Editor-in-Chief may decide directly to publish an article or create a discussion platform with other editors and referees for the final decision.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Contribution to editorial decision:
It includes the process of referee evaluation of an article sent to the journal, checking its scientific content, scientific order and compliance with the journal's principles, presenting the referee opinion on the content of the article with an inappropriate structure and ensuring its compliance. The evaluation process not only enables referees to communicate their evaluations about the articles to the editors, but also provides the opportunity to improve the content of the articles.

Quickness:
If a referee appointed for the evaluation of an article is an expert in a different field of science than the content of the article, if referee is too far from the subject of the article, if there is a short period of time for evaluation, or if there is any conflict of interest, the relevant editor should be informed and notified by the referee for the request to withdraw from the evaluation process. If the content of the article fits the field of expertise of the appointed referee, he should complete the evaluation as soon as possible and send the evaluation report to the editor as soon as possible.

Privacy:
The referees assigned to evaluate the manuscripts confirm that the manuscripts are confidential documents and that they do not share any information about these documents with third parties other than the editors who participated in the evaluation. Reviewers continue to not share information even after manuscripts are accepted or rejected for publication.
Impartiality standards:
Referees should build their criticism on a scientific basis and use scientific evidence in their statements. All comments raised by the referees to improve the manuscript should be clear and direct, and should be written in a manner that is not offensive to the authors. Insulting statements should be avoided.
Suitability of cited sources:
Reviewers should identify the citations used without reference. Any statement, observation, conclusion or evidence used as citations from different sources in articles should be quoted in accordance with ethical rules. Reviewers should also make sure that the citations exist in the cited source (s).

Conflict of interest
If reviewers have any conflict of interest / conflict with the authors, the authors’ institutions, or one or more of the authors' interests, they should inform the assigned editor and ask them to withdraw from the evaluation process.

Authors' Responsibilities

Reporting standards:
Authors of original research articles should present and discuss study results appropriately. Since the methodological content of the articles should be reproducible, the authors should be clear in their statements and not deliberately report incorrect or incomplete data. Authors of review / review type articles are not recommended to write such articles unless they are experts on the subject they are examining, or in other words, if they do not have sufficient background.

Access and storage of data:
Authors may be asked to provide their Raw data when necessary (ethical considerations, etc.). Therefore, the raw data of the articles should be securely stored for presentation when required. The storage period of raw data should be at least 10 years following the publication process.

Originality and plagiarism:
Authors of articles submitted to the journal should ensure that their articles are original and that the citation methods in accordance with ethical principles are used for the citations made in the article.

Multiple, duplicate, redundant, or simultaneous article submissions
It is unethical to produce more than one publication with a similar scope on the same research. Authors should pay attention to such situations and should not submit the same article to different journals at the same time. If the editorial board notices the existence of a similar situation after the article has been published, the article may be withdrawn with the decision of the editor and the author (s) of the article will given a penalty for 1 year not to submit any article to the journal.

Authorship rights
Only the following persons should be included in manuscripts as the responsible author: i) researchers who contributed greatly to the concept, design, performance, data collection and / or analysis of a study, ii) researchers involved in the preparation or critical revision of the manuscripts, iii) researchers approving and submitting the final version of the manuscript. Contributors other than the above list (eg technical support, writing and editing aids, general contributions, etc.) should not be included in the list of authors, but their contributions should be included in the acknowledgment section.

Conflict of interest / conflict of interest statement
Authors should clearly declare any conflict or conflict of interest in their articles. In cases where there is no conflict of interest or conflict of interest regarding the subject of the articles, this statement must be included in the article. The most common types of conflict / conflict of interest are financial supports, education or other types of funds, personal or corporate relationships, and memberships.

Acknowledgement
All sources of financial support for studies (with grant or other reference numbers) must be reported.

Evaluation process
Authors are required to participate in the evaluation process and should cooperate in responding to raw data, evidence for any ethical approval, and editors' requests for copyright transfer form and their explanations. Authors should respond positively or negatively to revision suggestions that arise during the peer review process. Authors should make sure that they add their views to negative reactions of referees with their scientific evidence.
Basic mistakes in published articles
Authors should consult with the journal editor or publisher when they notice a material error or mistake in their published article. If the editor notices the error, it initiates the retraction process of the published articles.

Misappropriation Investigations and Complaints
The journal's Editorial Board evaluates the complaints about the suspicion of misconduct and the complaints about all kinds of articles published or in the process of being published in the journal. The editorial board abides by the guidelines of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) when evaluating the suspected fraud or complaint. During the suspicion or complaint process, an ombudsman who has no connection with the complaint parties is determined and a decision is made. Complaints can be made to the chief editor using tujes@trakya.edu.tr.

Post-Broadcast Modification and Withdrawal Requests
After the publication of the article in the journal, change in the author order, removing the author name, adding or withdrawing the article can be made by an application to tujes@trakya.edu.tr. Justification and evidence must be provided in the e-mail to be sent. Justifications and evidence presented are discussed and resolved by the Editorial Board. When the above-mentioned change and withdrawal requests are made, all manuscripts submitted by all authors to the journal are automatically rejected within the processing time.

Disclaimer
Editor-in-chief and editorial board members are not responsible for the opinions of the authors and the content of the manuscript. Authors are responsible for ethical originality and possible errors in their manuscripts. In addition, they are responsible for all errors that may occur during the page editing stage before the last reading (proofreading). On the other hand, errors that occur after the last reading review are the responsibility of the journal officials.

Open Access Statement

Articles which are published in Trakya University Journal of Engineering Sciences will be open-access.