Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences adopts the standards set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in implementing publication ethics. In this context, in cases of misuse or violation of publication ethics, it takes the publication ethics flowcharts developed by COPE as a reference. The following ethical duties and responsibilities have been prepared following the guidelines and policies published by COPE.

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of Authors

Author(s) submitting a study to Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

• The work submitted by the author(s) is expected to be original. In case the author(s) benefit from other studies or use other studies, they are required to cite and/or quote them completely and accurately.
  Persons who do not contribute intellectually to the content of the study should not be listed as authors.
• All manuscripts submitted for publication must disclose any conflicts of interest and relationships, if any.
• The author(s) may be asked for raw data on their manuscripts within the framework of the evaluation processes; in such a case, the author(s) should be ready to provide the expected data and information to the editorial board.
• The author(s) should have a document showing that they have the rights to use the data used, the necessary permissions related to the research/analyses, or the consent of the experimental subjects.
• If the author(s) notices an error or mistake in the published, early view or under review manuscript, the author(s) should inform the journal editor or publisher and to cooperate with the editor in the correction or withdrawal process.
• Authors cannot have their work in the submission process of more than one journal at the same time. Each application can be started after the completion of the previous application. Work published in another journal cannot be submitted to Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences.
• It cannot be proposed to change the author responsibilities (such as adding authors, changing the order of authors, or removing authors) of a study whose evaluation process has started.
  "Ethics Committee Permission" must be obtained for studies that require an ethics committee for evaluation in the journal (all kinds of research carried out with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from participants using survey, interview, interview, interview, interview, interview, interview techniques, use of humans and animals (including materials/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes, clinical research on humans, research on animals, retrospective studies following the law on the protection of personal data).
• Author(s) must obtain and indicate permission from the owners for the use of scales, questionnaires, and photographs belonging to others, and indicate that copyright regulations are complied with for the intellectual and artistic works used.

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of Editors

The editors of Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences have ethical duties and responsibilities based on the "COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" published by COPE as open access. Editors are responsible for every publication published in Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences. In the context of this responsibility, editors have the following duties and responsibilities:

• Editors are obliged to implement the "Blind Review and Evaluation Process" policies in the journal's publication policies. In this context, editors ensure that the evaluation process of each study is completed in a fair, impartial and timely manner.
• Editors are responsible for the publication of each article published in the journal following the "publication policies and international standards" of the journal.
• Editors are obliged to ensure the "protection of personal data" regarding the subjects or images included in the evaluated studies. Unless the explicit consent of the individuals used in the studies is documented, they are responsible for rejecting the study. Editors are also responsible for protecting the personal data of authors, reviewers and readers.
• Editors are obliged to ensure that "human and animal rights are protected" in the evaluated studies. They are responsible for rejecting the study in the absence of ethics committee approval for the subjects used in the studies and permissions for experimental research.
• Editors are obliged to take precautions against possible "abuse and misconduct". In addition to conducting a rigorous and objective investigation in the identification and evaluation of complaints regarding this situation, it is among the responsibilities of the editor to share the findings on the subject.
• Editors should ensure that errors, inconsistencies or misleading judgments in the manuscripts are corrected quickly.
• Editors are obliged to "protect the intellectual property rights" of all published articles and to defend the rights of the journal and the author(s) in possible violations. In addition, editors are obliged to take the necessary measures to ensure that the contents of all published articles do not violate the intellectual property rights of other publications.
• Editors should take into account the convincing criticisms of the works published in the journal and show a constructive attitude towards these criticisms. They should give the "right of reply" to the author(s) of the criticized studies. They should not ignore or exclude studies with negative results.
• Editors are obliged to carefully examine the "complaints" received from authors, reviewers or readers and respond in an enlightening and explanatory manner.
  The journal owner, publisher, or any other political or commercial factors cannot influence the "independent judgment of the editors".
  The editors guarantee the independent and impartial completion of the publication process, taking into account the "conflicts of interest" between the author(s), reviewers and other editors.
• Editors should make decisions taking into account the expectations of knowledge, skills and experience required by all readers, researchers and practitioners. They should pay attention to the contribution of the published studies to the readers, researchers, practitioners, and scientific literature and that they are original. In addition, editors are obliged to take into account the feedback from readers, researchers and practitioners and to provide explanatory and informative feedback.
• Editors should make a positive or negative decision based on the importance, original value, validity, clarity of expression and the aims and objectives of the journal. Unless there is a serious problem with the manuscript, it should be included in the preliminary evaluation stage. Unless there is a serious problem with the study, they should not ignore the positive referee recommendations. New editors should not change the decisions made by the previous editor(s) unless there is a serious problem. "Blind Review and Evaluation Process" should be published and editors should prevent deviations that may occur in the defined processes. The editors should publish an "Author's Guide" that includes every issue expected from the authors in detail. These guides should be updated at certain time intervals. Authors should be notified and returned in an explanatory and informative manner.
• Editors should determine the reviewers following the subject of the study. They are obliged to provide the information and guides that the referees will need during the evaluation phase. They should observe whether there is a conflict of interest between authors and reviewers. Keep the identity information of the referees confidential in the context of blinded refereeing. Encourage reviewers to evaluate the manuscript in an impartial, scientific and objective manner. Evaluate the referees with criteria such as timely return and performance. Determine practices and policies to improve the performance of referees. Take necessary steps to dynamically update the referee pool. Prevent unkind and unscientific evaluations. They should take steps to ensure that the referee pool consists of a wide range of reviewers.
• Editors should ensure that all editorial board members carry out the processes following the publication policies and guidelines. They should inform the editorial board members about the publication policies and keep them informed about the developments. They should train new editorial board members on editorial policies and provide them with the information they need. In addition, editors should ensure that editorial board members evaluate the studies impartially and independently. They should determine new editorial board members who can contribute and have appropriate qualifications. They should send the studies suitable for the expertise of the editorial board members for evaluation. Interact regularly with the editorial board. They should organise meetings with the editorial board at regular intervals for the development of publication policies and the journal.

Ethical Responsibilities of Referees

The evaluation of all studies by "Blinded Refereeing" directly affects the quality of the publication. This process provides confidence through objective and independent evaluation of the publication. The evaluation process of Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences is carried out with the principle of double blind refereeing. Reviewers cannot communicate directly with the authors, and evaluations and comments are communicated through the journal management system. In this process, reviewer comments on evaluation forms and full texts are communicated to the author(s) through the editor. In this context, referees who evaluate studies for Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences are expected to have the following ethical responsibilities:

• Accept to evaluate only the studies related to their field of expertise.
• They should evaluate with impartiality and confidentiality.
• If they think that they are faced with a conflict of interest during the evaluation process, they should refuse to review the study and inform the journal editor.
• Following the principle of confidentiality, they should destroy the studies they have reviewed after the evaluation process. They can only use the final versions of the studies they have reviewed only after publication.
• They should make the evaluation objectively only about the content of the study. They should not allow nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political beliefs and commercial concerns to influence the evaluation.
• Evaluate constructively and courteously. They should not make derogatory personal comments containing hostility, slander and insult.
• They should carry out the work they accept for evaluation on time and with the above ethical responsibilities.

During the referee process, referees are expected to make their evaluations by taking into account the following points:

• How does the study conform to the specified article type?
• How is the original value of the study in terms of its contribution to science?
• How is the study suitable for publication in an academic journal in terms of subject and content?
• How is the content-title harmony in the study?
• How does the abstract reflect the study?
• How is the compatibility of Turkish and English abstracts?
• What is the level of scientific originality of the article?
• Is the study's subject, purpose and importance emphasised in the introduction?
• (If the study is practice-based) How is the accuracy of the qualitative and/or quantitative research method?
• How is the study in terms of compliance with the article preparation systematic (abstract, introduction, importance, development, hypothesis, findings, conclusion, recommendations, limitations, writing rules, etc.)?
• How is the study adequate in terms of language and expression?
• How is the degree of comprehensibility, suitability and necessity of figures, pictures and tables?
• How is the adequacy of the adequacy, necessity and timeliness of the sources?
• What is the contribution of the study to the literature?

Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

Uşak University, the publisher of Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences, is a non-profit state university. In this context, Uşak University acts with the awareness of the following ethical responsibilities regarding Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences:

• The editors are responsible for all processes of the studies submitted to Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences. In this context, editors are the decision-makers without considering economic or political gains.
  It is committed to independent editorial judgement.
• The editors are responsible for taking measures against all kinds of scientific misconduct, citation gangsterism and plagiarism.
  Encountering an Unethical Situation If you encounter any ethical responsibilities, unethical behaviour or content that may be encountered in all the processes mentioned above in Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences, please notify sosyaldergi@usak.edu.tr via e-mail.

PUBLICATION POLICY

• Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences is a free, open access, open access, peer-reviewed, international journal published online twice a year (June and December) in Turkish and English. Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences accepts original research and review studies that have not been previously published or sent to another journal for evaluation.
• Studies submitted to Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences are subjected to preliminary examination in terms of journal writing rules, scope and form. Manuscripts that do not fall within the scope of the journal, do not comply with the spelling rules and are not prepared following the template are not included in the evaluation process.
• It is obligatory to submit information about the copyright declaration, declaration of authorship contribution rate, conflict of interest declaration, ethics committee permission declaration regarding the studies submitted to Uşak University Social Sciences Journal. If the scientific study is produced from a thesis or presented at a congress/symposium, it should be stated in the study. "Ethics Committee Permission" is required for all kinds of research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from participants using survey, interview, focus group study, observation, experiment, interview techniques. It is stated in the study whether ethics committee permission and/or legal/private permission is required.
• Authors are obliged to sign the Author Declaration Form for the article. Copyright and publication rights of the author(s) are reserved. The authors declare that if the article is accepted for publication in the journal, it will be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY NC 4.0) licence.
• For each study submitted to Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences, authors are required to upload similarity reports using plagiarism scanning software (Turnitin, iThenticate, etc.). Studies with a similarity rate of less than 20%, excluding references, are taken under review. Candidate articles with a high similarity rate are returned to the author after editorial control.
• The management of Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences has the right to publish or not publish the submitted articles and to make corrections on the articles when deemed necessary. The legal responsibility of an article published in the journal belongs to the author, and the author is deemed to have accepted this issue by submitting an article to the journal.
• Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences adopts a double blind (anonymous) refereeing policy. It attaches importance to the fact that authors, editors and referees do not have any conflict of interest in the review process of the scientific work. The manuscripts deemed appropriate in terms of scope, content and form by the editors are sent to at least two referees who are experts in their fields for scientific evaluation. In the candidate manuscript submitted to the journal, all information of the authors (author names and institutions, etc.) is kept confidential/blinded and sent to the referees. Blinded refereeing system is used in the scientific review of the studies. The article that receives two publishable reports as a result of the referee evaluation is published in an issue deemed appropriate by the journal management. If one of the referee reports is positive and the other is negative, the article is sent to a third referee. In this case, it is decided whether the article should be published or not according to the report of the third referee.
• If a violation of ethical rules is detected in the studies sent to Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences, the study is returned to the author. If a violation of ethical rules is detected in an article previously published in Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences, necessary actions are taken in the form of correction, withdrawal, declaration of concern or publication of an information note regarding the study. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour is investigated, even if it is discovered years after publication.

Publication Fee Policy

Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences is a free open access journal. No fee is requested from the authors for any reason at the article submission stage, during the evaluation period and at the publication stage.

Plagiarism Policy

• For each study submitted to Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences, authors are required to upload similarity reports using plagiarism scanning software (Turnitin, iThenticate, etc.).
• The similarity rate must be less than 20% except for the bibliography. Studies that do not submit plagiarism reports are not included in the review.
• For studies with a high similarity rate after the editorial board plagiarism check, the responsible author is requested to correct the errors and the study is returned to the author.

Open Access Policy

• Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences has adopted the policy of providing open access. Open access increases the global exchange of information, resulting in beneficial outcomes for humanity. Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences also supports the Budapest Open Access Initiative.
• All articles published in Uşak University Journal of Social Sciences are licensed under the "Creative Commons Citation 4.0 International Licence". This licence grants the right to reproduce, share and disseminate all published articles, data sets, graphics and appendices in data mining applications, search engines, websites, blogs and all other platforms provided that the source is cited. Therefore, it provides added value to scientific studies by providing more access to USBBD articles and a more transparent evaluation process.