Publication, Ethics and Malpractice Policy

The publication process of Üsküdar University Journal of Social Sciences (henceforth, “The Journal”) is predicated on the objective production, development and sharing of knowledge through scientific methods. The Journal promises to adhere to academic principles and prevent false practices in conformity with academic and ethical standards. In order to maintain the ethical standards for submitted articles, the international standards of the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) are taken into account.

The journal employs a double-blind refereeing system.

The originality of the articles are ensured by iThenticate plagiarism detection software.

Üsküdar University Journal of Social Sciences is an open-access journal and the article submission/evaluation process is free of charge.

Submitting an article through the DergiPark website starts the submission/evaluation process for publication. The journal has a policy allowing authors to deposit versions of their work in DergiPark repository services.

The Journal has the right to edit, publish or not publish the submitted articles.

The author(s) has/have to sign the Copyright Transfer and Author Agreement and has/have to upload the form on the DergiPark page of the Journal along with the manuscript.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

The Author(s) warrant that;

a) The manuscript submitted is their own original work;
b) All authors participated in the work in a substantive way and are prepared to take public responsibility for the work;
c) All authors have seen and approved the manuscript as submitted;
d) The manuscript has not been published and is not being submitted or considered for publication elsewhere;
e) The text, illustrations, and any other materials included in the manuscript do not infringe upon any existing copyright or other rights of anyone;
f) After the submission, they admit not to withdraw -arbitrarily or aiming to disrupt the process- the manuscript;
g) They transfer all financial rights, especially processing, reproduction, representation, printing, distribution, and online transmittal, to

Üsküdar University Journal of Social Science with no limitation whatsoever.
Notwithstanding the above, the Contributor(s) or, if applicable the Contributor’s Employer, retain(s) all proprietary rights other than copyright, such as

a) patent rights;
b) to use, free of charge, all parts of this article for the author’s future works in books, lectures, classroom teaching, or oral presentations;
c) Intellectual property rights, such as the right to reproduce for their own purposes, of the author(s) or the employer (if any) of the author(s) are reserved, provided that the article is not sold.

However, reproduction, posting, transmission or other distribution or use of the article or any material contained therein, in any medium as permitted hereunder, requires a citation to the Journal and appropriate credit to Üsküdar University Journal of Social Science as the publisher, suitable in form and content as follows: Title of article, author(s), journal title and volume/issue, Copyright© year.

The/All author(s) also warrant that “Üsküdar University Journal of Social Science and the Journal Editors” will not be held liable against all copyright claims of any third party or in lawsuits that may be filed in the future, and that The/All author(s) will be the only person who will be liable in such cases. The/All author(s) also warrant that the article contains no libellous or unlawful statements, the/All author(s) did not use any unlawful method or material during the research, the/All author(s) obtained all legal permissions pertaining to the research, and the/All author(s) adhered to ethical principles during the research.

The/All author(s) has/have to sign the Copyright Transfer and Author Agreement given above and has/have to upload the form on the concerning DergiPark page of the Journal with the manuscript.

LICENSE NOTICE

The published texts can be used with reference, based on intellectual property and copyright legislation, for non-commercial purposes in Üsküdar University Journal of Social Sciences. They cannot be reproduced partially or completely for commercial purposes. All content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The framework pointed out by Creative Commons is adopted by Üsküdar University Journal of Social Sciences.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Share: You are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

ARTICLE REVIEW PROCESS

Regarding the articles submitted to Üsküdar University Journal of Social Sciences for publishing, the initial editorial evaluation is made within the first 30 days. Following the editorial review, if necessary, the author is given 15 days to make the required corrections. The referee review process starts for the articles that successfully passed the initial editorial review. In the referee review process, each referee is given 7 days for accepting the invitation online, and 30 days for the review. Any of the referee’s request to have extra time based on an excuse is taken into consideration. Concerning the articles that successfully went through the referee review process, the author is given 30 days at most to complete the improvement requested by the referees. The article is sent to the referee who wishes to review it, and the referee is given 30 days for this purpose. After the last review is made by the referees, the final form of the article is put into editorial reading to be completed in 15 days. Possible requests for extra time coming from the author or the referees are taken into consideration.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Üsküdar University Journal of Social Sciences Editorial Board (henceforth, “The Editorial Board”) and Editors/Vice Editors are responsible for all the processes before, during and after the publication of each and every article submitted to the Journal.

The Editorial Board determines and implements the entire policies of The Journal, including but not limited to publication, blind review, assessment process, and ethical principles.

The initiation of the blind review process for an article does not indicate a publication promise on behalf of The Journal. Likewise, the positive outcome of the review process still necessitates the affirmative decision of The Editorial Board and Editors/Vice Editors for the publication of the article.

The Editorial Board encourages academic honesty. The Editorial Board ensures the originality of the articles by uploading them on iThenticate plagiarism detection software and evaluating their originality report.

The Editorial Board always examines the claims of plagiarism and abuse in regard to published articles. In case it is established that an author committed plagiarism, or used copyrighted material that belongs to third parties without proper and full reference and permission, The Editorial Board reserves the rights, including but not limited, to retract the article, inform the author’s head of department, dean of faculty and/or other academic institutions.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF EDITORS/VICE-EDITORS

Üsküdar University Journal of Social Sciences Editors/Vice-Editors are responsible for taking measures related to intellectual property rights, unethical and non-academic behaviours and plagiarism during the publication of articles and journals.

Editors/Vice-Editors, when making positive or negative decisions about the articles, take into consideration the originality of the articles, their contribution to the field, the validity and reliability of the research method, the clarity of the narration, and the purpose and scope of the journal.

Editors/Vice-Editors implement the blind peer review and evaluation processes that are among the publication policies of the journal, keep the identities of the referees and authors confidential, and ensure that each article is evaluated objectively and in due time. Editors may correct errors, inconsistencies, or misleading in the articles. They also evaluate any corrections or discussions about published articles.

Editors/Vice-Editors ensure the protection of personal data within the journal's publication and ethical principles.

Editors/Vice-Editors pay attention to the protection of human and animal rights in articles, attach importance to documenting the explicit consent of the participants of the research used in the article. Editors/Vice-Editors rejects experimental research articles and articles that contain surveys without proper ethics committee approval.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF REFEREES

The opinion of the referees shall be given priority in the decision of the JOSOC Editorial Board concerning whether the submitted article will be published or not.

The referees should evaluate the work fairly and objectively following the double-blind peer-review procedure.

Referees must respect the principle of confidentiality. They are obliged not to use the information obtained from the peer review process for their personal benefit. They should not share their reports or any information in relation to the article.

Referee assessments should be objective and constructive. The academic competence of the article should be taken as a fundamental criterion of assessment. Criticisms on the personalities of the authors are not considered appropriate. Referees should provide explanations and arguments via reports that are provided by the Editors/Vice-Editors. Editors/Vice-Editors do not take into account biased and personalized evaluations or unjustified approvals and refusals and appoint a new referee for such articles.

The referees should not accept articles that may result in personal or institutional conflicts of interest.

Referees, in case of detection, should notify the journal editorship of any actual or possible plagiarism, multicasting or simultaneous application.

The referees should conduct the evaluation with neutrality and confidentiality. Due to this principle, they should destroy the articles they have reviewed after the evaluation process. Nationality, gender, religious belief, political view and commercial concerns should not disrupt the academic neutrality of the assessment.

Referees should complete evaluations of the articles within due course. In order to improve the academic quality of the article, the referees' suggestions for revisions are delivered to the authors and, if requested by the referees, the corrections made by the authors are sent to the referees.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHORS

The studies submitted to JOSOC should not contain plagiarism and should be original. The responsibility lies within the authors in regard to this matter.

Any form of plagiarism is a very serious ethical problem, including self-plagiarisms. The evaluation process will be stopped for the articles that contain plagiarism. If any plagiarism is detected after the publication, Editors/Vice-Editors will take necessary measures.

All authors of the articles must have a DergiPark account and when submitting an article via DergiPark all authors must be included. Applications that do not comply with this rule will not be considered.

Due to the publication policy and rules of our journal, different articles by the same author(s) cannot be published in the same issue or in two consecutive issues.

The author reserves the right to withdraw his/her article provided that the author notifies the withdrawal to the editorial board until the publication decision is taken.

Authors should not use discriminatory language based on gender, race, language, belief, culture, class, age, opinion, rank and sexual orientation.

The works/articles should not violate the privacy and intellectual property rights of a third party.

Authors, while submitting their articles, are obliged to fill Copyright Transfer and Author Agreement form which can be accessed via DergiPark and sosyalbilimlerdergisi.com.

Authors are obliged to specify all individuals who have a share in their article. Individuals with significant contributions to their article should be cited as co-authors. An article cannot be published without the consent of all authors.

The name of the persons who do not contribute to the article should not be written as an author. Changing the order of authors’ names, removing and adding authors’ names should not be proposed for an article submitted for publication.

Authors should state if an old version of the article is published in another medium. If the study is compiled from a dissertation/thesis (even if it is unpublished) or an unpublished scientific meeting presentation, this should be indicated on the first page as a footnote.

Authors are responsible for acting in accordance with the existing copyright laws.

If any information or data is requested from the authors during the evaluation process, they should submit the expected information to the editorship.

Authors are responsible for fulfilling the revision suggestions of the Editors/Vice-Editors and the referees. The author has the right to inform the editorship with justification, he/she does not agree with the suggestions of the Editors/Vice-Editors and referees.

All authors shall state any financial and other conflicts of interest in their research papers that may be thought to affect the results or interpretation of that paper. All sources of financial support for the study should be clearly stated.

When an author discovers a serious error or inaccuracy in a published article, it is the responsibility of the author to immediately notify the editorship. In this case, the author is responsible for cooperating with the journal editorship in either withdrawing the article or publishing a revision of the article.

For all researches conducted and for clinical and experimental studies involving humans and animals, which require ethics committee approval, an ethics committee approval must be obtained and should be specified and documented.

RETRACTION POLICY

"Retraction is a mechanism for correcting the literature and alerting readers to articles that contain such seriously flawed or erroneous content or data that their findings and conclusions cannot be relied upon.
Unreliable content or data may result from honest errors, naïve mistakes, or research misconduct.
The main purpose of retraction is to correct the literature and ensure its integrity rather than to punish the authors." (COPE, 2019)

Üsküdar University Journal of Social Sciences attaches importance to contributing to the integrity of the literature and providing original studies to its readers.
Editors will consider retraction of a publication in case(s) of:

• Plagiarism
  
• Copyright infringements and serious legal issues (eg. privacy)
  
• Reporting unethical research
  
• Containing a data without proper permission for use
  
• Clear evidence regarding unreliable findings as a result of data manipulation, major error and fabrication of data
  
• Author(s)' failure to state conflict of interest

NOTIFYING THE EDITOR ABOUT MALPRACTICE and THE VIOLATION of ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

If a violation of ethical principles in the evaluation process, preliminary assessment or a published article in Üsküdar University Journal of Social Sciences concerning Editors, Referees or Authors, is observed, please report to uusbd@uskudar.edu.tr
Upon the reporting of a violation of ethical principles, the journal’s editors evaluate the complaint. As a result of the evaluation of the complaint, if deemed necessary, they forward the matter to the Üsküdar University Non-Interventional Research Ethics Board for examination. The final decision is made and implemented according to the report of the Board.