Selection of Editors
Editors are selected from among experts who have a PhD degree and have publications in accordance with the scope of the journal.
Duties and Responsibilities of the Editors
Coordinate the Referee Process
The editor should ensure that the peer review process is fair, impartial and timely. Research articles should be reviewed by at least two external reviewers, and the editor should seek additional feedback when necessary.
Identification of Reviewers
The Editor will select reviewers with appropriate expertise in the relevant field, taking into account the need for appropriate, inclusive and diverse representation. The Editor will follow best practices to avoid the selection of fraudulent reviewers.
Protecting Confidentiality
The editor must maintain the confidentiality of all material submitted to the journal and all communications with reviewers, unless otherwise agreed with the authors and reviewers concerned. In exceptional circumstances and in consultation with the publisher, the editor may share limited information with editors of other journals where the editor deems it necessary to investigate suspected research misconduct. The editor must protect the identity of reviewers. Information contained in a submitted manuscript should not be used in the editor's own research without the express written permission of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained during the refereeing process should be kept confidential and should not be used for personal gain.
Neutrality
The editor should evaluate manuscripts for intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnicity, citizenship or political philosophy of the authors.
Investigation of Allegations
An editor who finds convincing evidence of ethical violations should contact the Editorial Board and the Publisher to have the manuscript corrected, retracted, or otherwise amended.
Conflict of Interest
The editor should not be involved in decisions about manuscripts written by him/herself or by family members. Furthermore, such a paper should be subject to all the usual procedures of the journal. The editor should follow the COPE guidelines on disclosure of potential conflicts of interest by authors and reviewers.
Publication Decision
The Editor is responsible for reviewing the referee reports and deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal should be published. The editor must comply with the policies set by the Editorial Board.
Request for Citation to the Journal
The editor should not attempt to influence the ranking of the journal by artificially increasing any journal metric. The editor will not request that articles from his/her journal or any other journal be cited, except for scientific reasons.
Correction, Withdrawal, Publication of an Expression of Concern
Editors may consider publishing a correction if minor errors are identified in the published article that do not affect the findings, interpretations and conclusions. Editors should consider retracting the manuscript if there are major errors/violations that invalidate the findings and conclusions. Editors should consider issuing a statement of concern if there is evidence that the findings are unreliable and that the authors' institutions have not investigated the incident, or if the possible investigation seems unfair or inconclusive, if there is a possibility of research or publication misconduct by the authors. COPE guidelines are followed regarding correction, retraction or expression of concern.
Journal of Near East University Faculty of Theology is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY NC).