Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

Authors are deemed to have transferred all copyrights of their published articles to Yalova Medical Journal. However, all responsibility for articles published in the journal belongs to the authors. All or part of the articles submitted to the journal must not have been published elsewhere or included in a publication process. Articles published in Yalova Medical Journal must comply with research and publication ethics. Ethical violations occur in cases such as plagiarism, salami slicing, duplicate publication, etc. Necessary legal actions will be taken in cases of ethical violations.

In all manuscripts submitted to Yalova Medical Journal, authors and reviewers are deemed to have accepted the ethical publishing principles published by the "Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive*", "Declaration of Helsinki**", "Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) rules***", "WAME criteria****", and "Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)*****".

The ethical principles for articles to be submitted to Yalova Medical Journal are listed below:

In research involving vulnerable groups, risks must be assessed and precautions taken to protect the rights and welfare of individuals, participants must be informed and voluntary consent obtained. Additionally, necessary and appropriate ethics committee approvals must be obtained for research involving these groups, ethical standards must be observed throughout the process, and regular reporting must be conducted.
Parental or legal guardian consent must be obtained for underage participants.
Research permits must be obtained for research to be conducted at the Ministry of Health, Training and Research Hospitals, and Experimental Animals centers. These permits will be requested from the authorized researcher during the article upload stages.
Participants must be informed in detail about the purposes and risks of the research and must sign a written consent form. Clear language must be used in the written consent form and participants' questions must be answered by the researchers.
Participants' personal information must be kept confidential and used only for research purposes. Data must be anonymized and must not be shared without permission.
Research data must not be shared with third parties without participants' consent. However, when legal requirements or ethical obligations arise, such sharing must be carried out carefully and through appropriate methods.
In the event of detection of ethical violations, the relevant article will be retracted from publication and, if necessary, relevant institutions and academic organizations will be informed. Judicial and administrative proceedings will be initiated.

Yalova Medical Journal adopts an open access policy. All articles published in the journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. In accordance with this license, users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, and link to articles for non-commercial purposes, provided that the author(s) and source are properly cited.

All published content is made available to all researchers without any financial, legal, or technical barriers.

Authors are required to upload the signed Copyright Transfer Form to the system during article submission. This form provides the legal permission necessary for the publication of the article and regulates the rights between the author and the journal.

In addition, the following sections included in the article template must be completed in full and added to the article file: • Author Contribution Statement • Conflict of Interest Statement • Ethics Statement • Funding Information • Copyright Information • Data Availability Statement

These sections are fundamental elements in evaluating the publication in terms of transparency, compliance with ethical principles, and adherence to scientific standards.

Ethical Principles and Responsibilities of Editors

The principles and responsibilities that editors must comply with in Yalova Medical Journal:

To evaluate the content of the submitted article and examine whether it is a study requiring "Ethics Approval",
To check that documents are complete for studies requiring "Ethics Approval",
To check the similarity level of submitted articles,
To take the article to the evaluation stage after similarity check or to assign an editor,
To assign at least three reviewers to articles,
To assign reviewers appropriate to the subject area of the article in the reviewer assignment process,
To consider diversity in the institutional distribution of reviewers during the reviewer assignment process,
To follow up on notifications of ethical violations from reviewers; if there is no notification of ethical violation, to implement one of the decisions of "Rejection", "Revision", or "Acceptance" based on reviewer reports,
To follow up on layout, language editing, and DOI assignment of accepted articles,
To publish the final version of accepted articles in an appropriate issue.

Ethical Principles and Responsibilities of Reviewers

The principles and responsibilities that reviewers must comply with in Yalova Medical Journal:

To review whether the assigned article is compatible with their area of expertise,
To notify the relevant editor when any ethical violation is detected in an article whose review they have accepted,
To evaluate the article whose review they have accepted in terms of originality and contribution to the field,
To provide suggestions that will contribute to the development and quality of the article whose review they have accepted,
To elaborate on their evaluations regarding the development of the article whose review they have accepted from the perspectives of theoretical structure and methodological approach,
To state their final recommendation regarding the article whose review they have accepted as one of the options "Rejection", "Minor Revision", "Major Revision", or "Acceptance",
To convey all their evaluations and final recommendation regarding the article whose review they have accepted to the relevant editor through the "Reviewer Evaluation Form".

Ethical Principles and Responsibilities of Authors

The principles and responsibilities that authors must comply with in Yalova Medical Journal:

To review the "Ethical Principles and Publication Policy" section before article submission,
To prepare their articles in accordance with the "Writing Guidelines" criteria,
To perform a similarity check before submitting their articles,
To upload all documents requested by Yalova Medical Journal completely during article upload.
If ethics approval is required for the study in their article, to upload the Ethics Approval Documents mentioned above together with their articles,
If ethics approval is not required for the study in their article, to state this along with its justification in the article and in the note to the editor,
To accept all ethical responsibilities related to the content of their articles and to report any ethical violations that may arise at any stage of the work,
To prepare and upload their articles in accordance with the template requested by Yalova Medical Journal.
To indicate in the relevant sections of the article whether the articles were previously presented at a scientific event, information about whether they were derived from a thesis, persons they wish to thank if any, and funding sources if any,
In case of a revision decision, to make the necessary updates in accordance with the suggestions from reviewers,
In case of a revision decision, to record what was done and responses regarding the reviewers' suggestions in a separate document,
In case of an "Acceptance" decision, to do a final reading of their articles, indicate necessary corrections, and give publication approval,
Prior to publication, to obtain necessary permissions for all images, graphics, and supplementary materials belonging to third parties,
Even after publication, to notify the relevant editor of any detected ethical violation.

Actions Contrary to Scientific Research and Publication Ethics

Fabrication: Fabricating data as if a scientific research was conducted without actually conducting it, reporting or publishing such data,

Falsification: Tampering with research records and obtained data, presenting methods, equipment, and materials not used in the research as having been used, not taking into consideration data that does not conform to the research hypothesis, manipulating data and/or results to fit relevant theories or assumptions, falsifying or shaping research results in accordance with the interests of individuals and organizations providing support,

Plagiarism: Presenting others' ideas, methods, data, applications, writings, figures, or works partially or entirely as one's own without citing the owners in accordance with scientific rules,

Fraud: Producing data not based on research, arranging or altering a presented or published work based on non-existent data, reporting or publishing such work, presenting research that was not conducted as having been conducted,

Duplicate Publication: Republishing the results of a research in another journal without obtaining permission from the editor of the journal in which it was first published,

Slicing: Dividing the results of a research into parts in a way that disrupts the integrity of the research, making multiple publications without citing each other, and presenting them as separate works in associate professorship exam evaluations and academic promotions,

Unjust Authorship: Including persons without active contribution among the authors, not including persons with active contribution among the authors, changing the author order without justification and inappropriately, removing names of those with active contribution from the work during publication or in subsequent editions, using one's influence to have one's name included among the authors despite having no active contribution,

Other types of ethical violations: Failing to clearly state the persons, institutions, or organizations providing support and their contributions to the research in publications of studies conducted with support, failing to comply with ethical rules in research conducted on humans and animals, failing to respect patient rights in publications, sharing information contained in a work assigned for review as a reviewer with others before publication, using resources, premises, facilities, and equipment provided or allocated for scientific research for purposes other than intended, making completely unfounded, irrelevant, and deliberate accusations of ethical violations.

Ethical Principles Regarding the Use of Artificial Intelligence

Yalova Medical Journal requires that the use of artificial intelligence in scientific research be carried out within ethical boundaries. Artificial intelligence tools may be used as a supportive tool in processes such as literature review, language control, and data analysis; however, this use does not in any way eliminate the academic and scientific responsibilities of the researcher. It is necessary to clearly state at which stages and in what manner artificial intelligence was used. The type, function, and scope of the artificial intelligence tool used must be explained in detail in the methods section of the study, and the accuracy, scientific validity, and ethical appropriateness of the outputs obtained in this process must be entirely the author's responsibility.

Using artificial intelligence as a primary tool in processes requiring the researcher's original contribution, such as hypothesis formulation, discussion, and drawing conclusions, may lead to ethical violations. Additionally, it should not be forgotten that any content generated by artificial intelligence is susceptible to bias, factual errors, and reliability issues. Authors are obliged to fulfill all ethical requirements related to the use of artificial intelligence while being aware of these risks. Failure to declare artificial intelligence contribution in works where it exists will be considered an ethical violation and will be deemed contrary to the journal's publication policies. It is essential that the use of artificial intelligence in articles to be submitted to Yalova Medical Journal is carried out meticulously in a way that does not harm scientific integrity, and compliance with all ethical principles regarding the use of artificial intelligence is the responsibility of the authors.

The fundamental ethical values to be followed in the use of artificial intelligence are: transparency, honesty, diligence, fairness and respect, protection of confidentiality and privacy, accountability and taking responsibility, contributing to ethical climate. Since artificial intelligence cannot be held responsible for any ethical violation, it is recommended that researchers take into account the following legislation.

• Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data (KVKK) • Law No. 2547 on Higher Education • Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works • Graduate Education and Examination Regulations • Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive

Ethics Approval

Due to the rules regarding ethics approval(s) that began to be implemented by TR Dizin in 2020, the "Ethics Approval Certificate" obtained from the ethics committee must be attached to the article submission. Ethics approval is required for all research involving human participants. It is mandatory to state the ethics committee permission status and information related to the permission certificate in the methods section of the article. Articles for which the certificate is not uploaded to the system and for which information regarding ethics committee permission is not provided in the article will not be accepted for evaluation.

Publication Policy

The content of articles to be submitted to Yalova Medical Journal must be prepared in a manner consistent with the principle of equality, supporting fundamental human rights and freedoms and rejecting all forms of discrimination. The content must not contain elements that would violate the rights and freedoms of individuals. Furthermore, expressions containing distinctions based on race, color, language, religion, political preference, ethnic origin, property, or any other distinction must not be included.

The content of research and data collection tools (surveys, scales, interview-observation forms, tests, etc.) must be prepared, planned, and implemented in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, international agreements and conventions to which Turkey is a party, primarily Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data, and all applicable legal regulations.

Contribution to the literature, originality, and ethical principles must be considered as the main criteria in articles to be submitted to Yalova Medical Journal. Articles must be designed to make a meaningful contribution to existing literature and present new, innovative findings. The originality of articles must be ensured by containing research topics, problem statements, research methods and techniques, and research findings that have not been previously published and have no counterpart in the literature. Additionally, within the framework of ethical standards, it is essential that all research processes be transparent, honest, and in accordance with scientific norms. Academic integrity and respect for human rights are fundamental elements of Yalova Medical Journal's publication policy.

Yalova Medical Journal is a scientific research journal that began publishing in 2026. Our journal is a national peer-reviewed journal that publishes research conducted in modern medical sciences in 3 issues per year.

Both Turkish and English written research articles, case reports, reviews, and letters to the editor are published in our journal.

A research article submitted to the journal for publication must be prepared under the main headings of Title, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion, and References in English. The Results and Discussion sections must be written separately.

Articles submitted to the journal for evaluation must be in accordance with the aim and scope of the journal. Original, unpublished manuscripts that are not under review in another journal and have been approved in terms of content and submission to the journal by each author are accepted for evaluation. Studies older than ten years will not be accepted for evaluation.

After the article is submitted to the journal for evaluation, no author's name may be deleted from the author list, a new name may not be added as an author, and the author order may not be changed without the written consent of all authors.

Reviews must be a synthesis, interpretation, and assessment of scientific articles, studies, or current developments published in scientific journals on the specified topic, prepared by experienced authors with intensive work in that topic. In each issue, a maximum of 20% of the number of articles published in that issue may be allocated to reviews.

If studies submitted to our journal as research articles were produced from postgraduate theses, this must be stated as a footnote on the first page.

Articles submitted to Yalova Medical Journal are checked for plagiarism through Turnitin and/or iThenticate software. The similarity index (SI) of the article must not exceed 20%; each individual similarity rate (each cited source) must not exceed 5%. If the similarity index exceeds the specified levels, the article is rejected without being sent to reviewers. If plagiarism is proven after the article is published, that article will be immediately withdrawn and removed from the website, and the relevant author(s) will not be permitted to submit articles to Yalova Medical Journal for three years.

Plagiarism, duplication, ghost authorship/denied authorship, research/data fabrication, article slicing, salami publication, copyright infringement, and concealment of conflict of interest are considered unethical behaviors. All articles that do not comply with accepted ethical standards will be retracted from publication. This rule also applies to articles with possible irregularities and improprieties detected after the article's publication. Necessary legal actions will be taken in cases of ethical violations where required.

Articles for which the evaluation process is completed are published taking into account the date of receipt. From the moment articles are ready for publication, they are added to the first planned issue; however, the relevant issue is published collectively after all articles are completed.

Responses must be given within the specified periods to control and correction submissions (galley proofs) sent to the author(s) during the layout process. The articles of author(s) who do not respond within the specified periods are postponed to be considered in the next issue.

No additions or deletions can be made to a work for which a decision to publish has been made.

After plagiarism control of articles sent to the journal, suitable articles are evaluated by the editor-in-chief in terms of originality, methodology, importance of the topic covered, and compatibility with the journal scope. The editor ensures that articles undergo a fair double-blind peer review process and, if the article complies with formal requirements, submits the incoming manuscript for evaluation by at least two reviewers; if the reviewers deem it necessary, the article is approved for publication after the requested changes in the article are made by the authors.

Processing Fee

No fee is charged from authors or their institutions under any name.

No fee is charged from authors or their institutions under any name in Yalova Medical Journal.

The article submission and evaluation process is free of charge.

All articles are freely available in open access.

All expenses of Yalova Medical Journal are covered by Yalova University.

Our journal does not accept any advertising or sponsorship support.

Yalova Medical Journal adopts an open access policy. All articles published in the journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). In accordance with this license, users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, and link to articles for non-commercial purposes, provided that the author(s) and source are properly cited. This is consistent with the BOAI definition of open access.

All published content is made available to all researchers without any financial, legal, or technical barriers.

Author(s) accept and undertake that:

a) The submitted article is the original work of the author(s) and that they have not committed plagiarism, b) All authors have individually participated in this study and have taken all responsibility for this study, c) All authors have seen and approved the final version of the submitted article, d) The article has not been published elsewhere or submitted for publication, e) The text, figures, and documents in the article do not infringe the copyrights belonging to other persons.

By submitting their work to the journal under the CC BY-NC license, authors are deemed to have accepted the following conditions:

The copyright of the published article belongs to the author.
The author(s) authorize this Journal to publish the article and to identify itself as the original publisher.
The author(s) grant any third party the right to use the article freely, provided that the original authors and citation details are identified.
Nothing in this license diminishes or restricts an author's right to protect the integrity and ownership of their work.
All commercial rights related to the article belong to the authors.

These sections are fundamental elements in evaluating the publication in terms of transparency, compliance with ethical principles, and adherence to scientific standards.

CORRECTION, RETRACTION, EXPRESSION OF CONCERN

If editors detect minor errors in an article submitted to the journal that do not affect the findings and conclusions, they may request corrections from the author(s). The corresponding author of a published article has the right to request correction within five days from the date of publication. Correction requests are forwarded to the article's editor. Corrections to be made after the five-day period has elapsed are forwarded to the journal to be published under the heading "Correction" in the next issue.

If there is a possibility of abuse of publication by the author(s); if there is evidence that the findings are unreliable and the authors' institutions have not investigated the matter, or if a possible investigation appears unfair or inconclusive, editors should consider publishing an expression of concern. COPE and ICMJE guidelines are taken into account regarding correction, retraction, or expression of concern.

Retraction

Yalova Medical Journal follows COPE Retraction Guidelines in cases of retraction.

The editor has the right to retract an article in the following circumstances:

If there is clear evidence that leads to the conclusion that the findings are unreliable, such as major errors (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error), incorrect fabricated elements (e.g., data), or falsification (e.g., image manipulation);
If the content contains plagiarism;
If it contains material or data used without permission;
If there is copyright infringement or another serious legal problem;
If it contains unethical research;
If there is evidence that the peer review process has been compromised or manipulated;
If the author(s) have not disclosed a critical conflict of interest that, in the editor's opinion, could significantly affect the interpretation of the work or the advice of editors and reviewers.

The author(s) of a published article have the right to retract the article:

This is done with the jointly signed request of all authors of the article.

In case of retraction; a retraction notice including the article title is announced in the next issue of the journal under the heading "Retraction".

Removal of an article for legal reasons

If the submitted article is found to contain defamatory content or to violate the legal rights of others, and retraction of the article is not considered a sufficient solution;
If the article has been or there is reasonable cause to believe it will be the subject of a court order;
If there is a significant risk to public health;

The article text is removed from the issue in which it was published and a page notifying that the article has been removed for legal reasons replaces the article.

PLAGIARISM POLICY

Manuscripts submitted to Yalova Medical Journal must be original and must not contain plagiarism. A plagiarism report for each submitted article may be obtained by the corresponding author from a plagiarism program of their choice. The similarity index (SI) of the article must not exceed 20%; each individual similarity rate (each cited source) must not exceed 5%. If the article's similarity index (SI) exceeds 20% and/or each individual similarity rate exceeds 5%, the article is returned to the relevant author(s) to reduce the SI below 20%; failure to make sufficient corrections in this regard will result in rejection of the article at the first stage. If plagiarism is proven after the article is published, that article will be immediately withdrawn and removed from the website, and the relevant author(s) will not be permitted to submit articles to Yalova Medical Journal for three years.

ARCHIVING AND DATA DISTRIBUTION POLICY

To ensure the preservation and permanent accessibility of all articles published in the journal, articles are stored on Dergipark, which serves as a national archive site and also allows LOCKSS to collect, preserve, and provide the content.

Additionally, it is recommended that authors themselves archive the final PDF version of their articles in open electronic archives compliant with Open Archives Initiative (https://www.openarchives.org/) standards.

SPECIAL ISSUE PUBLICATION POLICY

A special issue may be published once a year upon the request of the Editorial Board. The principles and policies in our regular issues are applied in the same way in our special issues.

EVALUATION PRINCIPLES

Articles that have not been previously published or are not currently under review in another journal for publication and have been approved by each author are accepted for evaluation.
Submitted articles that pass preliminary review are scanned for plagiarism.
Yalova Medical Journal conducts a double-blind peer review process. All studies will first be evaluated by the editor for suitability for the journal. Articles deemed suitable are sent to at least two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the article.
The Editor-in-Chief evaluates articles independently of the authors' ethnicity, gender, nationality, religious beliefs, and political philosophy. The editor ensures that submitted articles undergo a fair double-blind peer review.
The Editor-in-Chief does not allow conflicts of interest between authors, editors, and reviewers.
The editor is responsible for the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles. The editor's decision is final.
Editors are not involved in decisions about articles written by themselves, their family members, or colleagues, or about articles related to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal's usual procedures.

Peer Review Principles for Editorial Staff's Work

In the evaluation process of newly submitted articles authored by any member of the editorial board, the relevant board member is removed from board membership by the editor-in-chief and is re-appointed to board membership only after the process is concluded. This ensures that the relevant board member has no influence on the process.

Preliminary Review and Plagiarism Screening

The study is reviewed by the editor for compliance with journal publication principles and academic writing rules, and is subjected to plagiarism screening. The preliminary review is completed within a maximum of 7 days. The plagiarism similarity rate must be less than 20%. Even if the similarity rate appears as 1%, plagiarism may still be an issue if citations and quotations have not been made properly. In this regard, citation and quotation rules must be known and carefully applied by the author.

Section Editor Review

The study that has passed the Preliminary Review and Plagiarism Screening stage is reviewed by the relevant section editor in terms of the problem statement and academic language-style. This review is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

Peer Review Process (Academic Evaluation)

The study that has passed the section editor's review is submitted for evaluation by at least two external reviewers who have doctoral theses, books, or articles on the subject. The peer review process is conducted confidentially within the framework of the double-blind peer review practice. The reviewer is requested to either indicate their opinions and views about the examined work in the text or to justify them with a minimum 150-word explanation on the online reviewer form. The author is given the right to object and defend their views if they disagree with the reviewer's opinions. The section editor ensures mutual communication between the author and the reviewer while maintaining confidentiality. If both reviewer reports are positive, the study is submitted to the Editorial Board with a proposal for consideration of publication. If one of the two reviewers gives a negative opinion, the study is sent to a third reviewer. Studies can be published with the positive decision of at least two reviewers.

Revision Stage

If reviewers request that revisions be made to the text they have reviewed, the relevant reports are sent to the author and they are requested to revise their work. The author makes corrections with the "Track Changes" feature enabled in Word, or indicates the changes in the text in red. They submit the revised text to the section editor.

Section Editor Check

The section editor checks whether the author has made the requested corrections in the text.

Reviewer Check

The reviewer who requested revision checks whether the author has made the corrections requested from them in the text.

Language Check

It is reviewed by the Language Editor and, if necessary, corrections are requested from the author. The English language editor's review is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

Article Evaluation Process

Studies submitted to our journal are first evaluated by the editors. At this stage, studies that do not comply with the aim and scope of the journal, that are weak in terms of language and expression in English, that contain critical scientific errors, that have no original value, that contain statistical analysis errors, and that do not meet publication policies are rejected. Authors of rejected studies are notified within at most two weeks from the date of submission. Suitable studies are sent to a section or field editor for the area to which the study relates for preliminary evaluation.
During the preliminary evaluation process, section or field editors examine the introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, and conclusion sections of the studies in detail in terms of journal publication policies and scope and originality. Studies that are not found suitable as a result of this review are returned within at most four weeks together with the section editor evaluation report.
Studies are sent to reviewers according to their content and the areas of expertise of the reviewers. Blind peer review is applied in article evaluations in our journal. The names of reviewers evaluating articles are not disclosed to authors. Reviewers are also enabled to evaluate articles without seeing the authors' names. If the author(s) of the article are from Yalova University, then reviewers must necessarily be assigned from outside the university. If the author(s) of the article are from outside the university, reviewers may also be assigned from within the university.
Articles sent to reviewers are expected to be evaluated within 20 days. If this period is exceeded, the editor sends a reminder to the reviewer and grants 7 additional days. If this period is also exceeded, the editor makes a new reviewer assignment and withdraws the request from the previous reviewer.
A manuscript that receives two positive reviewer reports becomes eligible for publication. A manuscript that receives one positive and one negative reviewer report is sent to a third reviewer.
The opinions from reviewers are reviewed by the section editor within at most 2 weeks. As a result of this review, the section editor makes the final acceptance or rejection decision regarding the study.
Articles that are not considered sufficient in line with reviewer recommendations are given a major revision decision (resubmit for review) or minor revision decision (revision required) for improvement. Articles that do not reach the required level and are not considered scientifically sufficient are rejected.
After a "resubmit for review" or "revision required" decision is made about an article, the necessary changes are expected to be made by the author within 30 days for the "resubmit for review" decision and within 15 days for the "revision required" decision. Otherwise, the article is rejected.

https://www.yok.gov.tr/Sayfalar/Kurumsal/mevzuat/bilimsel-arastirma-ve-etik-yonetmeligi.aspx ** https://www.wma.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DoH-Oct2008.pdf *** https://publicationethics.org/about/guide **** https://www.wame.org/ ***** https://www.oaspa.org/

Last Update Time: 19 June 2026