Publication Ethics Principles
Publication Ethics can be defined as a self-regulatory mechanism that insists on integrity on behalf of authors, reviewers and publishers to establish higher standards of editorial processing. Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public confidence in scientific findings, and respect for people's opinions.
• Honest researchers do not plagiarise.
• They do not misattribute sources.
• They do not hide objections they cannot refute.
• They do not distort opposing views.
• They do not destroy or conceal data.

Peer-reviewed studies are studies that support and realise the scientific method. At this point, it is of great importance that all parties involved in the publication process (authors, readers and researchers, publisher, referees and editors) comply with ethical principles. Our journal adheres to national and international standards on research and publication ethics. Journal of Near East University Faculty of Theology has adopted the International Ethical Publishing Principles published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). It also undertakes to comply with the decisions of the Turkish Editors' Workshop.
• Press Law (National Legislation)
• Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works (National Legislation)
• Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive (National Legislation)
• Transparency and Best Practice Principles in Academic Publishing (International Criteria)
• Turkey Editors' Workshop Decisions (National Criteria)

Replay
Republishing is the publication of the same article or substantially similar articles in more than one journal. The editor sends back such an article without reviewing it. Thereafter, the editor may impose an embargo for a certain period of time on the author who has attempted to republish, publicise this situation in the journal in which the author has previously published (perhaps by simultaneous announcement with the editor of the journal that published the previous article), or apply all of these measures together.

Simultaneous submission of the same work to more than one journal
Authors may not submit the same article to more than one journal at the same time. If the editor learns of possible simultaneous submission, he/she reserves the right to consult with the other editor(s) receiving the manuscript. In addition, the editor may return the manuscript without review or reject the manuscript without considering the reviews, or take this decision in discussion with the other editor(s) involved, and may decide not to accept submissions from authors for a certain period of time. It may also write to the authors' employers or take all of these measures together.

Suicide Prevention Control
Authors should ensure that their work is original, and if authors have used the work and/or words of others, they should be appropriately cited. Publications that have been influential in determining the quality of the work reported should also be cited. Plagiarism constitutes all forms of unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. The similarity report should be obtained from similarity programmes provided by universities such as iThencitace, Turnitin, plihal.net and uploaded to the system by the author during the submission of the manuscript. The similarity rate of the article should be at most 20%; the similarity rate between another study and the author's own work should be at most 2%; for studies produced from open access master's and doctoral theses, the similarity rate with the author's own thesis should be at most 5%.

Forgery
To produce data that is not based on research, to edit or change the work presented or published on the basis of unreal data, to report or publish them, to show a research that has not been done as if it has been done.
Falsifying research records and data obtained, showing methods, devices and materials that were not used in the research as if they were used, not evaluating data that do not comply with the research hypothesis, manipulating data and/or results to fit the relevant theory or assumptions, falsifying or shaping the research results in line with the interests of the persons and organisations supported.

Protection of Personal Data of Participants
Journal of Near East University Faculty of Theology requires that all research involving personal or sensitive data or materials relating to human participants that are not legally available to the public be subject to formal ethical review.

Ethical Violation Notifications
Readers may notify us by sending an e-mail to ilahiyatdergi@neu.edu.tr if they notice a significant error or inaccuracy in an article published in Journal of Near East University Faculty of Theology or if they have any complaints about the editorial content (plagiarism, duplicate articles, etc.). We welcome applications as it will provide an opportunity for us to improve, and we will respond quickly and constructively.

Correction, Retraction, Expression of Concern
Editors may consider publishing a correction if minor errors are detected 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 a possibility of research or publication misconduct by the authors; if there is evidence that the findings are unreliable and the authors' institutions have not investigated the incident; or if the possible investigation seems unfair or inconclusive. COPE and ICJME guidelines regarding correction, retraction or expression of concern are taken into account.

Publication of Studies Based on Surveys and Interviews
Our journal adopts the "Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers" principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in order to provide ethical assurance in scientific periodical publishing. In this context, the following points should be complied with in the studies submitted to the journal:
1) For research in all disciplines that require ethics committee approval (ethics committee approval must be obtained, this approval must be stated and documented in the article.
2) In studies requiring ethics committee authorisation, information about the authorisation (name of the committee, date and number) should be included in the method section and also on one of the first/last pages of the article; in case reports, information on the signature of the informed consent form should be included in the article.

Special Issue Publication Policy
A special issue can be published once a year upon the request of the Editorial Board. Articles submitted for inclusion in the special issue are first subjected to a preliminary editorial review. Then, they are examined for compliance with the journal's spelling rules and similarity screening is performed to prevent plagiarism. After these stages, the manuscripts are taken into the peer review process in which the double blinded model is used.

Editorial Confidentiality Obligation
The editors treat all submitted manuscripts as confidential documents, which means that they will not disclose information about a manuscript to anyone without the authors' permission. During the manuscript review process, the following people have access to manuscripts: Editors, Referees, Editorial Board Members. The only situation in which details about a manuscript may be passed to a third party without the authors' permission is if the editor suspects serious research misconduct.

Complaint Procedure
This procedure applies to complaints about content, procedures or policies that are the responsibility of our journal or editorial staff. Complaints can provide an opportunity and incentive for improvement and we aim to respond quickly, courteously and constructively.
The complaint must relate to content, procedures or policies that are the responsibility of our journal or editorial team. Complaints should be emailed directly to ilahiyatdergi@neu.edu.tr and will be treated confidentially. The editor responds to complaints immediately. The editor follows the procedure outlined in the COPE flowchart regarding complaints.
Complaints are reviewed by the relevant member of the editorial team and if they cannot be resolved, the following processes are followed:
• If this initial response is considered inadequate, the complainant may request that the complaint be forwarded to a more senior member of the journal.
• If the complainant is not satisfied, the complaint may be forwarded to the editor-in-chief.
• If possible, a full response will be given within two weeks.
COPE publishes a code of practice for editors of scientific journals. This should facilitate the resolution of disputes with editors, journals and publishers, but only after the journal's own complaints procedures have been exhausted.

Appeal Process
We welcome serious objections to the evaluations made by editors and reviewers. If you feel that we have rejected your paper because we misunderstood its scientific content, please send an appeal message to our editorial team at ilahiyatdergi@neu.edu.tr. Do not attempt to submit a revised version of your manuscript at this stage. If, after reading your appeal letter, we realise that your appeal is justified, we may invite you to submit a revised version of your manuscript. Your manuscript will then be resubmitted to the external reviewer process. Please include as much detail as possible in the appeal letter. Finally, we can only consider one appeal per manuscript, so please take the time and effort to write the letter in detail to make your appeal clear - you have one chance, so use it well. We have found that prolonged deliberation over rejected papers is often unsatisfactory for both authors and editors, so we do not process multiple appeals for the same paper.

Conflicts of Interest
A conflict of interest arises when professional judgement about a primary interest may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain or personal competition). We believe that we need to know the authors' competing interests in order to make the best judgement about how to handle an article, and that readers should know them if we publish the article.
Any interest, financial or otherwise, which may cause one to be conflicted in one's work, significantly impair one's objectivity, or give an unfair advantage in favour of any person or organisation. All sources of financial support received during the conduct of the research and preparation of the manuscript and the role of sponsors in the study should be disclosed. If there is no source of funding, this should also be indicated. Examples of potential conflicts of interest that should be disclosed include consultancies, salaries, grants. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest possible stage.
Journal of Near East University Faculty of Theology has a set process for handling submissions from editors, staff or editorial board members to ensure impartial review. Such submissions are first referred to other journals. If this is not possible, the owner of the submission is suspended from the journal. These submissions are reviewed in a double blind process.
The editor should not be involved in decisions about manuscripts written by him/herself or family members. Furthermore, such a paper should be subject to all the usual procedures of the journal. The editor should follow the ICMJE guidelines on disclosure of potential conflicts of interest by authors and reviewers.

Principles of Research Ethics
Journal of Near East University Faculty of Theology observes the highest standards in research ethics and adopts the international principles of research ethics defined below. It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that the articles comply with ethical rules.
• The principles of integrity, quality and transparency should be ensured in the design, review of the design and conduct of the research.
• The research team and participants should be fully informed about the purpose of the research, its methods and possible uses; the requirements and risks, if any, of participation in the research.
• Confidentiality of information provided by research participants and confidentiality of respondents must be ensured. The research should be designed to protect the autonomy and dignity of the participants.
• Research participants should take part in the research voluntarily and should not be under any coercion.
• Harm to the participants should be avoided. The research should be planned in a way that does not put the participants at risk.
• Research independence must be clear and explicit; if there is a conflict of interest, it must be stated.
• In experimental studies with human subjects, the written informed consent of the participants who decide to participate in the research must be obtained. The consent of the legal guardian of children and those under guardianship or those with a recognised mental illness must be obtained.
• If the study will be carried out in any institution or organisation, approval must be obtained from this institution or organisation that the study will be conducted.
• In studies with a human element, it should be stated in the "method" section that "informed consent" has been obtained from the participants and ethics committee approval has been obtained from the institution where the study is conducted.

Ethical Statement
Ethical rules must be followed in research on humans and animals.
For the intellectual and artistic works used, it must be stated that copyright regulations are complied with.
For the use of scales, questionnaires, photographs, etc. belonging to others, permission from the owners must be obtained and specified.
In case presentations, it must be stated that the "Informed consent form" has been obtained.
If the research is conducted in the fields listed below, it is mandatory to upload "Ethics Committee Permission" in the annex of the study.

Studies Requiring Ethics Committee Permission
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,
Use of humans and animals (including materials/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,
Clinical trials on humans,
Research on animals,
Retrospective studies in accordance with the law on the protection of personal data.