Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

• Author(s) must ensure the accuracy and truthfulness of the data used in the study; keep records of research processes and procedures neatly; and provide the relevant raw data and/or information in case the editorial and scientific boards require it.
• Authors need to ensure that their manuscript has not been published elsewhere or has not been accepted for publication in any other peer-reviewed journal.
• People who have not contributed to the study at the intellectual level should not be indicated/assigned as authors.
• Authors have to follow the related national and international rules and regulations if their studies include animal and/or human subjects (for example, the WMA Helsinki Declaration, PHS Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, The EU Directive on the Use of Animals); to prove that the necessary permissions and approvals are provided; to respect the privacy of subjects/participants.
• If the manuscripts submitted to be published are subject to conflicting interests or relations, these must be shared with the editor and the publisher.
• If necessary, provide an annex or error proclaim or withdraw the manuscript.
• During the peer-reviewing process, authors might be required to provide the raw data they used in their studies to the Editorial Board. So, they are expected to share the relevant data with the Editorial Board and to keep all relevant data for at least five years.
• Author(s) bears the responsibility to inform the editor of the journal or publisher if they happen to notice a mistake in their study in the early release or publication process and to cooperate with the editors during the correction or withdrawal process.

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of the Editors

• While fulfilling editorial duties and responsibilities, adopting balanced and objective behaviors, and approaching the authors fairly without discriminating against anyone based on gender, religious belief, political standpoint, ethnic background, or nationality.
• Evaluate the manuscripts sent to AUJEF based on the “manuscript submission guidelines,” the significance of the study, and its originality, and if they decide to reject a manuscript after the editorial evaluation, inform the authors of the rationale behind this decision clearly and objectively.
• Inform authors and allocate the necessary time for amendment if they decide that a manuscript needs a thorough revision due to several typesetting, punctuation, writing, layout errors, and some problems related to the referencing system.
• Take the necessary cautions and assess the demands from both sides if there is a conflict of interest. Assessing and evaluating the works submitted to AUJEF based on their content without providing privileges to any of them.
• Ensuring that all manuscripts go through a blind peer-reviewing process and that the authors do not know anything about the reviewers or that the reviewers have any information related to the authors. Handling studies on special topics like all other manuscripts go through. Supporting the authors’ freedom of expression.
• If the authors demand information about their manuscripts, carefully inform them about the processes and state of their manuscripts without breaching the rules and regulations related to blind peer-reviewing processes.
• Continuously updating the manuscript template, presenting and explaining what has been expected from the authors.
• Ensuring that all the published papers include the dates of sending and acceptance.
• Endeavouring to improve the journal's quality and contribute to its development.
• If there is a complaint about breaching an ethical principle, take the necessary action under AUJEF’s relevant policies and procedures. This gives the authors the essential opportunities to answer the complaints addressed to their manuscript, defend themselves, and impose the appropriate sanctions fairly and objectively.
• Inviting the reviewers to express that they do not have any conflict of interest with the author(s) of a manuscript before starting to review it.
• Renewing and expanding the number of reviewers while keeping their areas of expertise or specialties in mind.
• Excluding those reviewers who do not fulfill their duties on time or provide feedback and comments that are impolite and lack quality.
• Rejecting a manuscript inappropriate to AUJEF’s aims and scope.
• Finding and assigning new members for the Editorial Board who have the potential to contribute to its development.
• Inform the new members of the Editorial Board about AUJEF’s manuscript submission guide, explain to them what is expected from a member of the Editorial Board, and inform them about their responsibilities.
• Review the critics/criticisms of the journal and answer them if necessary.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Reviewers

The fact that all manuscripts are reviewed through "Blind Double Review" directly influences the publication quality. This process ensures confidentiality through objective and independent review. The review process at AUJEF is based on the principle of double-anonymized review. Neither the reviewers know and/or contact the authors directly, nor do the authors have any information related to the reviewers. The reviews and comments are conveyed through the journal management system. In this process, the editor assigns the reviewer's views on the evaluation forms and full texts to the author(s). Therefore, the reviewers doing review work for AUJEF are supposed to bear the ethical responsibilities listed below. Reviewers must

• To assist the editor in decision-making procedures, agree to review only those works in their subject of expertise and review the manuscript sent to them fairly, objectively, and on time.
• Fill in the relevant ‘Reviewer Evaluation Form’ and ensure that any information related to their (the reviewer) identity has not been reflected.
• Indicating their decision regarding whether the manuscript should be accepted for publication, along with the justification of this decision.
• Review the manuscript objectively and only regarding its content and ensure that nationality, gender, religious and political beliefs, and economic apprehension do not influence the review.
• Rigorously review a manuscript in an unbiased and confidential manner and provide relevant feedback to improve its quality.
• Review the manuscript in a constructive and kind tone, and avoid making personal comments, including hostility, slander, and insult. If it is seen that the reviewers’ comments are not of scientific quality, they might be invited to revise their assessment and feedback.
• Review only the content of a manuscript objectively.
• Protect the privacy of information provided by the editor or the author(s) and destroy the manuscript after the review process.
• Inform the journal chief editor if they think they encounter a problem that may harm the double-anonymized review process and decline to review the manuscript during the review process.
• Dispose of the manuscripts they have reviewed per the principle of confidentiality after the review process. Reviewers can use the final versions of the manuscripts they have reviewed only after publication.
• Be aware of the potential conflict of interests (financial, institutional, collaborative, or those between the authors or related to other relationships), and warn the editor to withdraw the relevant manuscript from the review process.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

• Like all other stakeholders, the publisher must obey ethical principles and behave accordingly.
• The publisher is responsible for taking precautions against scientific abuse, fraud, and plagiarism.
• The publisher protects the intellectual property rights of all the articles published in AUJEF and is responsible for keeping a record of each published product.
• The publisher accepts that the editor and editorial board are entitled to make all the decisions related to reviewing, editorial, and publication processes.
• All stakeholders should not hesitate to contact the publisher if they see or recognize unethical conduct.

Plagiarism Policy

Intentionally or not, plagiarism means breaching research ethics. Publishing a piece of work with similar or the same content as other studies without citing them is ethical misconduct and an offense against the law. The editorial board has the right to act according to COPE’s rules and regulations in case of any claim related to a manuscript that has been plagiarized, referencing manipulation, and/or data forgery. Manuscripts with a more than 20% similarity rate will be returned to the author without being included in the review process. The authors may submit their manuscripts after ensuring that the correspondence report of their respective manuscripts shows less than 20% similarity

Misconduct of Scientific Research and Publication Ethics

• Plagiarism: Using other persons’ original thoughts, methods, data, or products without citing the sources or presenting another person’s work as one’s own partially or as a whole;
• Forgery: Using data that does not exist or is being distorted;
• Distortion: Distorting, spoiling, or corrupting research records or data; Claiming that some tools or materials have been used in the research that are not utilized for the study.
• Altering, distorting, or shaping the research results to fit in the interests of those persons or institutions supporting the research;
• Duplication: Using the same research data in more than one piece of work;
• Slicing: Dividing the results of research into several pieces that violate its integrity and then publishing them as separate research papers;
• Undeserved authorship: Indicating those persons as authors who did not actively contribute to the manuscript's production or not indicating the ones that contributed to the study in question.
• Changing the order of the author names inappropriately and unnecessarily;
• Not indicating/including the relevant information about persons/institutions/organizations supporting the research and their support;
• Citing those dissertations/theses that have not yet been submitted;
• Not following the ethical rules and regulations and/or not obtaining the necessary permissions before conducting research involving human and/or animal subjects. Not respecting patients’ rights, giving harm to animals’ health and ecological balance;
• The misuse or abuse of resources, places, means, and tools that have been provided/allocated for the research;
• Proclaiming misleading/fallacious information related to scientific research and publications.

Publication Ethics

AUJEF editors take serious measures to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred. Thus, they do not encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to occur. If AUJEF editors identify or have grounds for suspecting research misconduct, they will deal with allegations appropriately. AUJEF and its editors are always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed. Authors have the right to request withdrawal, retraction, or correction(s) of their articles before publication. However, they can only request retractions or corrections of their articles within five days after their article is published in an issue. Otherwise, they will have to write a correction notice, which will be published in the next issue. Withdrawal is possible at any stage before publication. AUJEF never tolerates plagiarism and self-plagiarism; and has the right to check all submissions using tools such as Turnitin, intihal.net, and Ithenticate. AUJEF accepts manuscripts up to a maximum similarity rate of 20%. Except for exceptional cases, this limit cannot be exceeded, and any submitted article with a higher similarity rate than mentioned here will be rejected.

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Conflict of Interests

Open Access Policy

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The reviewing process of the manuscripts sent to AUJEF proceeds following these steps:

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