1. Publication Policy
Publication model and frequency. The Sivas Cumhuriyet University Journal of the Faculty of Engineering (CUMFAD) is a fully open-access, international, peer-reviewed journal published biannually, in June and December (e-ISSN: 3023-7203). Articles are published in English.
Pricing. The journal does not charge any article submission fee or article processing charge (APC). No fee is requested from authors or their institutions at any stage of the process.
Evaluation process and timeline. Every submission is first examined by the editorial office for scope, format and similarity. Suitable manuscripts then undergo double-blind review by at least two independent referees affiliated with institutions different from those of the authors, and the editor-in-chief reaches the final decision based on their reports. The journal targets the following indicative timeline: preliminary editorial decision within ~3 days, peer-review process within ~39 days, and publication within ~117 days of submission.
Archiving and continuity. Published content is permanently preserved through DergiPark's digital archiving infrastructure, ensuring long-term access and publication continuity.
2. Publication Ethics and General Principles
The journal is committed to academic integrity, transparency, scientific rigor and ethical publishing standards, and adopts the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the recommendations of the ICMJE. All parties — editors, reviewers, authors and the publisher — must comply with these standards. Conduct contrary to scientific and publication ethics (plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate submission, undisclosed conflicts of interest, etc.) is addressed in accordance with the relevant COPE flowcharts.
3. Responsibilities of Editors
Editors evaluate manuscripts solely on the basis of scientific merit, originality, methodological quality and relevance to the journal's scope, without regard to the authors' race, gender, nationality, religion or institution. They maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and related communications, ensure a fair, unbiased and timely review process, declare and avoid any conflict of interest, and act decisively when ethical concerns arise.
4. Responsibilities of Reviewers
Reviewers provide objective, constructive, timely and scientific evaluations that support editorial decisions. They maintain confidentiality throughout the review process, decline to review manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest, refrain from using unpublished material for personal benefit, and report to the editor any substantial similarity, ethical concern or suspected misconduct they identify.
5. Responsibilities of Authors
Submitted work must be original, comply with ethical research standards, and must not have been previously published or simultaneously submitted elsewhere. Data must be accurate and the methodology described in sufficient detail to ensure reproducibility. All listed authors must have made a genuine intellectual contribution, and all sources must be properly cited. Authors must disclose any conflict of interest and financial support, declare the use of generative AI tools (which cannot be listed as authors), and promptly notify the editor of any error discovered after publication so that a correction or retraction can be issued.
6. Ethics Committee Approval and Legal Permissions
For studies that require ethics approval (e.g. research involving humans, animals, or personal/clinical data), the following must be clearly stated in the Methods section: the name of the ethics committee, the scope of the approval, and the approval date and reference number. Research involving humans must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki, and authors are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions for copyrighted material.
7. Plagiarism and Similarity Policy
All manuscripts are screened for originality using iThenticate. The maximum acceptable similarity index is 20% (excluding references). Manuscripts exceeding this threshold, or containing any form of plagiarism, are returned to the authors or rejected, and suspected misconduct is handled in line with COPE procedures.
8. Copyright and Licensing
All published articles are provided as open access under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. Authors retain the copyright of their work and grant the journal the right of first publication. Users may share and adapt the material for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate credit is given to the authors and the journal.
9. Responsibilities of the Publisher
The publisher supports transparent and ethical editorial processes and protects the editorial independence of the journal. It ensures the permanent, open-access availability of published content and takes no part in editorial decisions on individual manuscripts.
*Authors must be submitted a completed and signed Copyright Transfer Form .