PUBLICATION ETHICS & MALPRACTICE STATEMENT
Engineering Perspective is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics and takes all necessary measures to prevent any form of publication malpractice. This statement outlines the ethical standards that all parties involved in the publishing process, including authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher, are expected to adhere to. This statement is based on the publication ethics guidelines published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). It is our responsibility to publish original work that adds value to the intellectual community in the best possible form and to the highest possible standards. We hold our reviewers and authors to the same standards. Honesty, originality, and fair dealing on the part of authors, and fairness, objectivity, and confidentiality on the part of editors and reviewers are essential to achieving our goal. Engineering Perspective is committed to following best practices on ethical matters, errors, and retractions, and to providing a legal review if necessary. In case of any conflict, the COPE best practices guidelines are taken into account.
Ethical Oversight
In the event that the research work involves chemicals, humans, animals, procedures, or equipment that present any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author is required to clearly identify these in the manuscript in order to comply with the ethical conduct of research using animals and human subjects. Should this be necessary, the authors are required to provide legal ethical clearance from the relevant association or legal organisation.
In the event that the research involves confidential data and business/marketing practices, the authors must provide a clear justification as to why this information should be kept secure, or why it should not.
Intellectual Property
Engineering Perspective is committed to safeguarding intellectual property. It is the responsibility of authors, editors and reviewers to ensure this.
The authors certify that the submitted manuscript (and any supporting items) is their own intellectual property and that the copyright has not been transferred to others. They confirm that the manuscript contains no plagiarism, no fabrication, no falsification, no manipulated citations, and that it conforms to the authorship policies set out below. They also confirm that they have obtained permission from the copyright holders to reproduce any copyrighted tables, figures, data, text, etc. All manuscripts, revisions, drafts and galleys remain the intellectual property of the author(s). The copyright to the work is retained by the author(s). The authors retain the full right to modify, reshare, repost, or archive any version of their copyrighted work. Furthermore, the authors agree to keep all communications, comments, or reports between authors and reviewers or editors confidential. All review comments and reports remain the intellectual property of the reviewer or editor. Similarly, reviewers and editors agree to keep all manuscripts, revisions, drafts, and all communications, comments, or reports between authors and reviewers or editors confidential.
Duties and Responsibilities of Editor-in-Chief & Section Editors
Objectivity & Confidentiality
The editor-in-chief and section editors of the journal are responsible for determining which manuscripts submitted to the journal should be published. In this process, the authors of the manuscript are not distinguished based on factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion or citizenship by the editors. The editors' decision to accept, revise or reject a manuscript for publication should be based on the manuscript's importance, originality and clarity, as well as the convenience of the study performed in the manuscript in relation to the journal's coverage.
It is the responsibility of the editor-in-chief and section editors to ensure that any information regarding a submitted manuscript is kept confidential and disclosed only to the corresponding author, reviewers/potential reviewers and publishing personnel. During the review process, editors must guarantee the confidentiality of all material submitted by authors.
Conflicts of interest & Disclosure
Editors will not use any unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the author's explicit written consent. Information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage. In the event that an editor has a conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers, they will recuse themselves from considering the manuscript and ask another member of the editorial board to handle it instead.
Editorial Procedures and Peer Review
All manuscripts received by the journal will be checked by the Editor to determine whether they have been prepared properly and comply with the journal's ethical policies. Manuscripts that do not comply with the ethical rules of the journal or meet the journal standards will be rejected by the Editor-in-Chief before peer review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for correction and resubmission. The Editor-in-Chief may consult the journal's associate editors to determine whether the article fits within the scope of the journal and is scientifically appropriate. Manuscripts that are found unsuitable may be rejected by the editor-in-chief without being evaluated by the reviewer. For the articles that meet the required criteria, the peer review evaluation process is initiated by the Editor-in-Chief or the assistant editors to be assigned by the editor-in-chief.
For the peer-review process, the article will be assigned to at least two independent experts. A single-blind review is applied where the identities of the authors are known to the reviewers. If there is no common decision as a result of the reviewer evaluations, the editor may send the article to new reviewers to receive additional evaluation reports.
Journal assistant editors, members of the editorial board, and guest editors who have expertise in the relevant field may be appointed as reviewer. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered. Reviewers must not have published with any of the co-authors in the past three years and must not work or collaborate with any institution of the co-authors of the currently submitted article.
You can check Editorial Procedures and Peer Review Process page for detailed information about editorial procedures and peer review processes.
Management of Unethical Behaviour(s)
In the event of an ethical complaint regarding a submitted manuscript or published article, editors and publishers must take prompt and proportionate action. All reported instances of unethical publishing behaviour will be investigated, regardless of the time elapsed since publication. Engineering Perspective will apply COPE's best practice guidlines to ensure that all complaints are handled appropriately.
Duties and Responsibilities of Author(s)
Authorship of the Paper
The authorship of a paper should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All individuals who have made a meaningful contribution to the project should be listed as co-authors. Any other individuals who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Change of Authorship
The Engineering Perspective accepts article authors in accordance with the statement on the title page of the article. It is the responsibility of the authors to submit the final version of the full author list. Please note that any requests for changes to the authorship of an article after submission (e.g. removal/addition of authors, change of order, etc.) are subject to editorial approval. The Editor-in-Chief will investigate such cases and act in accordance with the COPE flowcharts.
Should you wish to request a change of authorship, please submit this in writing (letter) to the Editor. The letter should be signed by all authors and include their confirmation of the change of authorship. Please note that it is not possible to make changes to authorship after papers have been accepted for publication or published. All requests for changes to authorship must be completed before publication and acceptance decesion of the manuscript.
Originality and Plagiarism
The authors are responsible for the content, language and originality of the manuscript they submitted. The authors should assure that they have composed their original works entirely, and if the authors have used the study and/or words of other authors, that this has been conveniently cited or quoted. Plagiarism takes many forms varying from “passing off” someone´s paper as the authors’ own paper to copying or paraphrasing important parts of someone´s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research performed by others. Plagiarism in all its forms comprises unethical publishing behaviour and is inadmissible. Before being sent a manuscript to reviewers, it is checked in terms of similarity by plagiarism tools to explore the plagiarism.
Plagiarism is not tolerated in Engineering Perspective. Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source.
Reuse of text that is copied from another source must be between quotes and the original source must be cited. If a study's design or the manuscript's structure or language has been inspired by previous works, these works must be explicitly cited.
All submissions are checked for plagiarism before peer review process using the industry standard software iThenticate. Please check the Plagiarism Policy page for more information.
Acknowledgement of funding sources
All funding sources for the research reported in the manuscript should be acknowledged thoroughly at the end of the manuscript before references.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
All authors are required to disclose in their manuscript any financial and personal relationships with other individuals or organisations that could be viewed as inappropriately influencing the content of their work. All sources of financial support for the research and/or preparation of the article must be disclosed, as must the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement, this must be stated. The author must declare any competing interests in the manuscript.
Reporting standards
Authors of manuscript should present an accurate explanation of the study conducted and an objective discussion of its importance. Underlying data should be accurately given in the manuscript. A paper should include sufficient detail and references to allow other researchers to repeat the study. Tricky or knowingly imprecise statements form unethical behaviour and are unacceptable. Review and professional publication articles should also be precise, original and objective, and editorial opinion works should be described overtly as such.
Acknowledgment of sources
It is the responsibility of authors to ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others and to cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained from third parties in confidence must not be used or reported without the source's explicit written permission. Similarly, information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used or reported without the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.
Data access & retention
Authors might be asked to ensure the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review process, and should in any event be prepared to keep in such data for a moderate time after publication.
Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
Submitted manuscripts must not be under consideration of any other journal. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently comprises unethical publishing behaviour. The authors must also assure that the article has not been published elsewhere before.
Principal errors in published studies
When an author corresponds to a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author´s obligation to notify swiftly the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to withdraw or correct the paper.
Hazards and human or animal subjects
In the event that the work involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment that present any unusual hazards inherent to their use, the author is required to clearly identify these in the manuscript. In the event that the work involves the use of animal or human subjects, the author is required to ensure that the manuscript contains a statement confirming that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines, and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them. The authors must include a statement in the manuscript confirming that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. They must also ensure that the privacy rights of human subjects are observed at all times.
For human subjects, the author is responsible for ensuring that the work described has been carried out in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans.
Duties and Responsibilities of Reviewers
Engineering Perspective has an obligation to provide transparent policies for peer review, and reviewers have an obligation to conduct reviews in an ethical and accountable manner. The peer review process often depends on the trust and voluntary participation of the academic community, and peer reviewers, who play a central and critical role in the review process, must act responsibly and ethically. Open communication between the journal and reviewers is essential to facilitate consistent, fair, and timely reviews. If you have no previous experience with peer review, we strongly recommend that you review COPE’s ethics guidance on peer review.
Disclosure & conflict of interest
It is imperative that you declare all potential competing or conflicting interests. Should you be uncertain as to whether a potential competing interest may impede your ability to conduct a review, please do not hesitate to raise it. A competing interest may be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious in nature. If you are currently employed at the same institution as any of the authors or have recently (within the last three years) been a mentor, mentee, close collaborator or co-grantee, you should refrain from accepting a review. Furthermore, you should not agree to review a manuscript simply for the purpose of seeing it, without the intention of submitting a review. Similarly, you should not agree to review a manuscript that is substantially similar to one you have prepared or reviewed in another journal.
Obeying the Timeline
It is courteous to respond to an invitation to peer review within a reasonable time frame, even if you are unable to undertake the review. If you have been authorised to review a particular manuscript, you should only accept the review if you are able to return it within the proposed or mutually agreed timeframe. Should your circumstances change and you be unable to fulfil your original agreement or require an extension, you are required to inform the journal immediately. If you are unable to review, it is advisable to suggest alternative reviewers, if relevant, based on their expertise and without any personal considerations or intention to receive a particular result (positive or negative).
Contribution, Confidentiality, Objectivity and Accountability Standarts
Reviewers are the main members contributing to the quality of the journal being a peer reviewed one. Please note that the editor requests a fair, honest and unbiased assessment of the manuscript's strengths and weaknesses. The Engineering Perspective manuscript evaluation form enables reviewers to provide feedback to the authors and submit confidential comments to the editor, which will not be visible to the authors. Engineering Perspective also requests a recommendation for acceptance, minor revision, major revision or rejection. Any recommendation must be consistent with the comments provided in the review. If you have not yet had the opportunity to review the entire article, please indicate which aspects you have evaluated. It is important to ensure that your comments and suggestions to the editor are consistent with your report to the authors. The majority of feedback should be included in the report that the authors will see. Confidential comments to the editor should not contain any defamatory or unfounded accusations, as the authors will not see your comments. Please note that the editors of Engineering Perspective will be sensitive to this and have the right to disregard inconsistent, contradictory and subjective referee reports and to invite new referees if necessary.
The reviewers who feel unqualified to review the received manuscript must swiftly notify the editor and reject to review that manuscript. As a responsible reviewer, it is your responsibility to prepare the report yourself. Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Engineering Perspective does not permit reviewers to share the papers with other individuals who have not been assigned to the review process. It is imperative that you refrain from making any disparaging or unjustified criticisms of the work of any competitor mentioned in the manuscript. Do not suggest that authors add citations to your (or an associate's) work solely to increase the number of citations or to increase the visibility of your or an associate's work. Instead, suggestions should be based on valid academic or technological reasons. Do not intentionally extend the review period by delaying the submission of your review or requesting superfluous supplementary information from the journal or the author. In the event that you are the editor processing a manuscript and you elect to conduct the review of that manuscript yourself (potentially if another reviewer is unable to submit a report), do so in a transparent manner and not under the pretence of an anonymous supplementary reviewer.
Action in Suspicion of Ethics Violations
Should you become aware of any irregularities in research and publication ethics, please report them to chief editor of the Engineering Perspective. For instance, you may have reservations that improper conduct has taken place during the writing and submission of research or a manuscript, or you may observe notable similarities between the manuscript and a simultaneous submission to another journal or a published article. In the event of these or any other ethical concerns, please contact the editor directly and refrain from conducting your own investigation. While it is acceptable to collaborate with the journal in a confidential manner, you should not conduct further research unless the journal requests additional information or advice.
Data Sharing Policy
Engineering Perspective is dedicated to fostering a more transparent and collaborative research environment. Our goal is to accelerate the discovery of research findings, enhance reproducibility, and ensure the integrity of data, methodology, and reporting standards. While sharing data is not mandatory, we strongly encourage authors of articles published in the journal to share their research data. This should include, but is not limited to, raw data, processed data, software, algorithms, protocols, methods, and materials. It is recommended that authors share their research data in a relevant public data repository. They should also include a data availability statement linking to the data. If it is not possible to share the data, the statement should confirm why this is the case. Finally, the data should be cited in the research.
Complaints and Appeals
Should you wish to register a complaint regarding any aspect of processes, please direct your email to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal (Dr. Alper Calam, acalam@gazi.edu.tr) or the journal secretariat (engineering@sciperspective.com). Please provide us with as much detail as possible about the nature of your complaint so that we can address it as quickly as possible.
Engineering Perspective has established a clear and transparent procedure for addressing any complaints that may arise against the journal, its editorial staff, the editorial board, or the publisher. Any complaints will be promptly forwarded to the relevant individual for resolution. The scope of complaints encompasses any matter pertaining to the journal's business process, including but not limited to concerns related to the editorial process, instances of found citation manipulation, allegations of unfair editor/reviewer practices, and instances of perceived impropriety in peer review. All complaint cases will be processed in accordance with COPE's best practice guidelines.
Allegation of Research Misconduct
Research misconduct is defined as the fabrication, falsification, manipulation of citations, or plagiarism involved in the production, performance, review, or reporting of research and the writing of articles by authors, as well as the reporting of research results. In the event that authors are found to have been involved in research misconduct or other serious irregularities involving articles published in scientific journals, editors are responsible for ensuring the accuracy and integrity of the scientific record.
In cases of suspected misconduct, the Editors and Editorial Board will utilise the best practices set out by COPE to assist them in resolving the complaint and addressing the misconduct in a fair manner. This will include an investigation of the allegation by the editorial team. In the event that a submitted manuscript is found to contain such misconduct, it will be rejected. In the event that a published paper is found to contain such misconduct, a retraction will be published and linked to the original article. The first step is to ascertain the veracity of the allegation and to evaluate whether it aligns with the definition of research misconduct. This initial step also entails determining whether the individuals making the allegations have any relevant conflicts of interest.
In the event that scientific misconduct or other significant research irregularities may have occurred, the allegations are shared with the corresponding author, who is requested to provide a detailed response on behalf of all co-authors. Once the response has been received and evaluated, further expert review and input may be sought, for example from statisticians. In cases where it is unlikely that misconduct has occurred, clarifications, additional analyses or both may be published as letters to the editor, often including a correction notice and correction to the published article.
By responding appropriately to concerns about scientific misconduct and taking the necessary actions based on the evaluation of these concerns, Engineering Perspective will continue to fulfil its responsibilities in ensuring the validity and integrity of the scientific record.
We appreciate the care and attention that the authors have applied to the preparation of their manuscripts, and we have conducted thorough peer-review processes. However, there are instances when published articles may be withdrawn or deleted for scientific reasons. This is a decision that should not be taken lightly and can only occur in exceptional circumstances. In such cases, corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies will be carried out in accordance with the highest standards to maintain confidence in the authority of our electronic archives. It is our commitment and policy to maintain the integrity and completeness of important scientific records for researchers and librarians' archives.
Article Retraction
Engineering Perspective is committed to upholding the integrity of the scholarly record. In some instances, it may be necessary to retract articles. The following COPE criterias explained in COPE Retraction Guidline will be used to determine whether an article should be retracted:
>There are clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (eg, miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (eg, of data) or falsification (eg, image manipulation)
>It constitutes plagiarism
>The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication)
>It contains material or data without authorisation for use
>Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue (eg, libel, privacy)
>It reports unethical research
>It has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer review process
>The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (aka, conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.
Editor follows these steps in any case of possible retraction;
1. The journal editor is alerted to an article that may require retraction.
2. The journal editor should follow the recommended procedure, as outlined by COPE, which includes evaluating a response from the author of the article in question.
3. Prior to taking any action, the editor collates all the relevant findings. An additional Ethics Advisory Board may be constituted from the Editorial Board of the Journal. This step is intended to guarantee a uniform approach in line with industry best practices.
4. The final decision regarding retraction is then communicated to the author.
5. The retraction statement is then posted online and published in the next available issue of the journal.
Please note that while authors may retain copyright for an article, this does not automatically entitle them to retract it after publication. The integrity of the published scientific record is of paramount importance, and COPE's Retraction Guidelines still apply in such cases.
Article Correction
Once an article has been accepted for publication, Engineering Perspective will send it to the author for a final check. It is of the utmost importance that authors exercise the utmost care when proofreading.
It is important to note that making changes or corrections to a published article is not an appropriate approach. Engineering Perspective may issue a correction in the event that a minor section of a generally reliable publication contains erroneous data or information that is misleading, particularly if this is due to an honest mistake, if the author or contributor list contains errors, such as the omission of a deserving author or the inclusion of someone who does not meet authorship criteria, we will take appropriate action.
A publisher correction (erratum) is issued to notify readers of an important error made by publishing/journal staff. This is usually a production error that has a negative impact on the publication record, the scientific integrity of the article, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.
An author correction (corrigendum) is issued to notify readers of an important error made by the authors which has a negative impact on the publication record, the scientific integrity of the article, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.
Addendum: an additional contribution from the authors to clarify inconsistencies, expand existing work, or otherwise explain or update information in the main article.
The decision as to whether a correction should be issued is made by the Editor(s) of a journal, sometimes with input from reviewers or editorial board members. Handling editors will contact the authors of the paper in question with a request for clarification. However, the final decision regarding the necessity of a correction and, if so, the type of correction, rests with the editors.
Article Removal or Replacement
In exceptional circumstances, it may be necessary to remove a published article from our online platform. Such action will only be taken in cases where an article is clearly defamatory, infringes the legal rights of others, or is the subject of a court order. It may also be taken in cases where the article poses a serious health risk. In such instances, while the metadata (i.e. title and author information) of the article will be retained, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating that the article has been removed for legal reasons.
In cases where an article may pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original paper may choose to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. In such instances, the standard procedures for retraction will be followed, with the exception that the retraction notice will include a link to the corrected, republished article, along with a history of the document.
