Publication Ethics

International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE), has adopted a number of ethical policies to ensure the development and dissemination of information within the framework of ethical principles, impartiality and respect. At this point, it is important that all stakeholders (authors, editors, reviewers, readers, publisher) comply with ethical behavior standards. The ethical duties and responsibilities in International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) have been prepared in consideration of the guidelines and policies published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as open Access. If stakeholders need any clarification on the following statements, they can refer to the original COPE guidelines document.

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of Editors

International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) editors should have the following ethical duties and responsibilities:

General duties and responsibilities

Editors are responsible for every publication published in International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE). In the context of this responsibility, they hold the following roles and obligations:

• Striving to meet the information needs of readers and authors
• Managing processes to improve the quality of articles published in the journal
• Ensuring the development of the journal in the national and international arena
• Maintaining processes in accordance with intellectual property rights and ethical standards
• Supporting the free expression of ideas
• Being explanatory and transparent in matters requiring explanation
• To make updates in publishing processes and ethical policies by following the research on refereeing and publishing in order to contribute to the development of the journal

Relations with the reader

The duties and responsibilities of editors towards readers are as follows:

• Taking into account feedback from readers and responding to this feedback in an explanatory and informative manner
• Ensuring that the published studies contribute to the readers and are of original quality
• Making decisions by taking into account the interests, needs and expectations of readers

Relations with the authors

The duties and responsibilities of the editors towards the authors are as follows:

• Informing authors about the publication process and ethical policies
• Publishing the Writing Rules and Author Guide List to facilitate the process of submitting and evaluating authors' articles
• To take the articles that fall within the scope of publication of the journal to the preliminary evaluation stage, unless they contain a serious problem
• To examine the articles in terms of importance, originality, clarity of expression, contribution to scientific literature, journal publication policy, aims and objectives of the journal and to make positive or negative decisions according to these issues
• Providing explanatory and informative notifications and returns to authors
• Responding positively to authors' requests to withdraw their articles that are still under review
• Ensuring that the principle of blind refereeing (double-blinding method) works properly and that the evaluations are made in an unbiased manner
• Avoiding potential conflicts between authors and reviewers
• Ensuring that articles are fairly evaluated based on the intellectual content of the manuscript without regard to gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenship, political affiliation, values and paradigmatic orientation of the authors
• To ensure that reviewers compose their evaluation reports in a courteous, descriptive and constructive language
• To consider the objections of the authors to the reviewer and editor decisions/reports and to initiate a new evaluation process if deemed appropriate
• Ensuring the protection of authors' personal data
• To cooperate with the editorial board on whether the articles submitted to the journal should be sent to referees or not

Author Rights:

Author(s),

• The author(s) can identify reviewers to whom their article should not be sent due to conflict of interest and/or ethical reasons.
• The author(s) can withdraw the unpublished manuscript while it is under review.
• The author(s) can object to referee reports and editorial decisions.
• Due to material errors that occur during the publication process, the author(s) can request corrections (erratum) for problematic sections in their work published in the initial issue, or for information errors originating from them.

Relations with the reviewers

The duties and responsibilities of the editors towards the reviewers are as follows:

• Determining the reviewers in accordance with the subject of the article
• Providing reviewers with the information and guidance they will need during the evaluation phase
• Monitoring for conflicts of interest between authors and reviewers
• Encouraging reviewers to conduct their evaluations in an impartial, scientific, constructive and explanatory manner
• Responding to reviewers' questions about the journal's publication and ethical policies
• Reminding to reviewers regarding the evaluation time
• Keeping information about arbitrators confidential
• Taking the necessary steps to enrich the reviewer pool

Relations with the Editorial Board

The duties and responsibilities of the editors towards the editorial board are as follows:

• To hold periodic meetings with the editorial board for the development of publication policies and the journal
• To support the development of the journal by taking into account the feedback from the board
• Ensuring that board members are impartial
• Contacting the relevant board member about the evaluation of the candidate article according to the subject of the article
• To encourage the board to evaluate the articles impartially and independently within the framework of scientific criteria
• To cooperate with the editorial board on whether or not the manuscripts submitted to the journal should be sent to the referees

Relations with the journal owner and Publisher

The relationship between editors and publishers is based on the principle of editorial independence. All decisions taken by the editors are independent of the publisher and the journal owner.

Editorial and blind review processes

Editors are obliged to implement the blind review (double-blinding method) policies in the journal publication policies. In this context, editors should ensure that each article is evaluated fairly, impartially and in a timely manner.

Quality assurance

The editors are responsible for ensuring that each article published in the journal is published in accordance with the journal's editorial policies and international standards.

Protection of personal data

Editors are obliged to reject the study if there is no documented explicit consent of the individuals used in studies containing personal data. Editors are also responsible for protecting the personal data of authors, reviewers and readers.

Ethics committee, human and animal rights

Editors are responsible for ensuring the protection of human and animal rights in the articles evaluated and rejecting the article in the absence of ethics committee approval for the subjects used in the articles and permissions for experimental research.

Prevention against possible abuse and misconduct

Editors are obliged to take precautions against possible abuse and misconduct. It is the editors' responsibility to conduct a rigorous and objective investigation to identify and evaluate complaints about this situation, in addition as well as to share relevant findings on the subject. Editors have the obligation to reject the article if they encounter any misconduct (data falsification, fabricated data, failure to comply with ethical rules, plagiarism, image manipulation, citation manipulation, redundant publication, republication, unfair/gift authorship, undisclosed conflict of interest, failure to clearly indicate the contributions of the persons, institutions or organizations supported, etc.), even if there is ethics committee approval.

Ensuring academic integrity

Editors should ensure that errors, inconsistencies or misdirections in articles are corrected quickly.

Protection of intellectual property rights

Editors are responsible for protecting the intellectual property rights of all published articles and defending the rights of the journal and the author(s) in case of possible violations. In addition, editors should take necessary precautions to ensure that the content of published articles does not violate the intellectual property rights of other publications.

Constructivism and openness to discussion

Editors should take into account convincing criticisms of the articles published in the journal, show a constructive attitude towards these criticisms, and give the author(s) of the criticized studies the right to reply.

Complaints

Editors are obliged to carefully examine the complaints received from authors, reviewers or readers and giving them with clarifying and explanatory responses.

Political and commercial concerns

The owner of the journal, the publisher, and no other political or commercial factors influence the independent decision making of the editors.

Conflicts of interest

Editors assure that the publication process of the work is completed independently and impartially, taking into account any conflicts of interest between author(s), reviewers, and other editors.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Author(s) submitting an article to International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

• It is unethical to submit work to more than one journal at the same time. The author(s) should submit to the journal articles that has not been published anywhere before and has not been submitted anywhere for publication.
• The work submitted by the author(s) is expected to be original. The author(s) is required to cite and/or quote all the sources has used completely and accurately.
• Situations and relationships that may constitute a conflict of interest, if any, should be clearly stated.
• The author(s) should notify the journal editor or publisher if they notice an inaccuracy or error in their article under review, in the forthcoming issue, or in the published article, and cooperate with the editor in the correction or retraction process.
• Persons who did not contribute to the creation of the article should not be listed as authors.
• Author(s) should not request procedures such as adding or removing authors or changing the order of authors for an article for which the evaluation process has started.
• Author(s) should submit the expected data and information to the editorial board and scientific board in case raw data regarding their articles are requested within the framework of the evaluation processes.
• Author(s) must document that they hold the rights to use the data in their manuscript and have obtained the necessary permissions for research and analysis, or that they have acquired consent from participants.
• Author(s) must indicate that ethics committee approval has been obtained for research in which they collect data using quantitative or qualitative methods such as experiments, surveys, scales, interviews, observations, and focus groups that require ethics committee approval; the name of the ethics committee, the date of the decision, and the subject number of the article accepted for publication must be stated in the method section of the article; and the document showing the ethics committee decision must be uploaded to the system together with the article. In addition, information regarding the receipt of the informed consent/approval form in case reports must be included in the article.
• Ethics committee approval is not requested from the author(s) for review articles. However, in articles that do not require ethics committee approval, it should be stated in the method section of the article that ethics committee approval is not required.
• Author(s) should provide evidence that they pay attention to ethical principles during the data collection process (such as obtaining permission to use other people's documents such as scales, questionnaires, photographs). It should be stated in the articles that research and publication ethics and copyright regulations for intellectual and artistic works are complied with. If the research was conducted on human and animal subjects, it should be reported that the research was conducted in accordance with international declarations, guidelines, etc.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

Manuscripts submitted to International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) are evaluated by at least two referees with the principle of blind refereeing (double-blinding method). The ethical responsibilities expected to be followed by the referees evaluating articles in International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) are as follows:

• Reviewers should agree to evaluate only articles related to their area of expertise.
• Reviewers should evaluate articles based on the intellectual content of the article without being influenced by factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenship, political affiliation, values and paradigmatic orientation of the authors.
• If reviewers encounter any conflict of interest during the review process, they should decline to review the article and notify the situation to the editor.
• Reviewers should conduct their evaluations with impartiality and confidentiality.
• Reviewers should report to the editor any information that would lead to the rejection of the article (noticing that the article has been submitted to another journal at the same time, detecting plagiarism/slicing, etc.).
• Reviewers should prepare their evaluation reports using a courteous, explanatory, and constructive language. They should avoid personal comments containing hostility, insults and slander.
• Reviewers should destroy the manuscripts they evaluate in accordance with the principle of confidentiality. Referees may use the manuscripts they have reviewed only after publication.
• Reviewers should evaluate the manuscript they agree to evaluate in a timely manner and in accordance with the ethical responsibilities above.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

The publisher should act with the awareness of the following ethical responsibilities regarding the International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE):

• The publisher should accept that the responsibility for the evaluation and decision of the articles submitted to International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) lies with the editors.
• The publisher must retain ownership and copyright of each article published in International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE)) and keep a record of each published copy.
• The publisher should take measures against all forms of scientific misconduct, citation mongering and plagiarism against editors.
• The publisher must provide open, electronic and free access to the journal's information and articles on International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE)'s web page.

If You Encounter an Unethical Situation

If you encounter any behavior that does not comply with the above-mentioned ethical responsibilities of the editors, reviewers, authors, and publisher at International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE), or if you encounter an unethical situation regarding an article in the review process, in early view, or in a published article, please report it via e-mail to bayramtay@tayjournal.com.

Journal Policy

International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) is an international peer-reviewed academic journal published online in the fields of life science and social studies education.

Articles submitted to International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) are published in full text in English and extended abstract in Turkish.

International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) is published in one issues per year, provided that it is completed on the last day of December.

The evaluation process in International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) is carried out with the principle of blind refereeing (double-blinding method).

In International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE), an author can publish at most one article in one issue and an author can publish at most two articles in the same year.

International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) is a non-profit academic journal.

Article Evaluation Policy

Policies regarding the processes of submitting articles to International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE), evaluation and publication of submitted articles can be found in the Author Guide.

Open Access Policy

International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) is an open access journal and makes its content available directly to open access. The journal aims to contribute to the support, development and dissemination of science through open access policy and published content. International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) also supports the Budapest Open Access Initiative. In this context, the open access policies adopted by International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) can be found at https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read/.

All articles published in International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. This license grants you the right to copy and redistribute all published articles, datasets, graphics and appendices, provided that you cite the source. However, these materials may not be used for commercial purposes, nor may modified or reworked versions be distributed. 

Plagiarism Policy

Author(s) submitting a work to International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) acknowledge that their work contains no plagiarism and that sources are properly cited. Plagiarism is an ethical violation, regardless of whether it is intentional or not. It is not only unethical but also criminal and unacceptable to publish articles that are similar to other sources without citation. For this reason, as a requirement of its editorial policies, International Journal of Life Science and Social Studies Education (IJLSSSE) requires plagiarism check for all studies to be published. Plagiarism checking is carried out through software such as iThenticate©, Turnitin© and Intihal.net©. The similarity rate for the article should be less than 20% and the similarity rate for a source should be less than 3%. Nevertheless, it is in the best interest of the author(s) to scrutinize similarities above 1% for a source. The editorial board may ask the responsible author to correct the errors or decide not to publish the study in line with the report that emerges after the plagiarism check.