Refereeing Process and Guide

Article Review, Evaluation and Publication Process

Preliminary Review and Plagiarism Screening: The work is reviewed by the editor for compliance with journal publication principles, academic writing rules and the APA System, and the similarity report uploaded by the author (intihal.net or iThenticate) is checked. The similarity rate must be less than 20%.

Field Editor Review: The work that passes the preliminary review and similarity check stage is reviewed by the relevant field editor in terms of problematic and academic language and style.

Academic Evaluation Process: The work that passes the field editor's review is submitted for evaluation to at least two referees who have a doctoral thesis, book or article on the subject. The referee process is conducted confidentially within the framework of double-blind peer review. The referee is requested to either indicate their opinion and views on the work they have reviewed in the text or to justify them with an explanation of at least 150 words on the online referee form. The author is given the right to object and defend their views if they disagree with the referee's opinions. The field editor facilitates mutual communication between the author and the referees, maintaining confidentiality. If both referee reports are positive, the work is submitted to the Editorial Board with a recommendation for publication. If one of the two referees expresses a negative opinion, the work is sent to a third referee. Works can be published with the positive decision of at least two referees. Translated articles are sent to language and subject matter experts for evaluation in terms of accuracy, appropriate use of subject terminology, and language. Translations that receive a negative opinion from the experts are not published. The decision to publish book and symposium reviews and doctoral thesis abstracts is made based on the evaluation of the relevant subject editors.

Revision Stage: If the referees request revisions to the text they have reviewed, the relevant reports are sent to the author and they are asked to revise their work. The author submits their revisions to the field editor, indicating them in red.

Field Editor Review: The field editor checks whether the author has made the requested corrections to the text.

Reviewer Review: The reviewer who requested corrections checks whether the author has made the requested corrections to the text.

Turkish Language Check: Papers that have gone through the peer review process are reviewed by the Turkish Language Editor, and if necessary, corrections are requested from the author.

English Language Check: Papers that have passed the Turkish language check are reviewed by the English Language Editor, and if necessary, corrections are requested from the author.

Publication Board Review: Articles that have undergone technical, academic, and linguistic reviews are examined by the Publication Board, and a final decision is made regarding their publication status. If any members raise objections, the Board makes a decision by majority vote.

Typesetting and Layout Stage: The typesetting and layout of the works approved for publication by the Publication Board are completed, making them ready for publication.

Submission of Data to National and International Indexes: Printed copies of the published issue are sent to reference libraries in the UK and abroad within 60 days at the latest; article metadata is sent to the relevant indexes within 15 days.

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of Editors

The editors of our journal adhere to the following ethical duties and responsibilities based on the ‘COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors’ and ‘COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors’ published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as open access.

Our editors are responsible for every publication in our journal. In this context, they have the following roles and responsibilities:

• Striving to meet the information needs of readers and authors,
• Ensuring the continuous development of the journal,
• Implementing processes aimed at improving the quality of the works published in the journal,
• Supporting freedom of thought,
• Ensuring academic integrity,
• Continuing work processes without compromising intellectual property rights and ethical standards,
• Demonstrating openness and transparency in publications regarding issues requiring correction or clarification.

Relationships with Authors

Our editors' duties and responsibilities towards authors are as follows:

• Our editors make positive or negative decisions based on the importance, original value, validity, clarity of expression, and the aims and objectives of the journal.
• Our editors accept works that are suitable for publication for preliminary evaluation, provided they do not have any serious problems.
• Our editors do not disregard positive referee recommendations unless there is a serious problem with the work.
• New editors do not change decisions made by previous editors regarding works unless there is a serious problem.
• The ‘Blind Refereeing and Evaluation Process’ is strictly adhered to, and our editors strive to prevent any negative issues that may arise during the defined processes.
• Our editors have prepared a ‘Writing Guidelines’ document, which is published on our website and contains detailed information on all topics that authors may expect from them. This author guide is updated at specific intervals.
• Our editors provide authors with clear and informative notifications and feedback.

Relations with Reviewers

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

• They select reviewers appropriate to the subject of the work.
• They are responsible for providing reviewers with the information and guidance they need during the evaluation process.
• They must ensure that there is no conflict of interest between authors and reviewers.
• They keep the identities of referees confidential in the context of blind refereeing.
• They encourage referees to evaluate the work in an impartial, scientific, and objective manner.
• They evaluate referees based on criteria such as timely feedback and performance.
• They develop practices and policies to enhance the performance of referees.
• They take the necessary steps to dynamically update the pool of referees.
• They prevent rude and unscientific evaluations.

Relations with the Editorial Board

Our editors ensure that all editorial board members proceed in accordance with publication policies and guidelines. They inform editorial board members about publication policies and keep them up to date with developments.

Furthermore, our editors:

• Strive to ensure that editorial board members evaluate submissions impartially and independently.
• Assign submissions to editorial board members based on their areas of expertise.
• Maintain regular interaction with the editorial board.
• Organise meetings with the editorial board at regular intervals to discuss publication policies and the development of the journal.

Editorial and Blind Peer Review Processes

Our editors are responsible for implementing the ‘Blind Peer Review and Evaluation Process’ policies outlined in the journal's publication policies. In this context, our editors strive to ensure that each work undergoes a fair, impartial, and timely evaluation process.

Quality Assurance

Our editors are responsible for ensuring that every article published in the journal complies with the journal's publication policies and international standards.

Protection of Personal Data

Our editors are responsible for ensuring the protection of personal data relating to subjects or images in the evaluated studies. They are obliged to reject studies unless the explicit consent of the individuals used in the studies is documented. Furthermore, editors are responsible for protecting the personal data of authors, reviewers, and readers.

Ethics Committee, Human and Animal Rights

Our editors are responsible for ensuring that human and animal rights are protected in the studies under review. They are responsible for rejecting studies where ethical committee approval for subjects used in the studies is lacking or where permissions for experimental research are absent.

Ethics Committee Decision: The TR Index Journal Evaluation criteria have been updated to be implemented from 2020, and the articles related to the ethics committee permission required for scientific research have been detailed. The ‘documents and information required for studies requiring ethics committee approval’ specified under the heading of ethical rules are not expected to be applied to studies submitted, under evaluation, or accepted in previous years. It will be mandatory for publications whose process began in 2020.

* TR Index Committee Decision: "Although TR INDEX requires ethics committee approval from 2020 onwards, there are studies that require ethics committee approval in all circumstances from the perspective of scientific research ethics. When using a scale, permission must be sought from the scale owners, consent must be obtained from the participants, and ethical committee approval must be obtained. Articles should include explanations regarding these situations.‘

QUESTION: Is ethical committee approval required for all articles?

No. The criteria specify ’articles requiring Ethical Committee Approval".

Research requiring ethics committee approval is as follows:

1. Any research conducted using qualitative or quantitative approaches that requires data collection from participants using surveys, interviews, focus group studies, observation, experiments, or interview techniques.
2. The use of humans and animals (including materials/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,
3. Clinical research conducted on humans,
4. Research conducted on animals,
5. Retrospective studies in accordance with the Personal Data Protection Act,

Additionally;

Indicating that an ‘Informed Consent Form’ has been obtained in case presentations,

Obtaining and indicating permission from the owners for the use of scales, questionnaires, and photographs belonging to others,

Indicating compliance with copyright regulations for the ideas and works of art used, is required.

QUESTION: Should retrospective Ethics Committee Approval be obtained for publications produced from studies and theses completed in previous years?

Retrospective ethics committee approval is not required for articles that use research data from before 2020, are produced from master's/doctoral studies (this must be stated in the article), and were submitted to the journal for publication in the previous year, accepted but not yet published.

QUESTION: Do these TR Index rules impose restrictions on publications made outside universities?

No. Researchers who are not members of a university can also apply to Ethics Committees in their regions.

Precautions Against Possible Abuse and Misuse of Position

Editors are responsible for taking precautions against possible abuse and misuse of their position. In addition to conducting a thorough and objective investigation into the identification and evaluation of complaints regarding such situations, sharing findings related to the matter is also among the editor's responsibilities.

Ensuring Academic Publication Integrity

Our editors are responsible for ensuring that any errors, inconsistencies or misleading judgements in the works are corrected promptly.

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights

Our editors are responsible for protecting the intellectual property rights of all published articles and defending the rights of the journal and author(s) in the event of possible infringements. Furthermore, editors are responsible for taking the necessary measures to ensure that the content of all published articles does not infringe on the intellectual property rights of other publications.

Constructiveness and Openness to Debate

Our editors must:

• Consider convincing criticisms of works published in our journal and adopt a constructive attitude towards such criticisms.
• They should grant the authors of criticised works the right to respond.
• They should not ignore or exclude works with negative results.

Complaints

Our editors are obliged to carefully examine complaints from authors, referees or readers and respond in an informative and explanatory manner.

Political and Commercial Concerns

No political or commercial considerations on the part of the journal owner, publisher, or any other party shall influence the independent decisions of our editors.

Conflicts of Interest

Our editors must ensure that the publication process is completed independently and impartially, taking into account any conflicts of interest between authors, reviewers, and other editors.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

The evaluation of all works through ‘Double-Blind Peer Review’ directly affects publication quality. This process ensures objectivity and independence in the evaluation of publications. The evaluation process in our journal is conducted according to the principle of double-blind peer review. Reviewers cannot communicate directly with authors; evaluations and comments are communicated through the journal management system. In this process, the evaluation forms and referee comments on the full texts are communicated to the author(s) via the editor. In this context, referees evaluating work for our journal are expected to have the following ethical responsibilities:

• They should only accept to evaluate work related to their area of expertise.
• They should evaluate impartially and confidentially.
• If they believe they have a conflict of interest during the review process, they should decline to review the work and inform the journal editor.
• In accordance with the principle of confidentiality, they should destroy the works they have reviewed after the review process. They may only use the final versions of the works they have reviewed after they have been published.
• They should review objectively and only in relation to the content of the work. They should not allow nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or commercial concerns to influence their evaluation.
• They should evaluate in a constructive and polite manner. They should not make derogatory personal comments that are hostile, defamatory, or insulting.
• They should evaluate the work they have agreed to review in a timely manner and in accordance with the above ethical responsibilities.