Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

Ethical principles and rules are prepared according to the guidelines of the 'Committee on Publication Ethics - COPE (https://publicationethics.org/)'.

Our journal is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). This licence permits other authors to cite and use your work for non-commercial purposes and provided that your work is cited.

Our journal adopts the ethical principles based on the guidelines prepared by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).

The manuscripts submitted to the journal for publication must not have been published in another journal before, presented at scientific meetings but not published in full or submitted to any other journal simultaneously for publication.

Manuscripts submitted to the journal are reviewed by an editor and at least two referees in a double-blind peer-review process. In the submitted manuscripts and at any stage of the evaluation process, the manuscript can be examined for plagiarism by using appropriate analysis tools (such as ithenticate).

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Persons who have not contributed to the article should not be listed as authors. In the event that information or raw data about the manuscript is requested from the author(s) during the evaluation process, the expected information should be submitted to the Editor. The author(s) should document that the rights to use the data they use in their articles, the permissions related to the research-research, or the approval of the participants on whom they conducted research have been obtained.

Authors should inform the editor and the editorial board when they detect an error in their work and should co-operate for the correction or withdrawal process.

The author(s) should indicate the name of the ethics committee, the date and number of the decision on the first and last page of the candidate article and in the method section, and upload the document showing the decision of the ethics committee to the system with the application of the article for research requiring data collection by quantitative or qualitative methods such as experiment, questionnaire, scale, interview, observation, focus group study. In addition, information on the receipt of the informed consent form in case presentations should be included in the article.

The 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 carried out on human and animal subjects, it should be reported that the research was carried out in accordance with international declarations, guidelines, etc.

Ethics committee approval is not requested from the author(s) for review articles. However, in articles that do not require an ethics committee decision, it should be stated on the first and last page of the article and in the method section.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors are specified in the COPE guidelines. https://publicationethics.org/authorship

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers should only accept to evaluate articles related to their field of expertise.

Reviewers should conduct the evaluation with impartiality and confidentiality. In accordance with this principle, they should destroy the articles they have reviewed after the evaluation process and use them only after publication. Nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political beliefs and commercial concerns should not impair the impartiality of the evaluation.

When reviewers realise that there is a conflict of interest, they should refuse to evaluate the article and inform the editors.

Reviewers should evaluate the manuscript in a constructive manner in accordance with the rules of academic etiquette; they should avoid personal comments containing insults and hostility.

Reviewers should evaluate the manuscript they accept for evaluation within the deadline.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers are specified in the COPE directive. https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors, Deputy Editors and Field Editors

The editor is required to comply with the ethical responsibilities listed below in the 'COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors' (COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf)) and 'COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors' (COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (https://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf)) published by the 'Committee on PublicationEthics - COPE (https://publicationethics.org/)'.

General Responsibilities: The editor is obliged to endeavour to improve the quality of the journal and contribute to its development. The editor is required to support the freedom of expression of the authors.

Relations with Readers: The editor should ensure that the sections of the journal where peer review is not required (letters to the editor, invited papers, conference announcements, etc.) are clearly indicated. The editor should endeavour to ensure that the articles published are compatible with the knowledge and skills of the readers of the journal.

Relations with Reviewers: The editor should ask the referees to evaluate the articles in accordance with their knowledge and expertise. Thus, it should be ensured that the articles are appropriately evaluated by experts in their fields. The editor is obliged to require the referees to state that they have no conflicts of interest regarding the article before evaluating an article. The editor should provide the referees with all necessary information about the peer review process and what is expected of the referees. The editor should ensure that the peer-review process is conducted in a double blind review process and should not disclose authors to reviewers and reviewers to authors. The editor should evaluate reviewers based on their timeliness and performance. The editor should create a database of reviewers and update the database according to the performance of the reviewers. The editor should remove reviewers who make rude and unqualified comments or return late from the reviewer list. The editor should constantly renew and expand the referee list according to the referees' areas of expertise.

Relations with Authors: The editor should continuously update the publication and writing rules and the sample template to the authors about what is expected from them. The editor should evaluate the manuscripts submitted to the journal in terms of the journal's editorial rules, the importance and originality of the work, and if he/she decides to reject the manuscript during the first submission process, he/she should clearly and impartially communicate the reasons to the authors. In this process, if it is decided that the article needs to be revised in terms of grammar, punctuation and/or spelling rules (margins, proper referencing, etc.), the authors should be informed about this and they should be given time to make the necessary corrections. Manuscripts should include the dates of submission and acceptance for publication. When authors request information about the status of their manuscripts, the authors should be informed about the status of their manuscripts in a way that does not disrupt the double blind review process.

Relations with the Editorial Board: The editor should inform the new members of the editorial board about the publication and writing rules and explain what is expected of them. The editor should communicate the most up-to-date version of the publication and writing rules to the members of the editorial board. The editor should evaluate the members of the editorial board and select members who will actively participate in the development of the journal to the editorial board. The editor should inform the members of the editorial board about their following roles and responsibilities

To support the development of the journal, To write reviews related to their areas of expertise when requested, To review and improve the rules of publication and writing, To fulfil the necessary responsibilities in the operation of the journal.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

The publisher accepts that the decision-maker in the process of publishing the article and the refereeing process is the responsibility of the editor. The publisher provides open, electronic and free access to the journal on the journal's web page.

Reporting the Situation that Does Not Comply with Ethical Principles

In case of any unethical behaviour of editors, referees, authors or any unethical situation related to an article in the evaluation process, in early view or published in Mehes Journal, it should be reported to editor@mehesjournal.com via e-mail.

Article Evaluation Process

The manuscript evaluation process takes place in three parts: preliminary evaluation, referee evaluation and preparation for publication.

During the pre-evaluation process, important points such as whether the work of the authors is prepared in accordance with the journal format, whether the publication has the necessary ethical documents, whether the valid information (e-mail, institution, contact) of the authors of the publication is complete, and whether this information is given if the study has been presented before. The publication pre-evaluation process takes 2-4 weeks. Rejected publications are notified to the referee in writing via the journal's publication acceptance system along with the reason for rejection. For publications that are not rejected, the author is not contacted, the referee process is started directly.

Within 4 to 8 weeks, the referees are selected from the authors who have studies in the relevant field of study, with priority given to the authors in the journal database. The referee evaluation process is carried out by correspondence in the publication acceptance system. The log records of the relevant correspondence are recorded in the journal database. While the result of the evaluation form filled out by the referees is sent to the author as positive/negative, the suggestions and criticisms of the referees are communicated to the authors through the editor via the system. Referee and author information is kept confidential from the parties in accordance with the blind review rules.

During the process of examining the study and making it suitable for publication, the final format is created and sent to the author / authors for final control. Within 3 working days, the approved publications are first printed in early view. As soon as the issue in which the publication will be printed is opened, the publication is published in pdf format as open access in full print.

Article Withdrawal Policy

Authors have the right to withdraw the publication by objection. This is done immediately during the pre-evaluation process. Publications in the peer review process are withdrawn after the referee evaluations are completed and the reasons presented are notified to the referees and the withdrawal process is completed. Publications whose publication process has been completed cannot be withdrawn.