Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

• Author(s) must ensure the accuracy and truthfulness of the data used in the study; keep records of research processes and procedures neatly; and provide the relevant raw data and/or information, in case it is required by the editorial and scientific boards.
• Authors need to ensure that their manuscript has not been published elsewhere or has not been accepted for publication in any other peer-reviewed journal.
• People who have not contributed to the study at the intellectual level should not be indicated/assigned as authors.
• Authors have to follow the related national and international rules and regulations, if their studies include animal and/or human subjects (for example, WMA Helsinki Declaration, PHS Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, The EU Directive on the Use of Animals); to prove that the necessary permissions and approvals are provided; to respect the privacy of subjects/participants.
• If the manuscripts submitted to be published are subject to conflicting interests or relations, these must be shared with the editor and the publisher. If it is seen necessary, provide an annex or error proclaim or withdraw the manuscript.
• During the peer-reviewing process, authors might be required to provide the raw data they used in their studies to the Editorial Board. So, they are expected to share the relevant data with the Editorial Board and to keep safe all relevant data at least for five years.
• Author(s) bears the responsibility to inform the editor of the journal or publisher if they happen to notice a mistake in their study which is in the early release or publication process and to cooperate with the editors during the correction or withdrawal process.

Note: In accordance with the decision of the ULAKBIM (Turkish National Academic Network and Information Centre), all manuscripts submitted to JIRTE, which use data provided by human subjects/participants, are required to ensure that they have already gone under an investigation and gained the relevant Ethics Committee’s approval. The name of the Ethics Committee, the date of the decision, and the relevant decision number should be stated on the cover page, methods section, and the last page of the manuscript. In order not to harm the blind reviewing processes, this information should only be included in the manuscript in its last version after its acceptance for publication. However, the Ethics Committee Approval letter should be sent to jirtejournal@gmail.com. The authors are also required to provide evidence (ie, getting permission from the relevant persons or bodies, when using questionnaires, scales, photos, or documents developed by others or belonging to others) that they obeyed the ethical rules and regulations during the data collection processes. Further, it must also be stated in the manuscripts that the authors followed the relevant publication ethics and copyrights policies. If the study includes human and animal subjects, it must be stated that the research was conducted in accordance with international guidance, rules, regulations, and standards. The authors are not required to submit an Ethics Committee approval if they only submit a compilation study. In case of this, it must be stated on the first and last pages of the manuscripts and in the methods section that the current study does not require an Ethics Committee approval. The manuscripts including case reports should also provide the information that an informed consent form was read, approved, and signed by the participants.

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of the Editor

The editor and field editors of JIRTE should hold the following ethical responsibilities that are based on the guides "COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" published as Open Access by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). These can be accessed on the link below: https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf)

• While fulfilling editorial duties and responsibilities, adopting balanced and objective behaviors; and approaching the authors fairly without discriminating against anyone on the grounds of her/his gender, religious belief, political standpoint, ethnic background, or nationality.
• Evaluate the manuscripts sent to JIRTE on the basis of the “manuscript submission guidelines”, the significance of the study and its originality, and if she/he decides to reject a manuscript after the editorial evaluation, inform the authors of the rationale behind this decision clearly and objectively. Informing authors and allocating the necessary time for amendment, if she/he decides that a manuscript needs a thorough revision as a result of several typesetting, punctuation, writing, and layout errors as well as some problems related to the referencing system.
• Taking the necessary cautions and assessing the demands from both sides, if there is a conflict of interests.
• Assessing and evaluating the works submitted to JIRTE on the basis of their content, without providing privilege to any of them. 
• Ensuring that all manuscripts go through a blind peer-reviewing process and the authors do not know anything about the reviewers nor do the reviewers have any information related to the authors.
• Handling sponsored research or studies on special topics in the way that all other manuscripts go through.
• Supporting the authors’ freedom of expression.
• If the authors demand information about their manuscripts, carefully inform them about the processes and state of their manuscripts without breaching the rules and regulations related to blind peer-reviewing processes. 
• Continuously updating the manuscript template presenting and explaining what has been expected from the authors.
• Ensuring that all the published papers include the dates of sending and acceptance.
• Endeavoring to improve the quality of the journal and contribute to its development.
• If there is a complaint about breaching an ethical principle, take the necessary action in accordance with JIRTE’s relevant policies and procedures. Providing the authors the necessary opportunities to answer the complaints addressed to their manuscript or to defend themselves, and imposing the relevant sanctions fairly and objectively.
• Inviting the reviewers to express that they do not have any conflict of interest with the author(s) of a manuscript before starting to review it.
• Renewing and expanding the number of reviewers while keeping their areas of expertise or specialties in mind.
• Excluding those reviewers who do not fulfill their duties on time or provide feedback and comments being impolite and lacking quality.
• Rejecting a manuscript that is not appropriate to JIRTE’s aims and scope.
• Finding and assigning new members for the Editorial Board, who have the potential to contribute to its development.
• Informing the new members of the Editorial Board in relation to JIRTE’s manuscript submission guide; explaining to them what is expected from a member of the Editorial Board, and informing them about their responsibilities.
• Reviewing the critics/criticism about the journal and answering them, if it is seen necessary.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Reviewers

The fact that all manuscripts are reviewed through "Blind Double Review" has a direct influence on the publication quality. This process ensures confidentiality through objective and independent review. The review process at JIRTE is carried out on the principle of double-blind review. Neither the reviewers know and/or contact the authors directly, nor do the authors have any information related to the reviewers. The reviews and comments are conveyed through the journal management system. In this process, the reviewer's views on the evaluation forms and full texts are assigned to the author(s) by the editor. Therefore, the reviewers doing review work for JIRTE are supposed to bear the ethical responsibilities listed below. Reviewers must;

• In order to assist the editor in decision-making procedures, agree to review only those works in their subject of expertise and review the manuscript sent them fairly, objectively, and on time.
• Fill in the relevant ‘Reviewer Evaluation Form’ and ensure that any information related to her/his (the reviewer) identity has not been reflected in the form. Indicating her/his decision in respect of whether the manuscript should be accepted for publication or not along with the justification of this decision.
• Review the manuscript objectively and only in terms of its content and ensure that nationality, gender, religious and political beliefs, and economic apprehension do not influence the review.
• Rigorously review a manuscript in an unbiased and confidential manner and provide relevant feedback to improve its quality.
• Review the manuscript in a constructive and kind tone, and avoid making personal comments including hostility, slander, and insult. If it is seen that the reviewers’ comments do not have a scientific quality, they might be invited to revise their assessment and feedback.
• Review only the content of a manuscript objectively.
• Protect the privacy of information provided by the editor or the author(s) and destroy the manuscript after the review processes.
• Inform the editor of the journal if they think that they encounter a problem that may harm the double-blind review process and decline to review the manuscript during the review process.
• Dispose of the manuscripts they have reviewed in accordance with the principle of confidentiality after the review process. Reviewers can use the final versions of the manuscripts they have reviewed only after publication.
• Be aware of the potential conflict of interests (financial, institutional, collaborative, or those between the authors or related to other relationships), and warn the editor to withdraw the relevant manuscript from the review process.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

• Alike all other stakeholders, the publisher also has to obey the ethical principles and behave accordingly.
• The publisher bears all the responsibility to take precautions against scientific abuse, fraud and plagiarism.
• The publisher protects the intellectual property rights of all the articles published in JIRTE and holds the responsibility of keeping a record of each published product.
• The publisher accepts that the editor and editorial board are entitled to make all the decisions related to reviewing, editorial, and publication processes.
• All stakeholders should not hesitate to contact the publisher if they see or recognize any unethical conduct or behavior.

Plagiarism Policy

İntentionally or not, plagiarism means breaching research ethics. Publishing a piece of work having similar or the same content as other studies without citing them is ethical misconduct as well as an offense against the law.  The editorial board has the right to act in accordance with COPE’s rules and regulations in case of any claim related to a manuscript having plagiarism, referencing manipulation, and/or data forgery. The authors are required to send their plagiarism reports to jirtejournal@gmail.com when they submit their manuscripts to JIRTE. The manuscripts having correspondences with other studies over 25% will be sent back to their authors without the initiation of the peer-review policy. The authors may submit their manuscripts after ensuring that the correspondence report of their respective manuscripts shows less than 25% similarity.

Misconduct of Scientific Research and Publication Ethics

• Plagiarism: Using other persons’ original thoughts, methods, data, or products without citing the original sources or presenting another person’s work as one’s own partially or as a whole;
• Forgery: Using data that does not actually exist or being distorted;
• Distortion: Distorting, spoiling, or corrupting research records or data; Claiming that some tools or materials have been used in the research that are not actually being utilized for the study. Altering, distorting, or shaping the research results to fit in the interests of those persons or institutions supporting the research;
• Duplication: Using the same research data in more than one piece of work;
• Slicing: Dividing the results of research into several pieces that violate its integrity of it and then publishing them as a separate research paper;
• Undeserved authorship: Indicating those persons as authors who did not actively contribute to the production of the manuscript or not indicating the ones that actually contributed to the study in question. Changing the order of the author names inappropriately and unnecessarily;
• Not indicating/including the relevant information about persons/institutions/organizations supporting the research and their support;
• Citing those dissertations/theses or papers that have not yet been submitted or published;
• Not following the ethical rules and regulations and/or not obtaining the necessary permissions before conducting research involving human and/or animal subjects. Not respecting patients’ rights, giving harm to animals’ health and ecological balance;
• The misuse or abuse of resources, places, means, and tools have been provided/allocated for the research;
• Proclaiming misleading/fallacious information related to scientific research and publications.

Transfer of the Copy Rights

• The manuscripts send to JIRTE for publication should not be published or sent for publication elsewhere. During the process of manuscript submission, the authors are required to declare that it has not been published or submitted for publication by any other means. Otherwise, the authors will be responsible for the consequences.   
• The authors are expected to transfer the copyrights to JIRTE while submitting their studies. This transfer agreement comes into force after the acceptance of the manuscript for publication. 
• The authors may continue to have the rights to publishing the content of the manuscript on their personal websites, or in their institutions’ open access archives; they may produce copies of the manuscript for personal use, and they may use its content in their other works in par tor as a whole by citing it aptly.
• While using tables, figures, and other kinds of verbal and/or visual materials published within the content of a manuscript either in paper-based or in electronic format, the authors are required to obtain permission from the copy rights holder. The authors are obliged to legal, financial, and penal responsibilities related to this issue.
• Authors planning to submit a manuscript to JIRTE are supposed to fill in the “Copy Rights Transfer Agreement”. Then sign it with the original signature, scan the signed form and send it back to JIRTE through email: jirtejournal@gmail.com.

Conflict of Interests

• Matters in which persons or groups benefit economically or personally may also cause a conflict of interests. The reliability of scientific research and published papers is partly related to objectively handling the conflicts of interests in the processes of planning, applying, writing, assessing, revising and publishing them.
• Financial relations might include the most easily defined conflicts of interests, which may inevitably influence the reliability of the journal as well as the authors in a negative way. , These conflicts may arise from various issues including inter-personal relationships, academic competition, or intellectual approaches. The authors may want to avoid from those sponsors, either commercial or non-profit ones, that may restrict access to all study data or propose to interfere the processes of data analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, publication and etc. 
• In order to prevent conflict of interests, the editors may try not to assign certain people as reviewers of certain manuscripts submitted by certain authors The editor giving the final decision about a manuscript should ensure that she/he does not have a personal or financial relationship with the relevant author(s).
• In order to make the reviewing processes independent of any unethical conduct, the authors are expected to inform the editorial board in case of a potential conflict of interests.
• The editorial board of JIRTE promises to consider all these possibilities and strive to make the reviewing process as objective as possible.

Open Access Policy

Aiming to support the idea of accessing information in the easiest way, JIRTE adopts open access policy and supports the idea of requiring peer-reviewed journals to become open access appearing in the Budapest Open Access Initiative signed on September 12, 2012. Thus, the open-access policies adopted by the editorial board of JIRTE can be found at http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/boai-10-recommendations.

Budapest Open Access Initiative defines the concept of “open access” as [peer-reviewed works’] “… free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.” In thinking of sharing knowledge/information in the expansion of scientific developments, open-access policies promise a great potential for researchers and readers. Based on this perspective, JIRTE invites its readers to freely access and use its published works by referring to their sources and authors. The readers do not need to obtain permission from the authors or the publisher.

Creative Commons

A Creative Commons license means that material with copyrights may freely be accessed and used by other parties. If an author wants to share her/his work with others, providing them to make changes or amendments in its content, she/he uses a CC license.

All articles published by JIRTE are licensed with “Creative Commons Attribution License (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International CC BY-NC-ND)”. This license entitles all parties to use a scientific work for a non-profit purpose under the condition of providing references.

Open access is an approach that eases interdisciplinary communication and encourages cooperation among different disciplines. Therefore, JIRTE contributes to field of education and teacher training by providing more access to its articles and a more transparent review process.

The publication processes of JIRTE are executed in accordance with the manuals of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), National Information Standards Organization (NISO, Council of Science Editors (CSE), and European Association of Science Editors (EASE).

The Processes of Reviewing and Publishing Manuscripts

The reviewing process of the manuscripts sent to JIRTE proceeds following these steps:

1. The manuscript is reviewed by the Editor to see whether its aims, subject, content, and style of writing fits the requirements of JIRTE (Maximum 10 days). The manuscript is approved by the Editor, and send to Field Editor. Other manuscripts not approved by the Editor send back to their authors/owners for revision and resubmission
2. The examination/review of the Field Editor results in the decision of either sending the manuscript to reviewers or returning them back to their authors/owners for revision (Maximum 10 days).
3. The selection processes of referees are based on expertise and experience in the relevant field. The referees are given 20 days to review a manuscript sent to them.  
4. If a reviewer thinks that she/he cannot complete the reviewing process within the given time, she/he can ask the Editor for extra time or let the Editor know that she/he is not being able to review the manuscript due to various reasons, such as the shortage of time. Doing these things help the Editor assign new reviewers without losing too much time.
5. If a reviewer cannot review the manuscript assigned to her/him within the given scope of time, she/he is sent a reminder e-mail with an additional 10 days for completing the reviewing process. If she/he does not return the reviewed manuscripts within the additional time, that manuscript may withdraw from her/him. After then, it is assigned to another referee.
6. If there is a divergence of opinion between the two reviewers (one accepting the manuscript and the other rejecting it), the field editor examines the review reports, compares and contrasts the reviewers’ critics and viewpoints, as well as their reasoning to arrive at a decision. 
7. If the Field Editor may not arrive at a decision after examining the reviewer reports, then the manuscript is assigned to a third reviewer.
8. The decision for a manuscript is supposed to be given within the first 90-120 days. Then the authors are informed about the decision. The accepted papers are to be published in the following issue of JIRTE.

Publication Fee Policy (Free of Charge)

JIRTE does not require any subscription or publication fee or any other type of payment for accessing and/or using electronic information sources.  

Update Date: 13.08.2022