Ethical Principles and Publication Policy
Ege Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (EgeJFAS) is an open access, international and peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original research articles, short communications, technical notes, reports and and reviews in English (preferred) and Turkish. There is no page charges. The journal is electronic and can be accessed at http://www.egejfas.org/.
EgeJFAS has adopted the principle of publishing high quality and reliable original scientific articles In order to achieve this, it follows and implements ethical standards, resources and policies that are internationally accepted and published as open access.
The Ethics Statements of EgeJFAS are based on the principles and guidelines that were revised and approved by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org/) on March 7, 2011. Follows and implements the principles that editors, reviewers and authors should follow under the guidance of "Best Practice Guidelines" (https://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf) (https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf).
Authors should upload their articles electronically via the following address: https://dergipark.org.tr/en/journal/266/submission/step/manuscript/new
Manuscripts should not be copied elsewhere or submitted to another journal for parallel evaluation. Only original manuscripts are considered. It is evaluated with the understanding that the content is approved by all co-authors. Manuscripts are pre-checked by the technical editor for compliance with the submission and writing rules announced on the official website of the Journal. If a deficiency or error is detected, it is sent back to the author. After this process, the editor-in-chief review the manuscript. If the editor-in-chief thinks that the manuscript is not suitable for the EgeJFAS, it can rejected without forwarding to the section editor.
At least 3 external and independent reviewers who are experts in their fields are appointed. Each manuscript is reviewed through a double-blind peer-review process (identities of neither authors nor peer reviewers are disclosed). Editor-in-chief/editors take the final decision (Accept, Reject) of manuscript in line with the reviewer opinions. All responsibility for the scientific content and expressions in the published article belongs to the authors. In accordance with the publication policies of EgeJFAS, the plagiarism report for the relevant manuscript is requested to be uploaded to the submission system by the responsible author.
Ethical Responsibilities of Editors
Editors of EgeJFAS must comply with the following ethical responsibilities:
- Follows up-to-date processes to increase the quality of manuscripts and applies them when necessary.
- Evaluates the effects of the Journal policies on the attitudes of authors and reviewers.
- Revises the policies when necessary to encourage responsible behavior and prevent possible abuse.
- Does not compromise ethical standards. Has the right to reject the manuscript if there is any doubt about the ethical requirements and / or absence of the ethics committee reports.
- In order to increase the impact factor of the Journal provides publication of high quality manuscripts.
- Publish submission and acceptance dates of articles.
- Refer to the guidance of COPE flowcharts in cases of suspected misconduct or disputed authorship (http://publicationethics.org/flowcharts)
- Impartial towards the authors. Evaluates the content and originality of the manuscript without considering color, language, religion, gender, political opinion, citizenship, ethnic origin.
- Editors' decision to accept or reject a manuscript for publication based on the importance, originality and clarity of the manuscript, the validity of the study (research), and the relevance of the journal to its field of activity.
- Unless serious problems are detected on manuscript, editors do not reverse their decision to accept submissions.
- Follows the manuscript evaluation process and ensures that it is completed on time.
- Editor-in-Chief strongly recommends that editors recommend a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions.
- Reviewers who carry out their evaluations in a poor quality and inappropriately, do not return or incomplete teh process on time are removed from the Journal reviewer list.
- Updates the reviewer list according to those with high performance.
- Journal editors do not share the content of the submitted manuscripts with third parties.
- Ensures appropriate and competent reviewers are selected for the manuscripts, and pays attention that there are no conflicts of interest between the authors and the reviewers
- Provides detailed information to reviewers about the process, monitors their performances, pays attention to the high quality and meticulousness of the review.
- Reviews the reviewers’ comments, if there are no unpleasant comments such as insults, all comments are sent to the authors anonymously.
- Decides by considering the comments and decision (accept, reject, minor revision, major revision) suggestions of the referees. However, it should not be forgotten that the final decision is with the editor-in-chief.
- Editors do not make any decisions about works written by their family member. The usual procedure applies for this type of manuscript. The process continues without the relevant author being included in the evaluation process in the journal.
- When there is a change of editor, the new editor does not overturn a decision made by the previous editor, unless a significant situation.
- The journal owner / publisher does not interfere with the editors in the evaluation processes and decisions of the manuscripts.
Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers
Reviewers are expected to comply with the ethical responsibilities stated below:
- Reviewers agree to review the manuscript in line with their field of expertise; otherwise, they should inform the editor immediately.
- Those who will be reviewers for the first time can read the reviewer information modules of Publons (https://publons.com/community/academy/).
- When the reviewer invited by the editor, if there is no very important reason, expected to accept.
- The manuscript should be evaluated objectively, impartially, fairly and confidentially.
- Review and contents information of manuscript should not be shared with anyone or contacted the authors directly.
- If the reviewers notice any conflict of interest, they should contact the editor. In the event of a conflict of interest concerning them, they should refuse to review the relevant article.
- The contents of unpublished manuscripts should not be used for personal interests. However, published articles can be used with proper citation.
The evaluation of the manuscripts should be made by checking their compliance with the following basic criteria:
The study should be of unique value in terms of its contribution to science.
The title of manuscript should be compatible with the content.
The abstract should reflect the research and the conclusion reached.
The Materials and Methods section should be well planned for the study purpose.
Statistical methods and analysis should be suitable and sufficient for the study.
If there are animal and human experiments, it should comply with ethical standards and detailed information should be given in the Materials and Methods section.
Results should be explained correctly according to material and method.
Figures and Tables should be arranged in a convenient and understandable way.
In the discussion section, all findings should be discussed and interpreted with reputable and up-to-date references.
The conclusion that emphasizes the importance of the study should be presented in a clear and understandable way.
Any support and contribution used in the study should be included in the acknowledgment section.
References should be up to date and relevant to the subject of the study.
The manuscript submission type (research article, review, short communication, technical note, report) should be compatible with the submitted article.
- It is expected to review the revised manuscript again and check whether the corrections have been made or not.
- The reviewer evaluations should be scientific and constructive, and the style of the suggestions should be made in a polite and courteous language.
- The reviewers should be very careful about originality and plagiarism. In case of doubt, the section editor and editor-in-chief should be informed immediately.
- When the reviewer suggests citing his / her own works, it should really be directly related to the subject of the manuscript and personal interests should not be considered.
- Reviewers can make suggestions on the acceptability of the manuscript. However, they should know that the final decision is with the editors and the editor-in-chief.
Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
EgeJFAS assumes that all authors contribute to the article, know the content and agree to submit it to the journal. It is recommended to follow the principles below when submitting an article to the journal.
Authors should refrain from misrepresenting their work that would damage the trust in the journal and themselves, and that are not suitable for scientific studies and the professionalism of authorship. Scientific and ethical responsibilities belong to the authors.
Authors accept and declare that the manuscript is in accordance with the following publishing principles and ethical rules of EgeJFAS.
- The manuscript must be original. The results of the obtained data should be objectively discussed and the importance of the work should be revealed.
- The manuscript should not contain fabricated or fraudulent data.
- The manuscript should not be sent to more than one journal for simultaneous review.
- The manuscript should not be published in another scientific journal before. Be careful about self-plagiarism and be transparent when re-using the materials.
- A study should not be divided into parts (salami-slicing) and sent to different journals or to the same journal.
- Authors should not present any text, figures, tables or data belonging to others as author's own (plagiarism). The journal may screen for plagiarism.
- If authors have used the words or works of others, they should make sure that it is properly cited.
- The articles should refer to appropriate literature supporting the subject of study.
- Unnecessary citations to the submitted articles published in the same journal, excessive self-citation, coordinated efforts to cite among several authors, and other citation manipulations should not be made.
- When citation manipulation is detected, the article is rejected.
- Authors should cite the original article rather than an article that cites an original work.
- Authors should ensure that the citation is the correct source supporting the article.
- Authors should not cite the source they have not read.
- Citing peer-reviewed sources is recommended.
- All author names and address information (institution, e-mail, orcid) should appear on the submission. All information should be up to date and accurate.
- All authors on the submission should have contributed adequately to the scientific work, should be able to share responsibility and accountability. There should be no conflict of interest between the authors.
- Before the manuscript is submitted, the responsible author must have received submission permission from all co-authors.
- Relevant documents or data (raw data, samples, records, etc.) should be available to submit when requested from the author to verify the validity of the results presented in the manuscript.
- When a revision is requested from the authors in line with the reviewers’ opinions, should be completed on time. They should definitely give a reasoned opinion for suggestions that do not agree.
- In order to facilitate and speed up the reviewer checks, the corrections made on the manuscript should be listed.
- On the manuscript submitted for correction, revision should only be made in line with the editorial and reviewer opinions. Apart from the necessary corrections, no changes (new information, figures, tables, etc.) should be made on it. However, if a very important error is detected by the author, the editor-in-chief / editor should be informed immediately.
- Authors have an obligation to correct if they detect an important error in their published article. The author(s) should contact the journal and explain the error. This could be a correction or a retraction.
- If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud and manuscript is under evaluation, it may be rejected. If the article is published online, either an erratum is published with the article or retraction of article is provided. For the both situation is presented an erratum or retraction note. The institution of the author(s) is informed.
- Any financial support provided for the support of the research and/or the preparation of the article should be disclosed. All kinds of support received from people other than article authors should be stated in the execution of the research and/or during the preparation / writing of the article, language spelling check, data collection and analysis, article writing.
- Participants who contributed to the manuscript but are not meet all criteria for authorship level should be shown in the acknowledgment section.
Changes to Authorship
At the time of submission, the author (s) information, the corresponding author and the order of the authors must be correct. Changing the author order, adding/deleting is not allowed during the revision phases. However, in rare cases, it can be applied when detailed and acceptable reasons are presented. All authors must be agree with any addition, removal or rearrangement. After the article is accepted, no changes can be made to the authorships.
Animal /Human Rights and Ethics
If the submitted article involves the use of animal and human subjects, authors should prove that they have carried out the manuscript studies in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations and they have received the approval of the authorized institutional committee (s). Copies of permissions must be provided when the journal on request. A separate explanation should be made for this subject in the Material and Method section of manuscript.
All animal and human experiments conducted in the manuscript research should comlpy with to the ARRIVE guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU, The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) and National Ethics Committee for Animal Experiments (HADMEK, HADYEK). If there is a human study in the article, it must comply with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki).
Situations that require “Ethics Committee Permission Certificate”:
Research in which humans and animals (including material / data) are used for experimental or other scientific purposes,
Retrospective studies in accordance with the law on protection of personal data,
Ethics committee approval is required for all kinds of research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from participants using questionnaires, interviews, focus group work, observation, experimentation, and interview techniques.
- For the use of scales, questionnaires and photographs belonging to others, permission is also requested from the owners and to be specified.
- Authors are recommended to comply with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and the IUCN's Red List Index of Threatened Species Convention for Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
- If chemicals with high hazards were used in the study, declarations of conformity are required and should be clearly defined in the manuscript.
- Authors accept the conditions stated in the "Copyright Notification Form".
Declaration of Conflicts of Interest / Competing Interests
Authors should declare in their cover letter / editor if they have financial or personal relationships with any organization / organization or person that may adversely affect their work.
In the event of a potential conflict of interest, the authors must state, "The following financial interests / personal relationships may be potential competitive interests", if there is no conflict of interest, "The authors declare that there is no known financial or personal conflict that may affect their research (article)".
Submission declaration and verification
Corresponding author should send the following cover letter sample to the editor-in-chief when submitting a manuscript article.
“I am sending the manuscript titled "...." to be published in the Journal of EgeJFAS. All persons listed as authors have read, contributed to the preparation of the manuscript and confirmed the originality, validity, legal suitability and interpretation of the data and agreed to be submitted to the Journal. Apart from the listed authors, no other person contributed significantly to the preparation of the manuscript. The manuscript has not been sent elsewhere for publication, or published elsewhere in whole or in part in English or any other language. There is no copying, slicing or plagiarism in it. We agree that publishers and editors will not be responsible for any consequences arising from the use of the information in this manuscript or for any mistakes made by us. By sending the article attached on behalf of the co-authors, I agree to all the terms stated above.”
Content Availability
Articles are open access and free to use. Published articles are archived permanently. Proper citation is required when using an article published in the journal.
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