Ethical Policy - Turkish Medical Student Journal

Publishing Schedule

TMSJ is an independent, non-profit, double-blind peer-reviewed, open-access journal; which aims to publish articles of interest to physicians, scientists, and medical students. TMSJ is published three times a year, in February, June, and October by Trakya University.The language of publication is English. Correspondent authors of the articles should be a medical student.

Publication Ethics Policies

Human and Animal Rights

For the experimental, clinical, and drug human studies, approval by the ethical committee and a statement on the adherence of the study protocol to the international agreements (World Medical Association of Helsinki "Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects," amended October 2013) are required. In experimental animal studies, the authors should indicate that the procedures followed were by animal rights (Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals), and they should obtain animal ethics committee approval. The Ethics Committee approval document should be submitted to the Turkish Medical Student Journal together with the manuscript.

The approval of the ethics committee; a statement on the adherence to international guidelines mentioned above; and proof that the patient's informed consent is obtained should be indicated in the `Material and Method` section. These items are required for case reports whenever data/media could reveal the identity of the patient.

For persons under 18 years of age, please provide a consent form that includes both parents' signatures or of the person's legal guardian or supervisor.

Plagiarism and Ethical Misconduct

The iThenticate report of the manuscript must also be uploaded together with the manuscript while submitting to the Turkish Medical Student Journal. Depending on the type of article and the percentage of similarity score taken from each article, the overall similarity score is generally expected to be less than 20 or 25%.

Plagiarism: To republish whole or part of a content in another author's publication without attribution.

Fabrication: To publish data and findings/results that do not exist.

Duplication: Using data from another publication; this includes republishing an article in different languages.

Salamisation: Creating multiple publications by abnormally splitting the results of a study.

Data Manipulation/Falsification: Manipulating or deliberately distorting research data to give a false impression.

We disapprove of such unethical practices and of efforts to influence the review process with such practices as gifting authorship, inappropriate acknowledgements, and references in line with the COPE flowcharts.

Submitted manuscripts are subjected to automatic software evaluation for plagiarism and duplicate publication. Authors are obliged to acknowledge if they published study results in whole or in part in the form of abstracts.

Preprint Policy

Turkish Medical Student Journal does not consider preprint publications as prior publications. Authors are allowed to present and discuss their findings on a non-commercial preprint server before submission to Turkish Medical Student Journal.

Authors must provide the journal with the preprint server deposition of their article accompanying its DOI during initial submission. Preprints cannot be used as a reference in any publication in Turkish Medical Student Journal unless cited in a personal communication format, i.e., as an in-text reference (using preprint link, DOI, or both).

If the article is published in the Turkish Medical Student Journal, it is the responsibility of the authors to update the archived preprint and link it to the published version of the article. The preprint must be removed in the case of acceptance to leave only the final version online.

DUTIES OF PUBLISHER:

Handling of unethical publishing behaviour

The publisher will take all appropriate measures to modify the article in question, in close cooperation with the editors, in cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication, or plagiarism. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, disclosure, or retraction of the affected work in the most severe case. Together with the editors, the publisher will take reasonable steps to detect and prevent the publication of articles in which research misconduct occurs and will under no circumstances promote or knowingly allow such abuse to occur.

Editorial Autonomy

The Turkish Medical Student Journal is committed to ensuring the autonomy of editorial decisions without influence from commercial partners.

Scientific Misconduct

The Turkish Medical Student Journal’s publisher takes all appropriate measures regarding fraudulent publication or plagiarism.

DUTIES OF EDITORS:

Decision on Publication and Responsibility

The editor of the journal strives to meet the needs of readers and authors, and to provide a fair and appropriate peer-review process. The editor is also responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal should be published and guided by the policies subjected to legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor might discuss such policies, procedures, and responsibilities with reviewers while making publication decisions. The editor is responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication.

Objectivity

Articles that are submitted to the journal are always evaluated without any prejudice.

Confidentiality

The editor must not disclose any information about a submitted article to anyone other than editorial staff, reviewers, and publisher.

Conflicts of Interest and Disclosure

The Turkish Medical Student Journal does not allow any conflicts of interest among authors, reviewers, and editors. Unpublished materials in a submitted article must not be used by anyone without the express written assent of the author.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works

Authors are obliged to notify the journal's editors or publisher immediately and to cooperate with them to correct or retract the article if significant errors or inaccuracies are detected in the published work. If the editors or publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a material error or inaccuracy, the authors must promptly correct or retract the article or provide the journal editors with evidence of the accuracy of the article.

DUTIES OF REVIEWERS:

Evaluation

Reviewers evaluate manuscripts without regard for the origin, gender, sexual orientation, or political philosophy of the authors. Reviewers also ensure a fair, blind peer review of the submitted manuscripts for evaluation.

Confidentiality

All the information relative to submitted articles is kept confidential. The reviewers must not be discussed with others except if authorized by the editor.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

The reviewers have no conflicts of interest among authors, funders, editors, etc.

Contribution to editor

Reviewers help the editor make publishing decisions and may also assist the author in improving the manuscript.

Objectivity

Reviewers offer objective judgments and evaluations. The reviewers express their views clearly with appropriate supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers ought to identify a relevant published study that the authors have not cited. Reviewers also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

DUTIES OF AUTHORS:

Reporting Standards

A submitted manuscript should be original, and the authors ensure that the manuscript has never been published previously. Research data should be represented literally in the article. A manuscript should include adequate detail and references to allow others to replicate the study.

Originality

Authors must ensure that their study is entirely original. References to the literature should be appropriately cited.

Multiple Publications

Authors should not submit the same study to multiple journals. Simultaneous submission of the same study to more than one journal is unacceptable and constitutes unethical behaviour.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Acknowledgement to the workof others must be given. Authors should cite publications of relevance to their own study. All of the sources for the author’s study should be noted.

Authorship of a Paper

Authorship of a paper ought to be limited to those who have made a noteworthy contribution to the study. If others have participated in the research, they should be listed as contributors. Authorship also includes a corresponding author who is in communication with the editor of a journal. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors are included in a paper.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All sources of financial support should be disclosed. All authors should disclose if a meaningful conflict of interest exists in the process of forming their study. Any financial grants or other support received for a submitted study from individuals or institutions should be disclosed to the Editorial Board of the Turkish Medical Student Journal. The ICMJE Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form should be filled in and submitted by all contributing authors to disclose a potential conflict of interest. The journal's Editorial Board determines cases of a potential conflict of interest of the editors, authors, or reviewers within the scope of COPE and ICMJE guidelines.

Conditions that provide financial or personal benefit bring about a conflict of interest. The reliability of the scientific process and the published articles is directly related to the objective consideration of conflicts of interest during the planning, implementation, writing, evaluation, editing, and publication of scientific studies.

Financial relations are the most easily identified conflicts of interest, and it is inevitable that they will undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and the science. These conflicts can be caused by individual relations, academic competition, or intellectual approaches. The authors should refrain as much as possible from making agreements with sponsors in the opinion of gaining profit or any other advantage that restrict their ability to access all data of the study or analyze, interpret, prepare, and publish their articles. Editors should refrain from bringing together those who may have any relationship between them during the evaluation of the studies. The editors, who make the final decision about the articles, should not have any personal, professional, or financial ties with any of the issues they are going to decide. Authors should inform the editorial board concerning potential conflicts of interest to ensure that their articles will be evaluated within the framework of ethical principles through an independent assessment process.

If one of the editors is an author in any manuscript, the editor is excluded from the manuscript evaluation process. In order to prevent any conflict of interest, the article evaluation process is carried out as double-blinded. Because of the double-blinded evaluation process, except for the Editor-in-Chief, none of the editorial board members, international advisory board members, or reviewers is informed about the authors of the manuscript or institutions of the authors.

Our publication team works devotedly to ensure that the evaluation process is conducted impartially, considering all these situations.

Conflict of Interest

The declaration of the conflict of interest between authors, institutions, acknowledgement of any financial or material support, aid is mandatory for authors submitting a manuscript, and the statement should appear at the end of the manuscript. Reviewers are required to report if any potential conflict of interest exists between the reviewer and authors, institutions.

Appeals and complaints

Appeal and complaint cases are handled within the scope of COPE guidelines by the Editorial Board of the journal. Appeals should be based on the scientific content of the manuscript. The final decision on the appeal and complaint is made by Editor in Chief. An Ombudsperson or the Ethical Editor is assigned to resolve cases that cannot be resolved internally. Authors should get in contact with the Editorial Office regarding their appeals and complaints via e-mail at [email protected].

Website archiving

All of the electronic content (website, manuscript, etc.) is stored in three different sources. Content on a server is online and accessible to readers. A copy of the same content is preserved as a backup on other servers. Should a server fail, other resources can be brought online, and the website is expected to be available in 24-36 hours.

Abstracting/Indexing services

Our journal's Abstracting/Indexing services store essential information about articles. In addition, some of our journals’ Abstracting/Indexing services archive metadata about the article and electronic versions of the articles.In this way, copies of articles are presented to the scientific community through these systems as an alternative to journals.

Author Self-Archiving Policy

Abstract and citation information

Authors may reuse the Abstract and Citation information (e.g. Title, Author name, Publication dates) of their article anywhere at any time including social media such as Facebook, blogs and Twitter, providing that where possible a link is included back to the article on the Turkish Medical Student Journal website.

Accepted manuscript

The accepted manuscript is the final draft author manuscript, as accepted for publication by a journal, including modifications based on referees’ suggestions, before it has undergone copyediting, typesetting and proof correction. This is sometimes referred to as the post-print version. Authors of Open Access articles are free to post and distribute their links anywhere immediately upon publication.

Peer-Review Policy

Reporting Standards

Submission is considered on the conditions that papers are previously unpublished and are not offered simultaneously elsewhere; that authors have read and approved the content, and all authors have also declared all competing interests; and that the work complies with the ethical approval requirements and has been conducted under internationally accepted ethical standards. If ethical misconduct is suspected, the Editorial Board will act in accordance with the relevant international rules of publication ethics (i.e., COPE guidelines).

Editorial policies of the journal are conducted as stated in the rules recommended by the Council of Science Editors and reflected in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication. Accordingly, authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to adhere to the best practice guidelines on ethical behavior contained in this statement.

Submitted manuscripts are subjected to double-blinded peer-review. The scientific board guiding the selection of the papers to be published in the journal consists of elected specialists of the journal and, if necessary, selected from national and international experts in the relevant field of research. All manuscripts are reviewed by the editor, section associate editors, and at least two external expert reviewers.

Preservation of the Journal Content

Digital Archiving And Preservation Policy

Digital preservation is a set of processes and activities that ensure the retrieval and distribution of information now available in digital formats to guarantee long-term, perpetual access. The preservation policy includes the following measures:

Website archiving

Abstracting/Indexing services

Author Self-Archiving Policy

Abstract and citation information

Accepted manuscript

Copyright and Licensing

By citing the author and the journal at the same time, without any profit-making motive, and only for educational purposes, the readers can copy the article without the permission of the copyright holder. By signing the Copyright Agreement Form, authors retain the copyright of their work and agree that the article, if accepted for publication by the Turkish Medicla Students Journal will be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).

Turkish Medical Student Journal is an open access publication, and the journal’s publication model is based on Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) declaration.All published content is available online, free of charge at turkmedstudj.com. The journal’s content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International License. Under this Open Access license, you as the author agree that anyone can copy, distribute or reuse the content of your article for non-commercial purposes for free as long as the author and original source are properly cited. The authors agree to transfer the commercial rights to the Turkish Medicla Students Journal when the article is accepted for publication.

Free-of-Charge Policy

No fee is charged from the authors during the submission, evaluation and publication process. Journal practices, ethical rules, technical information and necessary forms are specified on the journal's web page.

The manuscripts must be submitted via the Manuscript Manager online article submission system represented on the journal website.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

Turkish Medical Student Journal adopts the WAME recommendations on ChatGPT and Chatbots related to scientific publications:

Chatbots cannot be authors
Authors should be transparent when chatbots are used and provide information about how they were used
Authors are responsible for the work performed by a chatbot in their paper (including the accuracy of what is presented, and the absence of plagiarism) and for appropriate attribution of all sources (including for material produced by the chatbot)