Ethical Rules

Mesopotamia Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (hereafter: M-JIS) is a peer-reviewed, academic journal that publishes original, scholarly articles. This document outlines the ethical responsibilities of the publisher, editor and field editors, reviewers and authors of M-JIS. All stakeholders are expected to follow these ethical principles.

It is of great importance that all parties involved in the publication process (authors, readers and researchers, publisher, referees and editors) comply with ethical principles. M-JIS adheres to national and international standards on research and publication ethics. It complies with the Press Law, the Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works and the Directive on Scientific Research and Publication Ethics of Higher Education Institutions. M-JIS has adopted the International Ethical Publishing Principles published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). It also undertakes to comply with the decisions of the Turkish Editors' Workshop.

• Press Law(National Legislation)
• Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works (National Legislation)
  • Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive(National Legislation)
  • Transparency and Best Practice Principles in Academic Publishing (International Criteria)
  • Turkey Editors' Workshop Decisions (National Criteria)

Studies Requiring Ethics Committee Permission:

• All kinds of research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from participants using questionnaires, interviews, focus group work, observation, experimentation, interview techniques.
• Use of humans and animals (including material / data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,
• Clinical studies on humans,
• Research on animals,
• Retrospective studies in accordance with the law on protection of personal data

 Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

The publisher ensures that the M-JIS editor and field editors act independently in their editorial decisions in all processes from article acceptance to publication. The publisher or any external agent cannot make a request contrary to editorial independence or interfere with the publication process. The publisher guarantees the intellectual property and copyright of every article published in M-JIS. Besides, it is obliged to provide a record of every published article. For each article, the publisher is responsible for providing information about the material for which copyright is to be observed, in the Article Information field. If there is a copyrighted material in the article, a petition must be received from the author and registered in the system. The publisher undertakes to provide permanent and free access to all articles published in M-JIS in accordance with the Open Access principle.  The publisher cannot request any pecuniary and non-pecuniary provisions from the authors throughout the publication. The publisher takes the necessary measures for archiving and protecting the online content. The publisher, together with the editors, is obliged to take the necessary precautions in case of any scientific misconduct and plagiarism. If an ethical pitfall is noticed, it should be overcome immediately; if not possible, solutions like publishing a correction or withdrawing the related article can be applied.

 Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

It is the editors' responsibility to decide which of the articles submitted to M-JIS will be published. Submitted articles are subject to preliminary evaluation by the assistant editor and chief editor in terms of plagiarism, compliance with the scope of the journal and publication principles, taking into account academic qualifications. The referee process of the articles whose preliminary evaluation is completed is initiated by the field editors. As a result of the decision of the referees, it is decided whether the articles will be published or not, based on the academic adequacy of the articles. In the evaluation process of the articles submitted to M-JIS, the characteristics of the referee and the author such as gender, ethnicity, religious belief, political thought, and the institution they work for are not taken into consideration. Any private information about the articles sent to M-JIS is not shared with anyone other than the author(s), referees, assistant editors, editorial board and publisher. Even after the article is published or rejected, M-JIS acts in accordance with the confidentiality policy. Editors cannot use the information contained in a study submitted to M-JIS in their own research without the express written permission of the author. Likewise, they cannot use the information or ideas obtained from peer review for their own benefit. Articles should not be sent to referees who may have a conflict of interest on the subject. The articles whose preliminary evaluation is completed are sent to the referee evaluation without delay. The decisions of the referees are notified to the authors without delay, so that the authors make the desired corrections. Referees are selected from among the most competent names in accordance with the subject of the article. In the process of determining the referee, it should be observed whether there is a conflict of interest between the author and the referees. Care should be taken that the author and the referees are not from the same institution or department. The principle of blind review must be followed and the information of the referees must be kept confidential. In addition, care should be taken that there is no personal information about the author in the article file during the submission of the articles to the referees. Efforts should be made to continuously update and expand the referee pool. When reporting the reasons for rejection to the author, a language that is not offensive and condescending should be used. If ethical complaints about a published article are submitted, the necessary investigation is carried out even if it has been a long time since the publication date. The article author is contacted and informed about the complaints and allegations. If, as a result of the investigation, it is determined that there is a violation of the ethical rules, a correction note is published stating that there is an error, inconsistency or misdirection regarding the publication. If ethical complaints about a published article are submitted, the necessary investigation is carried out even if it has been a long time since the publication date. The article author is contacted and informed about the complaints and allegations. If, as a result of the investigation, it is determined that there is a violation of the ethical rules, a correction note is published stating that there is an error, inconsistency or misdirection regarding the publication.

Ethical Responsibilities of Referee

The referee evaluation is at the center of the academic publishing process. Referees assist the author in the development of the article through editorial communication. Due to the double-blind peer-review system, they cannot directly contact the authors. Evaluation forms and reports are sent to the authors via the journal system through the editors. A referee to whom a request for article evaluation is sent should inform the editor as soon as possible whether he/she will act as a referee for the relevant study. If the referee does not know enough about the subject, if the subject of the article is out of his/her field of expertise or if he/she cannot complete the evaluation in due time due to time constraints, the referee should inform the editor by stating the reason and request to withdraw from being referee. The referees should complete their evaluations within the time determined by the journal and should not delay the process. All information regarding the articles sent to the referees for evaluation should be kept confidential by the referees. Without editorial authorization, the article content should not be shown to others and should not be discussed with others. The privacy policy also covers the referees who refuse to evaluate because they have obtained the title and summary information. Referees make their evaluations objectively. Criticism of the article should be made objectively and in a balanced way. Criticism should be directed towards the article; personal criticism of the author should not be made. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting evidence. When rejecting the article, the referees should act with principles and truth, and clearly report their reasons. Referees should make their evaluations in a constructive and courteous manner. If the referees have identified the citations that are not cited in the article, they are obliged to inform the author. If the referees notice that there is a similarity or overlap between the article they are evaluating and a previously published study, they should inform the editor. Reviewers should not agree to review if they have any collaborative links with the author whose article they are assigned to evaluate and should inform the editor about the situation. Referees cannot use all or part of the articles sent to them for evaluation in their own research without the express written permission of the author. Referees cannot discredit studies that do not refer to their own work and cannot force the author to cite these studies if they have their own work on the subject of the article.

 Ethical Responsibilities of the Authors

The author of the original article should accurately and clearly state how his work was done and its importance, and present the results of his work in an objective way. The article should be detailed enough to allow other researchers to carry out similar studies and the sources that can be used should be specified. The author should make sure that his articles are completely original and that if he has used other works in his article, he is fully and accurately citing and quoting. Plagiarism in any way is contrary to publishing ethics and is unacceptable. The author should be able to make the raw data of his research publicly available if requested for editorial review or peer review. The author cannot simultaneously submit his article for publication to more than one journal. It may be possible to republish articles previously published in another journal, provided that certain conditions are met. In this case, the editor should explain that the work has been previously published in another journal and should refer to the journal in which the first publication was published. The author should indicate the sources that were influential in the determination of the studies. Information obtained as a result of personal interviews should not be used without the permission of the source. All sources used in the study process should be specified. Persons listed as article authors should be limited to those who contributed personally to all processes in the preparation of the article. If the article has more than one author, one of them should be designated as the "responsible author" and this author should be in contact with the editor and conduct the correspondence. If there are any material and moral conflicts of interest that may affect the results and interpretations of the study, the author should state them during the submission of the article. The author is obliged to immediately notify the editor and make corrections when he notices a significant error in the article he has published.