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Ethical Principles and Publication Policy
PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT
The publication processes of the Black Sea Journals are founded on the principles of producing, developing, and disseminating knowledge in an objective, transparent, and reliable manner through scientific methods. Peer-reviewed articles are essential components of this process, ensuring the rigorous application of scientific methodology and the maintenance of academic impartiality.
All stakeholders involved in the publication process—including the publisher, editors, authors, reviewers, and readers—are expected to adhere to the highest ethical standards. In this regard, the Black Sea Journals conducts its publication ethics and open access policies in accordance with the principles, guidelines, and best practices issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Council of Science Editors (CSE). In particular, the journal follows COPE’s Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, and requires strict compliance with ethical principles at every stage of the publication process.
Any form of unethical behavior, including data fabrication, falsification, or manipulation, will result in the rejection of the manuscript. In such cases, the author(s)’ affiliated institution(s) will be formally notified. The journal reserves the right to request raw data, analysis files, and related documentation from authors in line with editorial evaluations and/or reviewer reports in order to verify the integrity and reliability of the reported results.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PUBLISHER
The publisher of the Black Sea Journals is responsible for taking all necessary measures in cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, including fraud, plagiarism, or conflicts of interest arising from inappropriate collaboration with editors. These measures may include clarifying the situation, issuing corrections, retracting affected articles, or publishing statements of concern, as appropriate.
In cooperation with the editors, the publisher takes reasonable and effective steps to identify and prevent the publication of manuscripts in which research or publication ethics have been violated. Under no circumstances does the publisher encourage, support, or knowingly allow unethical publishing practices.
The Black Sea Journals is obliged to respond to all allegations or suspicions of unethical behavior related to submitted or published manuscripts raised by readers, reviewers, or editors. Cases of suspected plagiarism, duplicate, or redundant publication are evaluated by the journal. Where necessary, the journal may request an investigation by the relevant institution(s) or other appropriate authorities. All reported cases of unethical publishing behavior are subject to investigation, even if they are discovered years after publication.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE EDITORS
Editors are responsible for ensuring that all submitted manuscripts are evaluated through a timely, fair, and rigorous peer-review and editorial process. Editors bear full responsibility for the content published in the Black Sea Journals; therefore, the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript rests solely with the Editor.
Editors evaluate manuscripts based on their originality, scientific quality, clarity, and intellectual contribution. Editorial decisions are made independently and objectively, without discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, political philosophy, or any other personal or ideological considerations. When editors encounter suspected or inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct, they are obliged to raise concerns and take appropriate action promptly in accordance with ethical guidelines.
The Editor-in-Chief and members of the editorial team must treat all submitted manuscripts as confidential documents. Information related to a manuscript must not be disclosed to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisors, and the publisher, as required for the evaluation process.
Editors and members of the editorial board shall not use unpublished materials, data, or ideas disclosed in submitted manuscripts for their own research purposes without the explicit written consent of the author(s). Information or ideas obtained through the peer-review process must be kept strictly confidential and must not be used for personal or professional advantage.
Editors are responsible for requiring all authors and contributors to disclose any potential conflicts of interest that could influence the interpretation of their work. If conflicts of interest or ethical concerns are identified after publication, editors must ensure that appropriate actions are taken, including the publication of corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern, in line with established publication ethics standards.
ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF EDITORS AND SECTION EDITORS
The Editor-in-Chief and Section Editors are responsible for meeting the information needs of reviewers, authors, researchers, practitioners, and readers; providing feedback when necessary; and acting with transparency and clarity in matters requiring correction or explanation throughout the publication process. In deciding whether a manuscript should be published, the Editor-in-Chief and Section Editors give primary consideration to the originality of the work and its contribution to the scientific literature, the relevant discipline, and the readership of the journal.
When making editorial decisions, whether positive or negative, the Editor-in-Chief and Section Editors evaluate manuscripts based on their original scientific value, relevance to the journal’s scope and section, methodological validity and reliability, clarity of presentation, and alignment with the aims and scope of the journal. Manuscripts that do not present major deficiencies are advanced to the preliminary evaluation stage, and constructive reviewer recommendations are taken into account. Editorial decisions made by previous editors are revised only in cases where serious ethical, scientific, or procedural issues are identified.
The Editor-in-Chief and Section Editors implement the journal’s double-blind peer-review and evaluation policies, ensure the confidentiality of reviewer identities, and guarantee that all manuscripts are evaluated impartially, independently, and within a reasonable timeframe. The Editor-in-Chief assigns manuscripts to appropriate Section Editors, who in turn select reviewers based on their areas of expertise and support objective and independent evaluations.
For an unbiased evaluation process, the Editor-in-Chief and Section Editors carefully assess potential conflicts of interest among editors, reviewers, and authors. They continuously seek to expand and update the journal’s reviewer pool and prevent the use of reviews that fail to meet academic standards or lack scientific rigor. Editors ensure that all publication processes comply with the journal’s policies and guidelines, inform relevant parties of updates to these policies, and organize training activities when necessary.
The Editor-in-Chief and Section Editors maintain effective communication with all stakeholders involved in the publication process and hold regular meetings as required. They are responsible for protecting personal data contained in submitted and reviewed manuscripts, as well as safeguarding the personal information of authors, reviewers, and readers in accordance with data protection principles.
Editors pay particular attention to the protection of human and animal rights in submitted manuscripts. They require documented informed consent from study participants and verified approval from relevant ethics committees for studies involving human participants or experimental research. Manuscripts lacking the necessary ethical approvals are rejected. The Editor-in-Chief and Section Editors take appropriate action in cases of suspected misconduct, conduct objective investigations into complaints, and share relevant findings in accordance with ethical guidelines. They also ensure that errors, inconsistencies, or misleading statements in published articles are corrected in a timely manner.
Editors protect the intellectual property rights of published articles and defend the rights of both the journal and the author(s) in cases of infringement. They take necessary measures to ensure that published content does not violate the intellectual property rights of other works, including conducting similarity and originality checks. Constructive and substantiated criticisms of published articles are taken into account, and authors are granted the right to respond. Studies reporting negative or non-confirmatory results are also considered for publication, provided they meet scientific and ethical standards. Complaints submitted to the journal are carefully examined, and appropriate explanations are provided.
The Editor-in-Chief and Section Editors may not serve as handling editors for manuscripts authored by themselves, their family members, or their departmental colleagues, nor may they participate in editorial decisions regarding such submissions. In these cases, the manuscript is handled by an independent editor without any conflict of interest, and the evaluation process proceeds without the involvement of the conflicted editor.
Journal editors are obliged to investigate suspected cases of publication misconduct. To prevent issues such as duplication or plagiarism, a similarity report is automatically generated through the DergiPark system at the third stage of manuscript submission. The journal evaluates similarities at the level of full sentences and paragraphs, disregarding minor similarities in wording, terminology, or expressions. The overall similarity index (SI), excluding the Introduction, Materials and Methods, and References sections, must be below 30%. Manuscripts exceeding this threshold are rejected in accordance with COPE Retraction Guidelines. If plagiarism or serious ethical misconduct is identified after publication, the article is immediately retracted and removed from the journal’s website. In such cases, submissions from the relevant author(s) will not be considered for publication in the Black Sea Journals for a period of five years.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE REVIEWERS
Peer review supports editors in making informed editorial decisions and contributes to the improvement of manuscripts through constructive scholarly feedback. The Black Sea Journals emphasizes that all researchers who benefit from the scientific publication process share a collective responsibility to contribute fairly to the peer-review system.
Reviewers who consider themselves insufficiently qualified to evaluate a manuscript or who anticipate that they will be unable to complete the review within the required timeframe must promptly inform the editor and decline the review invitation.
Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not share, discuss, or disclose any information about the manuscript with others unless explicitly authorized by the Editor-in-Chief, and only under exceptional circumstances. This obligation of confidentiality also applies to individuals who decline a review invitation.
Reviews should be conducted objectively, impartially, and professionally. Personal criticism of the author(s) is inappropriate. Reviewers are expected to express their evaluations clearly, support their judgments with reasoned arguments, and provide constructive suggestions aimed at improving the quality of the manuscript.
Reviewers should identify relevant published studies that have not been cited by the authors and notify the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under review and other published works of which they are aware. Any claim that findings, arguments, or interpretations have been previously reported should be supported by appropriate citations.
Information or ideas obtained through the peer-review process are privileged and must remain confidential. Such information must not be used for personal, professional, or competitive advantage. Reviewers must not evaluate manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest arising from competitive, collaborative, financial, or other relationships with any of the authors, institutions, or organizations associated with the manuscript. Any potential conflict of interest must be disclosed immediately to the editor.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHORS
Authors are expected to make reasonable efforts to verify and validate all results submitted to the journal for publication and to confirm to the Editor that the data presented are accurate, authentic, and reliable. Research reports should provide a precise and transparent account of the work performed, together with an objective discussion of its scientific significance. Underlying data must be represented accurately, and manuscripts should include sufficient methodological detail and appropriate references to allow other researchers to replicate the study. Authors are required to disclose ethical aspects of their research, particularly when studies involve human or animal participants or the use of biological materials. Any form of fabrication, falsification, or knowingly inaccurate reporting constitutes unethical behavior and is unacceptable.
Authors may be requested to submit the raw data underlying their study for editorial evaluation and should be prepared to make such data publicly available where feasible. In all cases, authors are expected to ensure that research data remain accessible to qualified researchers for at least ten years after publication—preferably through institutional or subject-based repositories—provided that participant confidentiality is protected and legal or proprietary restrictions do not prevent data sharing.
Authors must submit only original works. If the ideas, data, or words of others are used, they must be properly cited or quoted. All publications that have significantly influenced the reported work should be acknowledged. Plagiarism in any form—including copying another author’s work, paraphrasing substantial portions without proper attribution, or claiming results obtained by others—is considered unethical publishing behavior and will not be tolerated.
Authors are responsible for properly acknowledging the contributions of others. Information obtained through private communications, correspondence, or discussions with third parties must not be used or disclosed without explicit written permission from the source. Likewise, information acquired through confidential roles—such as manuscript reviewing or grant evaluation—must not be used without the written consent of the original authors.
Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the study, the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data, and the drafting or critical revision of the manuscript. All listed authors must have approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication, and must be able to take public responsibility for its content. Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged in the “Acknowledgements” section, provided that their written consent has been obtained. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all eligible co-authors are included and that no inappropriate authors are listed.
In general, manuscripts describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to multiple journals constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Manuscripts that have been previously published as copyrighted material elsewhere may not be submitted. By submitting a manuscript, authors retain the copyright of their work; upon publication, they grant permission for its use under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows others to copy, distribute, adapt, and make commercial use of the work, provided appropriate credit is given.
Authors must disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest at the earliest possible stage, typically at the time of submission. Such disclosures should be included both in a conflict-of-interest statement and within the manuscript where appropriate. Conflicts may be financial (e.g., funding, grants, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, or patent arrangements) or non-financial (e.g., personal or professional relationships, affiliations, or beliefs). All sources of financial support for the research, including grant or project numbers where applicable, must be clearly stated.
If the research involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment with inherent or unusual hazards, these must be clearly identified in the manuscript. For studies involving human participants or animals, authors must confirm that all procedures complied with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that appropriate ethics committee approvals were obtained. Manuscripts must include statements regarding ethics approval and informed consent. The privacy and confidentiality rights of human participants must be respected at all times.
Authors are obliged to participate fully in the peer-review process and to cooperate by responding promptly to editorial requests for raw data, clarifications, documentation of ethics approval, informed consent, and copyright permissions. When revisions are requested, authors should address reviewers’ comments systematically and resubmit the revised manuscript within the specified timeframe.
If authors identify significant errors or inaccuracies in their published work, they must promptly inform the journal and cooperate in issuing corrections (errata) or retractions as appropriate. If such issues are identified by editors or third parties, authors are expected to provide evidence supporting the accuracy of the work or to assist in correcting or retracting the publication.
Authors should submit only research that has been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and that complies with all applicable laws, regulations, and ethical standards.
REPORTING CASES OF ETHICAL MISCONDUCT
If any behavior that violates ethical principles is identified involving the publisher, editors, section editors, reviewers, or authors of the Black Sea Journals, or if an unethical situation is encountered regarding a manuscript under evaluation, published online as early view, or already published, such cases should be formally reported to the journal.
All reports concerning ethical misconduct should be submitted via email to bsjagri@blackseapublishers.com. All notifications will be handled in accordance with the journal’s publication ethics policies and evaluated confidentially in line with internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
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