Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES AND PUBLICATION POLICY

Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University Journal of Mediterranean Basin and African Civilisations operates under the international standards of publication ethics.

All works are licensed by Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University under the Creative Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.tr). The license allows users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, search, or share links to the full text of articles, or use them for any other purpose, provided that appropriate credit is given, a link to the license is provided, and information is provided if changes have been made.

The Journal of Mediterranean Basin and African Civilisations follows the publication ethics standards 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). COPE Publication Ethics Guidelines, "Code Of Conduct And Best Practice Guidelines For Journal Editors" and "Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing" have been adopted by the journal editorial board.



Transparency Principle

The operation of the journal is transparent and subject to predetermined procedures.

The Journal of Mediterranean Basin and African Civilizations (AKAF), the scientific publication of Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University Mediterranean Basin and African Civilizations Application and Research Center, started its publication life as an international e-journal in 2019. The Journal of Mediterranean and African Civilizations, which has historical and cultural relations with Turkey, includes original scientific studies at national and international levels on the language, history, literature, art, and culture of Mediterranean and African countries.

While research and research-based studies from all disciplines that can be evaluated in the context of social and human sciences on the Mediterranean Basin and African civilizations are evaluated; Turkish, and English articles, translations, reviews, compilations, and book introductions from the fields of language, literature, translation, history, folklore, sociology, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, archaeology, art history, etc. and the relations of these fields with other human sciences are included.

The journal is published twice a year at the end of June and December or the latest in the first week of the following month. The system is always open for article acceptance. The article acceptance process can be accessed through the Dergipark system, where relevant departments and individuals can receive information at any time and at any stage.

Authors submit their articles to the journal through the Dergipark system. Dergipark is an organization that provides technical support for double anonymous peer-review academic journals published in Turkey by offering electronic hosting and editorial process management services. For detailed information on Dergipark, see https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/page/about

All processes of the Journal, including correspondence, are carried out through Dergipark's highly secure and constantly updated system. Article processes, files, and correspondence are archived through Dergipark.

As a rule, articles whose publication process is completed are published in the first subsequent issue. However, the Editorial Board may decide to publish some articles in the next issue, taking into account the number of articles or article topics. In this case, the authors will be informed.

Open Access Policy and Copyright
AKAF is an open-access journal. The authors own the copyright of their work published in AKAF and their work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.tr). The Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. However, all or part of the journal or studies cannot be reproduced without written permission. In addition, it cannot be cited in inappropriate proportions and quoted without citing the source.

There is no fee for submissions to the Journal of Mediterranean Basin and African Civilizations, and articles are published through the DergiPark system with an open-access policy. The language of the articles submitted to the journal can be Turkish and English. You can download the copyright form from here.

Authors' Responsibilities
Submitted articles should be in accordance with the purpose and scope of the journal. It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that the articles comply with scientific and ethical rules. Problems such as plagiarism, duplication, false authorship/ denied authorship, research/data fabrication, article slicing, copyright infringement, and concealment of conflict of interest are considered unethical behaviors. If ethical violations are detected after publication, the article will be removed from the system.

Articles submitted to the journal must be edited according to the journal rules. Articles that are not organized according to the spelling rules are rejected without going through the editorial evaluation and referee process. In this case, the author must create a new application after the necessary correction.

The author uploads the printed Ethical Declaration Form to the system with a wet signature stating that the article is original, has not been published elsewhere before, and is not under evaluation for publication elsewhere, in another language.

The author is obliged to obtain the plagiarism report of the article and upload it to the system as an additional file. In studies with 20% or more similarity, the editorial board has the right to correct or reject according to the content of the similarity. The similarity rate of the article should not exceed 20%. Plagiarized articles will be returned. The responsibility for this belongs to the author.

Articles can be submitted through the Article Tracking System at https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaf from the personal page entered with an e-mail address and password, and the referee process can be followed from the same page.

Copyrighted material (e.g. tables, figures, or large quotations) is used with appropriate permission and acknowledgment. The work of other authors and contributors or the sources used are used appropriately and cited in the references.

Individuals who did not contribute directly to the content academically and scientifically in the creation of the work are not listed as authors. The order of authors' names reflects the joint decision of the authors. All authors must indicate the author ranking on the Copyright Agreement Form. After the form is filled in and signed, a digital copy must be uploaded to the system at the application submission stage.

For translated works, written permission for publication must be obtained from the author or the person or institution holding the right to publish, and this permission document must be attached to the application document.

All individuals who did not meet the criteria for authorship but contributed to the study (those who provided technical support, helped with the writing or just provided general support, financial and material support) are listed in the "acknowledgments/information" section.

Authors declare any financial relationships, conflicts of interest, and competition of interest that have the potential to influence the results of the research or the scientific evaluation.

If an author identifies a significant error or inaccuracy in a published article, he/she has the responsibility to immediately contact and cooperate with the editor for correction or retraction of such inaccuracies.

Authors must be able to demonstrate that they have the rights to use the data used, the necessary permissions for the research/analyses, or that the consent of the subjects of the experiment has been obtained.

Authors cannot have their work in the submission process of more than one journal at the same time. Each submission can be initiated following the completion of the previous submission.

It cannot be proposed to change the author's responsibilities (such as adding an author, changing the author order, or removing an author) of a study whose evaluation process has started.

The fact that the submitted articles are derived from a thesis or presented as a paper at a congress, symposium, or meeting is not an obstacle to publication. For article submissions derived from such events and studies, it should be conveyed as a note to the editor which event the study is derived from. This should be indicated as a footnote under the article.

Submissions submitted at least 30 days (1 month) before the publication of the next issue may be considered in the next issue depending on the journal's publication availability.

The scientific, content, linguistic, and legal responsibility of the articles published in the journal belongs to the authors.

Research Ethics
In the Journal of Mediterranean Basin and African Civilizations, where international standards are observed in research ethics, compliance with ethical rules is the responsibility of the author and international research ethics must be adopted and observed.

- In human research (surveys, interviews, experiments, etc.), Ethics Committee Approval must be obtained from the institutions. Studies without Ethics Committee Approval are not accepted to the journal. In these studies, the Ethics Committee Certificate must be uploaded to the system together with the study.

- In human research, it should be stated in the method section that "informed consent" is obtained from the participants.

- In human research, participants should be informed about the purpose, method, and risks, if any. Participation in studies should not be compulsory and should be voluntary.

- If the studies will be conducted in any institution or organization, it must be documented that the necessary permissions have been obtained from this institution.

- If there is a conflict of interest in the research, it should be stated.

- The consent of the legal guardian of children, those under guardianship, or those with a confirmed illness must be obtained and documented when necessary.

Responsibilities of Editors and Co-Editors
The editor is the person who manages the entire publication and refereeing process from the receipt of the article to publication and is responsible for the quality and performance of the journal.

The editor-in-chief is responsible for the cohesion and coordination between editors and associate editors and for the quality of the publication. As a rule, editors deal with articles related to their area of expertise.

Editors evaluate articles independently of the ethnicity, gender, nationality, religious beliefs, and political philosophy of the authors.

Each article has an editor and co-editor, who are also visible to the authors through the Dergipark system. The distribution of tasks is made according to the expertise of the editors and co-editors and this distribution is predetermined. It is possible to make a distribution other than this rule for reasons such as workload and leave of absence.

The editors evaluate the articles submitted to the journal in terms of quality, content, and contribution to the field and decide whether the article should be included in the publication process. At this stage, the article may be rejected without going through the process.

Co-editors check whether the article files are complete and complete and whether the articles comply with the journal's spelling rules; they ensure that the authors make the necessary arrangements.

Co-editors direct the articles whose preliminary review is completed to the relevant field editor for referee assignments.

Co-editors communicate with the authors and ensure that the process progresses quickly by providing the necessary information and reminders to the editors.

After the initial evaluation by the journal editorial office, the articles are sent for double-blind peer review by the editors in a fair manner. Articles that are deemed suitable for evaluation are sent to two national/international referees for evaluation.

Editors do not allow conflicts of interest between authors, editors, and referees. If the peer review is not completed in a reasonable time, the editors may contact the referee and request that the process be accelerated or appoint a new referee.

Editors monitor the performance of the referees they appoint in terms of content, speed, and style.

At the end of the referee review, the editors evaluate the referee reports. The Board of Editors meets and decides whether to accept the article, send it to a third referee or reject it. The reason for the rejection decision and the referee reports are sent to the author.

All information regarding the articles submitted during this process is kept confidential until the article is published.

The editor-in-chief, with the author's knowledge, may publish an error page or make corrections when necessary.

The final decision on the publication of the article belongs to the editorial board.

Responsibility of Referees
- Referees should objectively review the articles submitted for review.

- Referees should accept or reject the articles sent to them for evaluation in accordance with their field of research, and inform the editors of their decision as soon as possible to continue the journal's process.

- Referees should ensure the confidentiality of the information in the articles they accept for evaluation. If they detect any copyright infringement or plagiarism in the articles, they should report this to the editorial board with justifications and keep a report on this situation.

- When referees agree to evaluate an article, they declare that they will evaluate the article within the time period allotted to them. Otherwise, they are expected to inform the editors.

- Referees are expected to justify their decisions. This is important both for the development of academic studies and for the author to know the reasons for the final decision.

- Referees are expected to write their decisions in detail in the 'note to the author' section of the evaluation form.

Article acceptance continues for the June 2024 issue.