Journal of Theological Academy adheres to national and international standards in research and publication ethics. It complies with Press Law, Intellectual and Artistic Works Law and Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive. The Journal of Theology Academy 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 Turkey Editors' Workshop.
1. Press Law
2. Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works
3. Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive
4. Transparency and Best Practice in Academic Publishing
5. Turkey Editors' Workshop Decisions

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Correction, Retraction, Expression of Concern
Editor should consider publishing correction if minor errors that do not effect the results, interpretations and conclusions of the published paper are detected. Editor should consider retraction if major errors and/or misconduction that invalidate results and conclusions are detected. Editor should consider issuing an expression of concern if there is evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors; there is evidence that the findings are not reliable and institutions of the authors do not investigate the case or the possible investigation seems to be unfair or nonconclusive. The guidelines of COPE and ICJME are taken into consideration regarding correction, retractions or expression of concern.

Plagiarism Action Plan and Journal Precautions
The journal respects intellectual property and aims to protect and promote the original work of its authors. Articles containing plagiarism are against the standards of quality, research, and innovation. Therefore, all authors who submit articles to the journal are expected to comply with ethical standards and avoid plagiarism in any form. If an author is suspected of plagiarism in a submitted or published article, the journal's Ethics Editor reviews the work first. This work is then reviewed by the Editorial Board. The Journal then contacts the author(s) to submit their comments within two weeks. If the journal does not receive any response from the author within the specified time, it requests the investigation of the claim by contacting the university to which the author is affiliated. The journal will take the following serious precautions against published articles that are found to contain plagiarism.

1. The journal will immediately contact the university to which the author(s) are affiliated, in order to take final action against the related author.
2. The journal will remove the PDF copy of the published article from its website and disable all links to the full-text article. The phrase Plagiarized Article will be added to the title of the published article.
3. The journal will disable the author's account and reject all future submissions by the author for a period of 3 years.

This journal checks for plagiarism
Submitted manuscripts that pass preliminary control are scanned for plagiarism using TURNITIN software. If plagiarism/self-plagiarism will be found authors will be informed. Editors may resubmit the manuscript for similarity check at any peer-review or production stage if required. High similarity scores may lead to rejection of a manuscript before and even after acceptance. The percentage of similarity score taken from each article, the overall similarity score is generally expected to be less than 20%.

Responsibilities of Stakeholders
Our readers and stakeholders can report any material mistake or violation of scientific research and publication ethics they see in the articles published in the Journal of Theology Academy by sending an e-mail to ilahiyatakademi@gantep.edu.tr. We welcome such feedback as it provides an opportunity for us to improve, and we aim to respond promptly and constructively.

a) Editors' Responsibilities
Journal of Theology Academy , its editors and field editors adhere to the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Best Practice for Journal Editors Based on the COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the principles of the Publication Ethics Flow Charts developed by COPE in possible cases of abuse or violation of publication ethics, it will provide the following ethical duties and responsibilities:
• Impartiality and Freedom of the Publisher: Editors evaluate the submitted article proposals by taking into account their compliance with the scope of the journal and the importance and originality of their work. Editors do not take into account the race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality or political views of the authors submitting the article proposal. Other institutions other than the editorial board of the journal cannot influence the decision to edit or publish. The editors take care that the published issues contribute to the reader, researcher, practitioner and scientific field, and that they are original.
• Independence: The relationship between the Editors (Editor and Associate Editors) and the publisher is based on the principle of editorial independence. According to the written agreement between the editors and the publisher, all decisions of the editors are independent of the publisher and the journal owner. Editors should reject incomplete and inaccurate research that does not comply with the journal policy, publication rules and level without any influence.
• Confidentiality: Editors do not share information about a submitted article with anyone other than the responsible author, referees and editorial board. It ensures that the articles evaluated by at least two referees are evaluated according to the double-blind refereeing system and keeps the referees confidential.
• Information and Differences of Opinion: Editors and editorial board members do not use unpublished information in a submitted article for their own research purposes without the express written permission of the authors. Editors should not have a conflict of interest regarding the articles they accept or reject.
• Publication Decision: Editors ensure that all articles accepted for publication are subject to peer-review by at least two referees who are experts in their field. Editors are responsible for deciding which work will be published from the articles sent to the journal, the validity of the work in question, its importance to researchers and readers, the comments of the referees and such legal conditions. Editors have the responsibility and authority to accept or reject articles. Therefore, he has to use his responsibility and authority appropriately and on time.
• Ethical Concerns: Editors will take action when ethical concerns arise regarding a submitted article or published article. They continue their business processes without compromising intellectual property rights and ethical standards. Any reported unethical publishing behavior will be investigated, even if it occurs years after publication. Editors follow COPE Flowcharts should ethical concerns arise. If ethical issues are significant, correction, withdrawal can be applied or concerns can be published in the journal.
• Collaboration with Journal Boards: Editors ensure that all members of the advisory committee advance the processes in accordance with publication policies and guidelines. Informs the members of the advisory board about the publication policies. It allows the members of the advisory board to evaluate their work independently. Can contribute to new advisory board members and make decisions accordingly. It should submit studies appropriate to the expertise of advisory board members for evaluation . He interacts regularly with the advisory board. Organizes regular meetings with the editorial board for editorial policies and journal development.

b) Responsibilities of Authors
1. Reporting standards : The authors of the original research should ensure that the work done and the results are presented accurately, followed by an objective discussion of the importance of the work. The article proposal should contain sufficient details and references.
2. Data access and retention : Authors are required to retain the raw data of their work. When required, they should submit it for editorial review if requested by the journal.
3. Originality and plagiarism: Authors must submit entirely original works, and if they have used the work or words of others, this must be properly cited. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. For this reason, a similarity rate report is requested from all authors who submit articles to the journal.
4. Multiple, duplicate, redundant or simultaneous submissions / publications: Authors should not submit a previously published article in another journal for consideration. Submitting an article to more than one journal simultaneously is unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
5 . Authorship of the article: Only people who fulfill the authorship criteria should be listed as the author in the content of the article. These authorship criteria are as follows; (i) contributed to the design, implementation, data collection or analysis phases (ii) prepared or made significant intellectual contribution or critically revised the manuscript, or (iii) saw the final version of the manuscript, approved it, and agreed to submit it for publication. The corresponding author must ensure that all authors (according to the definition above) are included in the list of authors and must declare that they have seen the final version of the article and agree to submit it for publication.
6. Disclosure and conflicts of interest: Authors should disclose conflicts of interest at the earliest possible stage (usually by submitting a notification form at the time of article submission and by including a statement in the article). All sources of financial support for the study must be declared (including the grant/funding number or other license number, if applicable).
7. Peer-review process: Authors are required to participate in the peer-review process and are responsible for fully cooperating by responding promptly to editors' requests for raw data, disclosures, and evidence of ethical approval and copyright permissions. If a "required revision" decision is made first , authors should review and resubmit their manuscripts by the systematic deadline given to reviewers' comments.
8. Fundamental errors in published works: When authors find significant errors or inaccuracies in their published work, they are obliged to immediately inform the journal editors or publishers, and to cooperate with the journal editors or publishers to correct a typographical error (erratum) on the article or remove the article from publication. If the editors or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a material error or inaccuracy, they must take the responsibility of the author to promptly correct or retract the article or provide proof of the accuracy of the paper to the journal's editors.

c) Responsibilities of the Referees
1. Contribution to editorial decisions: Assists editors in editorial decisions and assists authors in improving their articles through editorial communication. It should be pointed out that other articles, works, sources, citations, rules and similar deficiencies related to the article should be completed.
2. Speed: Any referee who does not feel qualified to review the manuscript proposal or who knows that the manuscript review will not occur on time should immediately notify the editors and reject the invitation to review, thus ensuring that new referees are appointed.
3. Confidentiality: All article suggestions submitted for review are confidential and should be treated as such. It should not be shown or discussed with others unless authorized by the editor. This also applies to referees who decline an invitation to review.
4. Impartiality standards: Comments on the article proposal should be made impartially and suggestions should be made in a way that the authors can use to improve the article. Personal criticism of the authors is not appropriate.
5. Acceptance of references: Reviewers should identify relevant published works not cited by the authors. The referee should also notify the editor of any significant similarity of the reviewed article and any other article (published or unpublished).
6. Conflicts of interest: Conflicts of interest should be reported to the editor. There should be no conflict of interest between the referees and the stakeholders of the article that is the subject of evaluation.

The studies submitted for review are checked for plagiarism using the TURNITIN software. The similarity rate is expected to be less than 20%. The main measure of similarity is that the author complies with the citation and citation rules. Even though the similarity rate is 1%, if the citation and citation are not duly made, plagiarism may still be in question. In this respect, citation and citation rules should be known and carefully applied by the author: see. https://www.isnadsistemi.org/en/

Citation/Indirect Citation: If a reference is made to an opinion, discussion or determination in a source and the cited opinion is lined up with the citing researcher's own words, a footnote mark ( 1 ) should be placed at the end of the sentence. If the reference is to a certain page or page range of the work, the page number should be given. If there is a reference to the whole work, that is, if it is cited in a way that requires the reader to examine the whole work, the footnotes include "See about this.", "See about this opinion.", "See about this discussion." or just “see.” The source should be indicated after the statement.
Quotation/Quote: If the relevant part is taken from the referenced source exactly as it is, without touching the dot and comma, the quoted part is "given in double quotes" and the source is indicated by giving the footnote number 1 at the end. Quotations that exist in the directly quoted text are written using 'single quotes'. If the directly quoted part is longer than three lines (more than forty words), it is shown as a separate paragraph. In order to distinguish long quotations from the main text, it should be preferred that they be written in a font size one smaller than the normal text size and the entire paragraph should be indented from the left at the beginning of the carriage line. Some words, sentences and paragraphs may be omitted from the directly quoted text, provided that they do not change the meaning. Three dots (…) are put in place of the removed parts. It would not be correct to write the part that is quoted from a source without enclosing it in "double quotes" and to only write the source at the end. If these rules are not followed, the author may be accused of violation of publication ethics (Plagiarism) .

Actions against science research and publication ethics are as follows:
Plagiarism: Presenting the ideas, methods, data, practices, writings, figures or works of others as their own work, in whole or in part, without attribution in accordance with scientific rules.
Fraud: To produce data that is not based on research, to edit or change the presented or published work based on untrue data, to report or publish them, to make an unfinished research appear as if it has been done.
Distortion: To falsify research records and obtained data, to present methods, devices and materials that are not used in the research as if they were used, not to evaluate data that are not in accordance with the research hypothesis, to manipulate data and/or results in order to fit the relevant theory or assumptions, in line with the interests of the people and organizations that receive support. to falsify or shape research results.
Republishing: To present more than one work containing the same results of a research as separate works in associate professor examination evaluations and academic promotions.
Slicing: Presenting the results of a research as separate works in associate professor examination evaluations and academic promotions by dividing the results of a research in a way that violates the integrity of the research, and by making multiple publications without citing each other.
Unfair Authorship: Including non-active contributors among authors, not including active contributors among authors, changing the order of authors unjustifiably and inappropriately, removing the names of active contributors from the work at the time of publication or in subsequent editions, using influence without active contribution, using his/her name included among the authors.
Other Types of Ethical Violations: Not clearly stating the supporting persons, institutions or organizations and their contributions to the research in the publications of supported research, not following the ethical rules in research on humans and animals, not respecting the rights of patients in their publications, appearing in a work assigned to review as a referee. to share the field information with others before it is published, to misuse the resources, places, facilities and devices provided or reserved for scientific research, to accuse completely unfounded, groundless and intentional ethical violations (YÖK Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive, Article 8).

Plagiarism Prevention
If the readers notices an important error or mistake in an article published in the Journal of Theological Academy, or has any complaints about the editorial content (plagiarism, duplicate articles, etc.), they can make a complaint by sending an e-mail to ilahiyatakademi@gantep.edu.tr . We welcome complaints as they will provide an opportunity for us to improve, and we aim to respond quickly and constructively.

Conflict of Interest
The author(s) of the article must declare that there is no personal or financial conflict of interest within the scope of the study. They should state this statement under the heading “Conflicts of Interest” at the end of the article. When reviewers suspect that there is a conflict of interest in the article they are evaluating, they should inform the journal editor about the evaluation process and reject the article evaluation if necessary. In order to avoid conflicts of interest, individuals in the institutions where the article authors work cannot act as a referee for the article. Editors should also not have a personal or financial conflict of interest with the authors.