Research and Publication Ethics

The journal adopts and complies with the ethical principles, frameworks, and standards established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

  • Originality: The journal publishes only original scholarly works. Submitted manuscripts must not have been previously published or be under review elsewhere. However, authors may submit their work to this journal after receiving a rejection from another journal. Theses that are not archived online are considered original and unpublished. Authors who use data from a thesis must declare this on the cover page.
  • Authorship: Authors must comply with the criteria specified in the “Authorship” section and must avoid practices such as gift authorship and ghost authorship.
  • Duplicate Publication: Submitting more than one manuscript based on the same dataset, study, or experiment is unethical.
  • Citation and Plagiarism:
    • Relevant and verifiable sources must be cited.
    • Citation manipulation and plagiarism must be avoided.
  • Data Fabrication and Falsification: Fabrication or manipulation of data or content is prohibited. Authors must guarantee the accuracy and representativeness of the data presented. Raw data or supplementary materials may be requested.
  • Ethics Approval:
    • For studies requiring ethics committee approval, approval information must be provided in the Methods section in a de-identified manner and clearly stated on the cover page (committee name, date, and approval number).
  • Animal and Human Studies: All studies must comply with the ethical principles of the relevant authorized bodies.
  • Conflict of Interest:
    • Financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationships must be declared on the cover page.
  • Correction and Retraction Notification: Authors must inform the journal if they discover an error in a published or under-review manuscript and must cooperate in the correction or retraction process.
  • Journal’s Authority: Manuscripts in which plagiarism, ethical violations, or conflicts of interest are detected may be retracted even after acceptance.
  • Use of Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors because they lack legal personhood, cannot assume responsibility for the work, cannot declare conflicts of interest, and cannot manage copyrights, licenses, or contracts. AI-assisted tools may be used for supportive purposes such as language editing, formatting, and summarization, but not for analysis, inference, or drawing conclusions. Authors are fully responsible for all content generated using AI tools, and any breach of publication ethics remains the author’s responsibility.

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors and Reviewers

Editors and reviewers commit to the following:

  • COPE Principles: Comply with COPE’s Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
  • Confidentiality: Keep manuscripts and the review process confidential and not share information.
  • Anonymity: Not disclose their identities to authors or other reviewers.
  • Conflict of Interest: Inform the editorial office or decline to review in cases of personal, financial, or professional conflicts of interest.
  • Professional Communication: Maintain open and constructive communication with authors and other editors (inappropriate language or behavior is unacceptable).
  • Timeliness: Complete assigned tasks on time and notify the journal in case of delay or withdrawal.
  • Impartiality: Manage the review process fairly and consistently and preserve the integrity of peer review.
  • Reporting Misconduct: Report suspected breaches of research or publication ethics to the editorial office.
  • Artificial Intelligence: Detect the use of AI-assisted tools, request disclosure from authors regarding such use, and prevent the possibility of fabricated references resulting from AI usage.

Retraction

Information World retracts manuscripts in which ethical violations such as multiple submission, fraudulent authorship, plagiarism, or data fabrication are identified. In this process, COPE’s Retraction Guidelines are followed: