ETHICAL PRINCIPLES AND PUBLICATION POLICY

Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi follows and implements internationally accepted ethical standards to provide the necessary support to original scientific ideas and to publish high quality, reliable scientific articles in this direction. The journal’s publication policy and ethical principles include the ethical standards of conduct that should be followed by author(s), journal editor(s), associate editors, subject editors, reviewers, and publishers who are the participants of this action.

The ethical statement of Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi is based on the principles indicated in the “COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” (http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf) and “COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” (http://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf).

GENERAL ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

• Objectivity and Independence

Editor-in-chief, editors, associate editors, and referees conduct the evaluation process of the manuscript sent to the journal objectively and in coordination within the framework of ethical principles. Editorial decisions are independent, and internal or external factors cannot influence these decisions. In accordance with the principle of impartiality, academics working in our institution are not deemed eligible to work as a section editor in Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi, in order not to be effective in the evaluation of articles due to conflict of interest.

• Privacy

The content of the articles and the personal information of the authors such as name, e-mail address, and telephone numbers that are sent to Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi are used only for the scientific purposes of the journal and not for other purposes, and cannot be shared with third parties. Article evaluation processes are also carried out confidentially.

• Authorship and Authors Rights

The authors of the manuscripts sent to Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi must have contributed significantly to the design, execution or interpretation of the study. For example, in view of the research and publication ethics as well as authors rights, it is not acceptable to include those as authors who do not actively contribute to the research but just only help in writing or data collection processes, which may not require any scientific knowledge. All the authors in a publication should be in agreement of the names and the orders of the authors in the manuscript.

The competence of the authors to the subject of the study is evaluated by the editor within the framework of deontological rules and the professional fields of each author.

The corresponding author of the article should declare the contributions of the authors to the work under the title of “Author contributions”. The corresponding author is primarily responsible for the problems that may arise in this regard.

In multidisciplinary studies, 2 authors who are from different disciplines can be “equivalent first name authors” and up to most 3 authors who are also from different disciplines can be “equivalent second name authors”.

• Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) 

This declaration outlines the acceptable uses of generative AI technology in writing or editing manuscripts submitted to Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi. During the writing process, AI and AI-assisted technologies are prohibited from writing or creating the article, tables, or figures. Authors should use AI and AI- assisted technologies solely to enhance the readability and language of the article. Authors should carefully review and edit the result of assisted parts of the manuscript by AI in term of reliability of the applying technologies.
When using generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in scientific writing, authors must declare this by including a statement in the cover letter when the article is first submitted. Once the article is accepted for publication, this statement should be included in the declarations section of the manuscript's final part.
If anything other than the declared conditions is detected, the articles in the evaluation stage will be rejected,
and if it is detected in the published articles, the article will be retracted.

• Originality of Research Findings

The authors should declare that the article they presented contained the original research results, that the study data were analyzed correctly, and that they were prepared for publication using adequate and appropriate references, in the “cover letter” section of the on-line system at the submission stage. Using expressions such as “it is the first study done”, “there has been no previous study on this subject” and “there is a limited number of studies” to add originality and importance to the article is not acceptable and may cause prevention of the scientific evaluation of the article by the editor.

• Similarity

Articles submitted to the journal are subjected to similarity analysis using appropriate software (iThenticate by CrossCheck) at the beginning and at every required stage. If unethical similarities are detected regardless of the rate of similarity, this situation is reported to the authors and corrections are requested or articles containing excessive similarities are rejected at the first evaluation stage without being evaluated.

• Plagiarism/Self-Plagiarism, Duplicate Publication

Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi applies publication ethics and verifies the originality of content submitted before publication and checks all submitted manuscripts for plagiarism/self-plagiarism, similarity and duplication. All submitted manuscripts are meticilously screened by a similarity detection software (iThenticate by CrossCheck). Papers previously presented at scientific meetings and published only as an “abstract” should be indicated in the Title Page file as stated in the “Guidance for Authors”. Authors do not have the right to use entire paragraphs from their previous publications into a new submission. These actions are also considered as a plagiarism. In any case, the manuscript should be original in terms of scientific contents and writing. In the event of alleged or suspected research misconduct, the Editorial Board will follow and act in accordance with “COPE Guidelines”.

• Multi-part Publication (Piecemeal Publication)

Some authors may tend to divide study data into two or more articles and publish the results in different journals also having different authors names and orders. In principal, Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi is against multi-part publication. When necessary, the ethical committee approval information of the study, project information, congress presentations, etc. are checked and such situations that will create an ethical problem are identified and reported to the authors.

Authors may think that their work should be published in multi parts that complement each other. For this, each part of the article should be titled “Part-I”, “Part-II” and submitted to the journal “simultaneously”. This issue can be evaluated by the editor-in-chief/subject editors/referees who may suggest that the article can be published in parts or as a whole. In addition, rejection of a submission presented in parts means that all parts will be rejected.

• Animal Rights and Ethics

The authors are responsible for conducting experimental and clinical studies on animal experiments within the framework of existing international legislation on animal rights. Authors must also obtain permission from the Animal Experiment Ethics Committees and provide relevant information in the Material and Method section to experiment with animals. In clinical studies, as well as the approval of the ethics committee, an “informed consent form” should be obtained from the animal owners and the information related to it should be declared in the Material and Method section. Declaration of “informed consent form” is sufficient for the articles in the “Case report” and “Letter to the Editor” category.

Ethics committee permission taken for a study can only be used in one article. It is unacceptable to use the same ethics committee approval number in articles with different names and contents. The editor/subject editors can request from the corresponding author, if necessary, to send a copy of the ethics committee approval form to the journal (electronically or by post).

In cases of violation ethical rules, the article is not taken into consideration or if it is in the evaluation stage, the procedure is terminated and the article is rejected.

• Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests

The editor-in-chief pays attention to whether there is a conflict of interest or union of interest between editors, reviewers and author (s) for an objective and unbiased evaluation of the article. In addition, the authors should disclose any financial interests or links or any conditions that may raise the bias issue in research and article under the above heading.

• Copyright

Authors retain the copyright to their published work licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) and grant the Publisher non-exclusive right to publish the work. CC BY-NC 4.0 license permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The authors must fill in the “Copyright Agreement Form” and sign it with a wet signature. Authors who submit articles from abroad should scan the signed form and send it to the editor via the system or by e-mail. Original forms that are wet signed for articles sent domestically should be submitted to the journal via mail or cargo. The works of the authors who do not submit the Copyright Agreement Form on time are not published.

• Withdrawal of a Submission

In case of if the authors detect a significant error or deficiency in their article under review or if this error is reported to them by the editor/subject editor/referees they can contact immediately to the editor-in-chief and ask the request to withdraw the article by stating the reason. The decision on this issue is up to the editorial board.

• Erratum

After an article has been published, the corresponding author may request the editor to publish “erratum” for any errors or inaccuracies noticed by the authors, editors or readers. In collaboration with the authors, the editor prepares and publishes the Erratum article in the first upcoming issue. These articles, like other publications, should contain the publication tag and DOI number.

• Retraction

If any ethical problem is detected about the article that cannot be compensated and cannot be eliminated with erratum after the article is published, the editor-in-chief and associate editors prepare a justification about the article and apply the retraction procedure to the article. The text file on the web page of a retracted article is blocked and the reason for retraction is added to the system as a file, ensuring that it is constantly in the archive.

• Advertising

Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi do not accept advertising and sponsorships that are believed to create a potential conflict of interest. If the article sent to Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi is for the promotion of a commercial product and/or the work carried out is directly supported by a company, it is rejected without consideration.

OPEN ACCESS STATEMENT

Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi is an open access publication. The journal’s publication model is based on Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) declaration.  Articles published in Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi are available online, free of charge at https://vetdergikafkas.org/archive.php.

Except for commercial purposes, users are allowed to read, download, copy, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. The open access articles in the journal are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence.

ARTICLE EVALUATION AND PUBLICATION PROCESS

• Initial Evaluation Process

Articles submitted to Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi are primarily evaluated by the editors and associate editors. At this stage, articles not having suitable scope and aims, with low original research value, containing scientific and ethically important errors, having low potential to contribute to science and the journal, and having poor language and narration are rejected by the editor without peer-review process. Initial evaluation process takes up to most 2 weeks.

• Preliminary Evaluation Process

Articles that are deemed appropriate for editorial evaluation are sent to the subject editor related to the category of articles to be examined in terms of scientific competence and to the statistics editor for evaluation in terms of statistical methods. The suject editors examine the article in all aspects and report their decisions (rejection, revision or peer-review) to the chief editor. This stage takes about 1 month.

• Peer-review Process

Double-blind peer-review process is applied to the articles that have completed preliminary evaluation process. Suggestions of subject editors are primarily considered in referee assignment. In addition, reviews can be requested from the referees registered in the journal’s referee pool. At least 2 referees are assigned for peer-review. Opinion of more referees can be required depending on the evaluation process. At this stage, referees send their decision (reject, revision or accept) about the article to the editor-in-chief. If the rejection decision given by a referee reflects sufficient examination and evidence-based negativities or ethical problems about the scientific content and accuracy of the article, this decision is checked by the editor-in-chief and associate editors and submitted to the authors regardless of the other referees’ decisions. The time given to referees to evaluate an article is ~4 weeks.

• Publication Process of an Article

Total evaluation period of an article, which is completed in the peer-review phase after completing the initial and preliminary evaluation process, takes 4-6 months. The articles that have completed the subject editorial and peer-review evaluation stages and accepted by the editorial are sent to the corresponding author for final checks and necessary final additions. After the acceptance, the article designed in the publication format of the journal is given an DOI number and published immediately on the Article in Press page. When it is time to publish the periodic edition of the journal, a selection is made from the articles kept on the Article in Press page, taking into account the submission date. The time it takes for the article to be published by taking the page number is 6-12 months.

NO PUBLICATION FEE

Processing and publication are free of charge with the journal. There is no article processing char-ges, submission fees or any other fees for any submitted or accepted articles.

RESPONBILITIES OF THE PUBLISHER, EDITORS AND ASSOCIATE EDITORS

The publisher (Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Kafkas University) contributes to the execution of the journal’s routine processes such as printing, archiving, and mailing, in line with requests from the editor.

The publisher undertakes to carry out an independent and fair decision-making mechanism for its editors and assistants in the article evaluation process and decisions.

The publisher undertakes to carry out an independent and fair decision-making mechanism for its editors and associate editors in the article evaluation process and decisions.

Editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors of Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi evaluate the articles submitted to the journal regardless of their race, gender, religious belief, ethnicity, citizenship or political views. In addition, it undertakes not to give any information about the article except for the authors, subject editors and referees.

Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi follows internationally accepted principles and criteria and takes the necessary decisions to apply in the journal.

Editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors conduct the evaluation and decision process in the journal in coordination within the principles of confidentiality and have independent decision-making authority and responsibility without being affected by any internal or external factors.

Editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors make and implement all kinds of planning for the development of the journal and its international recognition. They also follow national and international meetings or events on the development of journals and article evaluation, and ensures that the journal is represented on these platforms.

The editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors make every effort to ensure that the journal’s subject editors and referee pool have international qualifications. Likewise, it makes the necessary attempts to strengthen the author’s profile.

Editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors make plans to improve the quality of the articles published in the journal and carry out the necessary process.

Editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors regularly conduct and control the initial evaluation, preliminary evaluation, peer review and acceptance-rejection decisions of articles submitted to the journal. While carrying out these procedures, features such as the suitability of the study for the aims and scope of the journal, its originality, the up-to-date and reliability of the scientific methods used, and the potential it will contribute to the development of the journal as well as its benefit to science/practice are taken into consideration.

Editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors systematically review, inspect and make decisions about the articles submitted to the journal in terms of features such as author rights, conflict of interest, observance and protection of animal rights, and compliance with research and publication ethics.

The editor-in-chief conducts the evaluation/revision process between the authors and subject editors and referees, and ensures that it is completed within the prescribed time.

ARCHIVE POLICY

The editorial office of the Kafkas Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi and the publisher (Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kafkas University) keep all the articles (electronic and printed) published in the journal in their archives. All articles and their attachment files sent to the journal are kept securely in the archive. In light of the technological developments, the editorial office of the Kafkas Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi regularly performs electronic processes for the development and updating of materials in digital environment and presents them to its readers on condition of keeping in safe the original documents and information regarding the articles.

Even if the journal ceases to be published for any reason, the publisher (Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kafkas University) will continue to protect the journal content in the long term and provide convenient access to users. Electronic services of Kafkas University Information Technologies Department will be used for the journal to maintain this responsibility.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF SUBJECT EDITORS

Subject editors do reviews and evaluations in accordance with the main publication goals and policies of the journal and in line with the criteria that will contribute to the development of the journal.

Author information is kept confidential in articles sent to the subject editor for preliminary evaluation by the editor.

Subject editors thoroughly examine the sections of the introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion and conclusion, in terms of journal publication policies, scope, originality and research ethics. Subject editor submits its decision (rejection, revision or peer-review) after evaluation to the chief editor in a reasoned report.

Subject editor may request additional information and documents related to the study from the authors, when necessary.

In multidisciplinary studies, the article can be submitted for the evaluation of multiple subject editors.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF REFEREES

Double-blinded peer-review procedure is applied in Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi in order to evaluate the articles submitted to the journal in accordance with the principle of impartiality and in objective criteria; that is, referees and writers do not know about each other.

The referees submit their opinions and reports to the editor-in-chief to ensure the control and suitability of a submitted article, its scientific content, scientific consistency and compliance with the principles of the journal. When a referee makes a decision “reject” about an article, he/she prepares the reasons for the decision in accordance with the scientific norms and presents it to the editor.

The referee(s) also gives the authors the opportunity to improve the content of the article. Accordingly, the revisions requested from the authors should be of a quality that explains/questions specific issues rather than general statements.

Referees appointed for the evaluation of the articles agree that the articles are confidential documents and will not share any information about these documents with third parties, except for the editors participating in the evaluation.

Referees should place their criticism on scientific infrastructure and write their explanations based on scientific evidence. All comments made by the referees to improve the articles should be clear and direct, and should be written away from disturbing the feelings of the author. Insulting and derogatory statements should be avoided.

If a referee has an interest relationship with the author(s) on one or more issues, he/she must report the situation to the editor and ask his/her to withdraw from the referee position. The same is also applicable when the authors illegally obtain information about the referees of the article and try to influence them.

The editor-in-chief can share the comments and reports from the referees with the editors/associate editors and the relevant subject editor, as necessary, to ensure that the decision on the article is optimal. If necessary, the editor may share the critical decision and its grounds that a referee has sent about the article with the other referee(s) and present them to their attention.

Referee(s) may request revision many times for the article they evaluated.

The content of the referee reports is checked and evaluated by editor-in-chief/editors/associate editors. The final decision belongs to the editorial.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHOR(S)

It is not tolerable for the author (s) to send an article, which has been already sent to another journal, to Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi within the scope of “which accepts” or “which publishes first” approach. If this is detected, the article is rejected at any stage of the evaluation. As a possible result of these actions, in the process following the previous acceptance of the article sent to another journal, the withdrawal request with this excuse that the authors submit for this article, the evaluation process of which is going on in our journal, is evaluated by the editors and associate editors of the journal and disciplinary action on the grounds of ethical violations about those responsible is started. This unethical action is also informed to the journal editor (if known) who accepted the article.

It is essential that the articles to be sent to Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi include studies that have up-to-date, original and important clinical/practical results and prepared in accordance with the journal’s writing rules.

Authors should choose the references they use during the writing of the article in accordance with the ethical principles and cite them according to the rules.

The authors are obliged to revise the article in line with the issues conveyed to them during the initial evaluation, preliminary evaluation and peer-review phases of the article and to explain the changes they made/did not make sequentially in the “response to editor” and “response to reviewer comments” sections.

If information, documents or data regarding to the study are requested during the evaluation process, the corresponding author is obliged to submit them to the editorial.

Authors should know and take into account the issues listed in the “General Ethical Principles” section regarding scientific research and authors.

The authors do not have the right to simultaneously submit multiple articles to Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi. It is more appropriate to submit them with acceptable time intervals for the journal’s policy.