Educational Process: International Journal (EDUPIJ) adheres strictly to the COPE guidelines on good publishing practice, and follows procedures set out in the COPE flowcharts when handling cases of suspected misconduct.

ETHICS STATEMENTS

Editors, editorial board members, authors and reviewers of Educational Process: International Journal (EDUPIJ) must follow the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The publication processes conducted in the EDUPIJ journal establish the basis for the development and distribution of scientific information in an objective and respectful manner. All stakeholders of the review and publication process (authors, researchers, publisher, reviewers and editors) are expected to comply with the standards for ethical principles strictly.  

Ethical Responsibilities of Publisher

UNIVERSITEPARK, the Publisher of the Educational Process: International Journal (EDUPIJ) aims to produce, disseminate and transfer strategic information to raise the intellectual power based on national and universal values. The publisher provides EDUPIJ journal with the required resources such as website hosting of the journal, manuscript submission and publication portal, DOI identifiers, plagiarism checking tools, layout. The publisher is responsible for taking reasonable steps to protect the editorial autonomy, protecting the intellectual property rights of all the articles published in EDUPIJ, ensuring the independent editorial decision, taking the precautions against scientific abuse, fraud and plagiarism.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

The author(s) who submit a manuscript to the Educational Process: International Journal (EDUPIJ) are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

• All the submitted manuscripts must be the authors’ original study. When the author(s) use other scientific sources, they are required to cite completely and accurately.
• The author(s) must confirm that the manuscript has not been published elsewhere or is not currently under review by another journal. Multiple submission of the same manuscript to different journals is an ethical violation that the authors should avoid.
• Authors must express any potential competing interests openly and transparently.
• People who do not contribute to the content intellectually must not be specified as the author.
• All funding information (if applicable) must be clearly stated.
• When the authors are asked to supply raw data, they should be ready to submit such data and information
• The author(s) must notify the editor or the Publisher promptly if they notice substantial mistakes or inconsistencies in a submitted manuscript or in a manuscript that is already published. In such a case, the author(s) should cooperate with the editors during the correction or withdrawal process.
• Researches that involve living subjects should have appropriate ethical approval documents.
• Informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants for the researches involving human subjects, (Informed consent to participate in the study are obtained from the legal guardians of the people under 18).
• The author(s) should confirm that the study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

The editor and associate editors are responsible for managing the editorial processes of the submitted manuscripts. It is obligatory to act impartially in editorial processes without making any discrimination based on religion, language, gender, region, country, nationality or etc. Also the editor and associate editors of Educational Process: International Journal (EDUPIJ) must obey the following ethical responsibilities that are based on the COPE Guidelines such as Core Practices and the Principles of Transparency, Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors ,COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. These guidelines are published as Open Access by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

The editors should:

• Provide explanatory and informative feedback to the author(s),
• Ensure academic integrity,
• Establish an open and constructive communication with the authors and reviewers,
• Keep the identities of reviewers secret in blind review,
• Select the reviewers based on their expertise and the subject of the study,
• Keep all the information about the manuscript confidential,
• Supervise the quality of review process,
• Make sure that articles in the journal are published in accordance with the publication policies of the journal and international standards,
• Take precautions against possible abuse and malpractice,

Editorial process for a manuscript submitted by the one of the editors or a member of the editorial board must be conducted by another editor to ensure the objectivity and transparency.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

All submitted manuscripts to Educational Process: International Journal (EDUPIJ) are subject to double blind review process.  This process ensures confidentiality by objective and independent review and aims to increase the quality of scientific material. Review process (selecting and assigning the reviewers) is conducted on EDUPIJ eJournal Management System. Reviewers do not contact the authors directly, and the reviews and comments are conveyed through the journal management system. EDUPIJ reviewers are supposed to bear the certain ethical responsibilities. Reviewers should:

• Accept to review the manuscripts in their subject of expertise,
• Notify the editor immediately in case of conflict of interests, malpractice, plagiarism or serious ethical violation,
• Review the manuscript in terms of its content and scientific quality
• Avoid making personal comments including hostility, slander and insult while writing review report
• Review the manuscript in a constructive and kind tone,
• Keep all the information about the manuscript confidential,
• Make sure that nationality, gender, religious and political beliefs, and race do not influence the review process,
• Conduct the review process in accordance with the ethical rules stated above within a reasonable timeframe.

MALPRACTICE AND RETRACTION POLICY

Purpose and Scope

EDUPIJ adopts a zero-tolerance policy toward research and publication malpractice.

This policy explains how EDUPIJ defines, prevents, detects and responds to unethical behavior (e.g. fabrication, fraud authorship, plagiarism, multiple submission, copyright breaches, hiding competing interests, undeclared funders) in the preparation, submission, review and publication of manuscripts.

It should be read together with EDUPIJ’s Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement and Plagiarism Policy, and applies to all authors, editors, reviewers and the publisher.

Contributions submitted to EDUPIJ must be the original work of the author(s) and must:

• Not have been published previously in whole or in substantial part,
• Not be under simultaneous consideration elsewhere.

During submission, authors must ensure academic integrity and avoid any unethical actions such as:

• Fabrication or falsification of data,
• Fraud authorship or unfair authorship practices,
• Plagiarism or self-plagiarism,
• Simultaneous submission of the same work to more than one journal,
• Copyright breaches,
• Hiding competing interests,
• Undeclared funding or sponsors.

All submissions undergo:

1. Initial editorial screening for scope, format and basic originality.
2. Plagiarism check using similarity detection software before a manuscript is sent out for peer review.

Submissions that cannot verify content originality or show clear evidence of serious misconduct are rejected immediately.

The following behaviors are considered serious malpractice at EDUPIJ:

• Data fabrication
  Inventing data, participants or results that never existed.
• Data falsification / distortion
  Manipulating methods, data or analyses; omitting or altering data to produce desired results; misreporting findings.
• Redundant publication and “salami slicing”
  Submitting or publishing essentially the same work in multiple outlets without full disclosure, or fragmenting a single study into overlapping papers to inflate publication counts.
• Unfair or undeserved authorship
  • Adding authors who did not contribute significantly,
  • Omitting those who did,
  • Manipulating author order without justification,
  • Using influence to be listed as an author.
• Citation manipulation
  Adding or promoting citations primarily to boost the metrics of certain authors, journals or institutions, or misrepresenting sources.
• Ethics violations with human or animal research
  Conducting research without required ethical approval or informed consent; violating participants’ rights, privacy or welfare; harming animals or the environment.
• Misuse of resources and support
  Inappropriate use or abuse of funds, facilities, equipment or materials; failure to acknowledge supporting institutions or sponsors.
• Plagiarism and self-plagiarism
  Any form of plagiarism (including self-plagiarism and inappropriate image manipulation) is malpractice and is addressed in detail in the EDUPIJ Plagiarism Policy.

Authors

Authors must:

• Ensure their work is honest, accurate and complete;
• Avoid fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, unfair authorship and redundant publication;
• Obtain necessary copyright permissions for reused tables, figures and other materials;
• Disclose conflicts of interest and all funding;
• Ensure ethical approvals and informed consent where required;
• Inform the Managing Editor promptly if they detect significant errors in their published article.

Editors

Editors must:

• Make decisions based solely on scholarly merit and relevance;
• Guarantee a fair, unbiased and timely peer-review process;
• Act decisively and consistently when malpractice is suspected;
• Maintain the confidentiality of submissions;
• Not use unpublished material from submissions for their own research.

Reviewers

Reviewers must:

• Evaluate manuscripts objectively and confidentially;
• Report any suspected malpractice (e.g. plagiarism, data manipulation, duplicate publication);
• Declare conflicts of interest and decline reviews where impartiality is compromised;
• Not use unpublished material from reviews for personal advantage.

Publisher (EDUPIJ)

EDUPIJ will:

• Support editors and reviewers in upholding high ethical standards;
• Maintain clear procedures for investigating malpractice, retractions and corrections;
• Follow the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in retraction decisions;
• Cooperate with institutions and relevant bodies during formal investigations.

Malpractice may be detected before, during or after publication by editors, reviewers, readers or institutions.

When a credible allegation is received:

1. Preliminary Assessment
   The Editor-in-Chief and/or Editorial Office reviews the claim, the manuscript and any evidence (e.g. overlapping publications, data inconsistencies, image manipulation, similarity reports).
2. Editorial Review
   If concerns appear serious, the Editorial Board discusses the case. External expert opinion may be sought when needed.
3. Author Notification and Response
   The corresponding author is informed of the allegation and the evidence and is invited to provide a written explanation and supporting documents (e.g. raw data, ethics approvals, previous publications) within a specified period (typically 15 days).
4. Decision
   The Editorial Board evaluates the explanation:
   • If satisfactory and the issue is minor → correction, revision or warning;
   • If unsatisfactory, absent or serious → sanctions are imposed.
5. Institutional Involvement
   If the scientific misconduct cannot be appropriately judged by the editors, or in severe/repeated cases (e.g. confirmed fabrication, major plagiarism, serious ethical breaches), EDUPIJ may request an institutional investigation by the authors’ institution(s), funders or other competent bodies.

All cases are handled with confidentiality, fairness and due process.

Grounds for Retraction

The editors or the publisher may decide to retract an article in cases of:

• Plagiarism or self-plagiarism,
• Falsification or fabrication of data,
• Inappropriate editing or manipulation of images,
• Republication of previously published work,
• Serious undisclosed conflicts of interest or other grave ethical violations.

EDUPIJ follows COPE recommendations for retraction.

Retraction Procedure

If the Editorial Board detects an ethical violation in a published or early-release article:

• Retraction and reporting procedures are initiated within 5 days.
• The article is labelled as “Retraction” in the electronic environment.
• A retraction notification stating the reason is published on the journal’s website.
• The online version of the article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note.
• The HTML version of the retracted manuscript is removed; the PDF may be removed or restricted, while bibliographic data and the retraction notice remain accessible.
• The editor informs the institution(s) with which the author(s) are affiliated.
• The editor also notifies relevant databases and indexing services about the retraction.

In unpublished manuscripts where malpractice is confirmed, EDUPIJ may:

• Reject the manuscript;
• Ban the responsible author(s) from submitting to EDUPIJ for a defined period (typically two years or more, depending on severity);
• Inform the authors’ institutions or funders in serious cases.

Sanctions are proportionate to the seriousness and frequency of the misconduct and are decided by the Editorial Board and publisher.

Authors are expected to inform the Managing Editor (contact details on the EDUPIJ website) of any factual errors they notice in their article after publication.

• Minor issues such as purely typographical or formatting errors that do not affect the scientific integrity or understanding of the paper may be rejected as correction requests.
• The final version of a manuscript is not published unless all authors approve it.
• If a correction request is accepted by the Editor or Managing Editor, a correction notice is published on the journal’s main page as soon as possible, and the online article is linked to the correction notice.
• The editor notifies the relevant databases and indexing services about the correction.
• After submission, requests to add or remove author names are not accepted.

Authors must provide full funding information (if applicable), including:

• The name of the funding institution(s), and
• Relevant grant number(s).

Funding information should be declared under the heading “Funding” at the end of the manuscript file, before the references.

Authors must also disclose any competing interests (financial or non-financial) that could influence the interpretation or presentation of the work.

If you encounter any ethical violation, unethical act or content in EDUPIJ, please notify the journal by e-mail at:

• editor@edupij.com
• info@universitepark.com.tr

All credible reports are investigated promptly, confidentially and fairly.

Authors may appeal decisions related to malpractice if they believe there has been a procedural error or misunderstanding. Appeals must be submitted in writing with clear arguments and, where possible, evidence. The Editor-in-Chief, together with members of the Editorial Board or independent experts, will consider the appeal. The decision is final at the journal level.

• Have read and understood this Malpractice Policy,
• Agree to abide by it, and
• Will fully cooperate with any inquiries necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.