SÜLEYMAN DEMİREL LAW REVIEW ETHICAL GUIDELINES AND PUBLISHING POLICY
PUBLISHING ETHICS
1. National and International Principles
Süleyman Demirel Law Review adheres to national and international publishing ethics standards. In this regard, it adopts the Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Regulation issued by the Higher Education Council of Turkey (https://www.yok.gov.tr/Sayfalar/Kurumsal/mevzuat/bilimsel-arastirma-ve-etik-yonetmeligi.aspx), the COPE Core Practices prepared by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices), and the COPE Publication Ethics Guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines). The review also aligns with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (POT) developed through collaboration with COPE, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) (https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.12).
To detect any instances of plagiarism, Süleyman Demirel Law Review uses the iThenticate software to check submitted articles. Any article exceeding a 20% similarity rate (excluding references) or found to involve any ethical violations is rejected without being sent for peer review. Articles are assessed by at least two reviewers from both domestic and international sources. A double-blind peer review process is followed during this evaluation. Authors are responsible for making revisions as recommended by the reviewers.
2. Authors’ Responsibilities
Articles submitted to Süleyman Demirel Law Review must be aligned with the journal's objectives and scope, as well as its formatting guidelines. The author is responsible for ensuring that the article complies with scientific and ethical standards. Plagiarism, falsification, misrepresentation, duplicate publication, slicing, unjust authorship, and failure to acknowledge individuals, institutions, or organizations providing support are considered violations of ethical principles and the publishing policy.
By submitting an article for publication, the author affirms that the work is original, has not been previously published elsewhere, and is not under evaluation for publication in another journal or language.
All sources referenced in the article must be cited according to the journal’s citation guidelines. Materials subject to copyright (e.g., tables, figures, and large quotes) must be used with proper permissions and acknowledgements.
Translated works may only be published with the written permission of the original author or the copyright holder. The permission statement, including the person or institution granting the permission, must be indicated with an asterisk (*) in the first footnote.
In the case of multiple authors, each author must have contributed significantly to the article. All authors are accountable for the content of the article.
Individuals who do not meet the criteria for authorship but have contributed to the article may be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section with an asterisk (*) in the article’s title.
The order of authorship must be agreed upon collectively by the authors. After the review process has begun, changes to authorship (e.g., adding, removing, or altering the order of authors) cannot be proposed.
The author must disclose any financial relationships, conflicts of interest, and competing interests that could influence the research outcomes or scientific assessment.
If an author identifies a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article, they are responsible for contacting the editor to correct or retract the article.
The authors must provide accurate and complete information, including their full names, ORCID, affiliated institution, country, city, and email address.
3. Reviewers’ Responsibilities
Reviewers must have the necessary expertise to evaluate the submitted article.
Reviewers should assess articles impartially and objectively.
If a reviewer feels they are not sufficiently qualified to review the article, cannot make an impartial and objective evaluation, or are unable to provide timely feedback, they must inform the editor and request to withdraw from the review process.
Reviewers must not have conflicts of interest with the research, authors, or financial supporters of the research. If any conflict of interest is identified, it should be reported to the editor.
If any ethical violations related to the research or publication are detected in the submitted article, this should be reported to the editor.
Articles under review must not be shared or discussed with third parties. All information regarding the article should be kept confidential.
The Reviewer Evaluation Form should be filled out truthfully and contain scientific assessment. Feedback should be polite, constructive, and objective.
4. Editors’ Responsibilities
General Responsibilities: The editor is responsible for gathering feedback from authors, readers, reviewers, and the editorial board to improve the journal and prevent scientific misconduct.
Relations with Authors: The editor must provide authors with guidelines regarding article submission, the journal’s expectations, formatting requirements, ethical principles, and other important considerations.
In the case of suspected ethical violations, the editor will follow the COPE Flowcharts to manage the process.
Relations with Reviewers: The editor must provide the most up-to-date version of the journal’s guidelines to reviewers.
Reviewers must be asked to declare any potential conflicts of interest before evaluating a manuscript.
The editor should recognize and appreciate the contributions of reviewers.
The performance of reviewers should be tracked and a database maintained.
Reviewers who consistently exhibit rudeness, low performance, or delay in providing feedback should be removed from the journal's database.
(https://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf)
5. General Principles for Ethical Violations
To prevent ethical violations, articles submitted for publication undergo a double-blind peer review process. The article must be approved by both reviewers for publication. If one reviewer rejects the article but the other reviewer recommends publication, the final evaluation is made by a third reviewer. If the third reviewer also rejects the article, the decision to reject the article is communicated to the author.
Articles submitted to the journal are checked by the editor or assistant editor using the iThenticate software to detect any similarity with other works. The similarity rate must be below 20%, excluding bibliographic materials (references, quotations, etc.). Articles exceeding this threshold are rejected without being sent for review.
If an ethical violation or misconduct is detected before an article is published, the Editorial Board may decide to return the article and not publish it.
If an ethical violation or misconduct is discovered after the article is published, the article will be retracted. In such cases, the COPE Guidelines will be followed.
(https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/Full_set_of_flowcharts_Turkey_2017%20%281%29.pdf)
PUBLISHING POLICY
1. About the Journal
Suleyman Demirel Law Review (SDLR) has been published by the Faculty of Law at Suleyman Demirel University since 2011. Since 2017, the journal has been classified as a "Peer-Reviewed Journal" indexed by ULAKBIM and is an open-access journal published biannually in June and December. Every article accepted for publication is assigned a DOI number. The language of the articles to be published in the journal may be Turkish, English, or German.
Articles submitted for publication in the journal must meet the highest academic standards and contribute to the field of legal education.
Articles submitted to the journal must not have been previously published elsewhere or be under consideration for publication in any other venue.
The article submission process for the journal is managed via the DergiPark system, which is always open for article submissions. Authors can transparently follow the publication process through the DergiPark system.
2. Copyright and Licensing
By submitting their articles to the journal, authors agree that their articles will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. This license allows for the sharing, copying, and redistribution of the article in any medium or format, and for adaptation and transformation of the work, including for commercial purposes, as long as proper attribution is provided to the original work.
3. Open Access Statement
The journal is open-access, and all content is freely available to readers. The journal adopts the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) Declaration, which defines open access as “a way to make scientific literature available to the public without financial, legal, or technical barriers, allowing it to be accessible, readable, downloadable, copyable, printable, searchable, linkable to full texts, indexed, transferable into software data, and usable for all legal purposes.” Regarding copyright, authors should have control over their work’s integrity, recognition, and citation rights.
4. Privacy Statement
All data shared by authors during the publication process (such as names, contact information, and addresses) is used solely for academic purposes and is not shared with third parties. Information about submitted articles will remain confidential until the article is published.
5. Archiving Policy
Published articles are archived through the LOCKSS system provided by DergiPark.
Authors may self-archive the article or parts of it in their personal archives (e.g., their own websites) as long as the journal's URL is included.
6. Fees, Sponsorship, and Advertisements
No fees are charged to authors for the evaluation of their articles at any stage of the publication process.
The journal does not accept any sponsorship or advertisement offers.