Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

Update Date: 31.01.2024

The publication policy of JSOMER aims to improve and disseminate information objectively and respectfully. Constituting the main content of JSOMER, peer-reviewed studies are the ones that support and materialize the scientific method. It is expected that all the parties (editors, reviewers, authors, publishers, and readers) taking parts or playing roles in the process of producing a peer-reviewed product may also contribute to these processes to proceed on the right track. Aiming to arrive at this end, it is of utmost importance for scientific studies to follow ethical principles, rules, regulations, and considerations.

JSOMER accepts the following ethical principles based on the guidelines and policies made by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All JSOMER stakeholders are expected to adopt, embrace, and follow these ethical principles.

Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections

Plagiarism Policy

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of the Editor

Ethical Responsibilities of the Reviewers

Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

Conflict of Interests

Open Access Policy

The Processes of Reviewing and Publishing Manuscripts

Publication Fee Policy (Free of Charge)

Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections

Expressions of Concern

An Expression of Concern is a correction or typo published at the editors' discretion to inform readers of serious concerns or potentially misleading information about a published article. We usually complete our investigations of a suspected case before issuing a report, although in some rare cases, we may state concern as an interim notification. JSOMER's editors-in-chief write expressions of concern. When published, a statement of concern is posted at the top of the article's webpage and linked to the article's publication record, similar to a correction. The publication of a statement of concern does not change the status of the related published article. Once a statement of concern has been published, the same article may be corrected or withdrawn, or the statement of concern itself may be corrected or withdrawn, depending on the editors' assessment of the information, data, and/or materials received in subsequent discussions.

The JSOMER editorial board informs the authors of the affected article before publishing a statement of concern but does not require their consent or agreement. The editorial board publishes data or other materials received from the authors as supporting files with the expression of concern. In such cases, authors are consulted and can choose not to to publish their dossier/materials; however, this may influence the editors' decision to resolve the issue with an expression of concern. The JSOMER editorial board/editors-in-chief may send a Statement of Concern to affected third parties. This may include, for example, the authors' institution(s) and the affected repository or another journal/publisher that has an article or submission involved in the case.

Correction

A modification or correction of previously published material; (sometimes called an "inaccuracy"). Correction refers to changes the author wishes to make after acceptance, during the publication process or at any time after publication. Authors have the right to request correction of typographical errors or other problems caused by them within seven days. There is no time limit for corrections other than typographical errors deemed essential. They should be made if the author decides that they are scientifically necessary. A correction is then created and published in the next available issue. All corrections should be sent to editor@jsomer.org The editorial board will review proposals for corrections. Once the correction is accepted, this new article will be published in the journal.

Withdrawal

A retraction is a public statement about an earlier statement that will be removed from the journal. The retraction can be initiated by the journal editors or the article's author(s). However, since the editors are responsible for the journal's content, they can always decide to withdraw the material. Journal editors can retract publications even if all or some of the authors refuse to retract the publication. Only published items can be withdrawn. Publications should be withdrawn as soon as possible when the JSOMER editorial board is convinced that the publication is seriously flawed and misleading (or redundant or plagiarized). Compelling reasons may include plagiarism, multiple submissions, false claims of authorship, fraudulent use of data, violation of professional and ethical rules, and failure to disclose a significant competitive interest.

Authors sometimes request retraction of manuscripts when authorship is challenged after publication. Unless there is reason to doubt the validity of the findings or the reliability of the data, it is inappropriate to retract a publication solely because of an authorship dispute. In such cases, JSOMER editors-in-chief should inform those involved in the conflict that they cannot pass judgment in such cases. Nevertheless, they may be willing to publish a correction to the list of authors/contributors if the authors/contributors (or their institutions) provide appropriate evidence that such a change is justified.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Correction, Retraction, Expression of Concern
The editor should consider publishing a correction if minor errors that do not affect 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 the institutions of the authors do not investigate the case, or the possible investigation seems to be unfair or nonconclusive. The guidelines of COPE are considered regarding correction, retractions or expression of concern. JSOMER editors take serious measures to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred. Thus, they do not encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to occur. If JSOMER editors identify or have grounds for suspecting research misconduct, they will deal with allegations appropriately. JSOMER and its editors are always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed. Authors can request withdrawal, retraction, or correction(s) of their articles before publication. However, they can only request retractions or corrections of their articles within five days after their article is published in an issue. Otherwise, they will have to write a correction notice, which will be published in the next issue. Withdrawal is possible at any stage before publication. JSOMER never tolerates plagiarism and self-plagiarism; and has the right to check all submissions using tools such as Turnitin, intihal.net, and Ithenticate. JSOMER accepts manuscripts up to a maximum similarity rate of 20%. Except for exceptional cases, this limit cannot be exceeded, and any submitted article with a higher similarity rate than mentioned here will be rejected.

Plagiarism Policy

The publication policy of JSOMER aims to improve and disseminate information objectively and respectfully. Peer-reviewed studies are the main content of JSOMER and support and materialize the scientific method. All the parties (editors, reviewers, authors, publishers, and readers) participating or playing roles in producing a peer-reviewed product may also contribute to these processes to proceed on the right track. Aiming to arrive at this end, it is of utmost importance for scientific studies to follow ethical principles, rules, regulations, and considerations. JSOMER accepts the following ethical principles based on the guidelines and policies made by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All JSOMER stakeholders must adopt, embrace, and follow the ethical principles below.

Plagiarism Action Plan and Journal Precautions

Intentionally or not, plagiarism means breaching research ethics. Publishing a piece of work with similar or the same content as other studies without citing them is ethical misconduct and an offense against the law. The editorial board has the right to act according to COPE’s rules and regulations in case of any claim related to a manuscript that has been plagiarized, referencing manipulation, and/or data forgery. Manuscripts with a more than 20% similarity rate will be returned to the author without being included in the review process. The authors may submit their manuscripts after ensuring that the correspondence report of their respective manuscripts shows less than 20% similarity.

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

1. The JSOMER will immediately contact the university to which the author(s) are affiliated, to take final action against the related author.
2. The JSOMER 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 published article's title.
3. The JSOMER will disable the author's account and reject all future submissions by the author for a period of 3 years.

Misconduct of Scientific Research and Publication Ethics

Plagiarism: Using other persons’ original thoughts, methods, data, or products without citing the sources or presenting another person’s work as one’s own partially or as a whole;
Forgery: Using data that does not exist or is being distorted;
Distortion: Distorting, spoiling, or corrupting research records or data; Claiming that some tools or materials have been used in the research that are not utilized for the study.
Altering, distorting, or shaping the research results to fit in the interests of those persons or institutions supporting the research;
Duplication: Using the same research data in more than one piece of work;
Slicing: Dividing the results of research into several pieces that violate its integrity and then publishing them as separate research papers;
Undeserved authorship: Indicating those persons as authors who did not actively contribute to the manuscript's production or not indicating the ones that contributed to the study in question.
Changing the order of the author names inappropriately and unnecessarily;
Not indicating/including the relevant information about persons/institutions/organizations supporting the research and their support;
Citing those dissertations/theses that have not yet been submitted;
Not following the ethical rules and regulations and/or not obtaining the necessary permissions before conducting research involving human and/or animal subjects. Not respecting patients’ rights, giving harm to animals’ health and ecological balance;
The misuse or abuse of resources, places, means, and tools that have been provided/allocated for the research;
Proclaiming misleading/fallacious information related to scientific research and publications.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Author(s) must ensure the accuracy and truthfulness of the data used in the study; keep records of research processes and procedures neatly; and provide the relevant raw data and/or information, in case it is required by the editorial and scientific boards.
Authors need to ensure that their manuscript has not been published elsewhere or has not been accepted for publication in any other peer-reviewed journal.
People who have not contributed to the study at the intellectual level should not be indicated/assigned as authors.
Authors have to follow the related national and international rules and regulations, if their studies include animal and/or human subjects (for example, WMA Helsinki Declaration, PHS Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, The EU Directive on the Use of Animals); to prove that the necessary permissions and approvals are provided; to respect the privacy of subjects/participants.
If the manuscripts submitted to be published are subject to conflicting interests or relations, these must be shared with the editor and the publisher. If it is seen necessary, provide an annex or error proclaim or withdraw the manuscript.
During the peer-reviewing process, authors might be required to provide the raw data they used in their studies to the Editorial Board. So, they are expected to share the relevant data with the Editorial Board and to keep safe all relevant data at least for five years.
Author(s) bears the responsibility to inform the editor of the journal or publisher if they happen to notice a mistake in their study which is in the early release or publication process and to cooperate with the editors during the correction or withdrawal process.

Note= All manuscripts submitted to JSOMER, which use data provided by human subjects/participants, are required to ensure that they have already gone under investigation and gained the relevant Ethics Committee’s approval. The Ethics Committee's name, the approval date, and the approval number should be stated on the title page, the methods section, and the last page of the manuscript. The authors are also required to provide evidence (i.e., getting permission from the relevant persons or bodies, when using questionnaires, scales, photos, or documents developed by others or belonging to others) that they obeyed the ethical rules and regulations during the data collection processes (in the Methods section of the Manuscript File. The name of the board should not be written here for blinding purposes). Further, it must also be stated in the manuscripts that the authors followed the relevant publication ethics and copyright policies. If the study includes human and animal subjects, it must be stated that the research was conducted by international guidance, rules, regulations, and standards. The authors are not required to submit an Ethics Committee approval if they only submit a review study. In case of this, it must be stated on the first and last pages of the manuscripts and in the methods section that the current study does not require an Ethics Committee approval. The manuscripts including case reports should also provide the information that an informed consent form was read, approved, and signed by the participants.

In the Title Pages file under the "Ethical Approval" section. The name of the board, approval number, and approval date should be included here.

The second use of data collected from human participants for further research purposes is exempt from ethics committee approval. This applies to the reuse of data by the original collector of the data for a purpose different to that for which they were collected and reused by other researchers (unless these uses are specifically encompassed in the original consent). Researchers seeking to reuse data which they did not collect themselves, and which are not in the public domain, should always seek the permission of the data controller for their use and comply with any research governance procedures required by the data controller before accessing the data.

There are a number of cases in which ethical review for the re-use of data collected from human participants will not normally be required. These are:

The reuse of data which are already in the public domain (i.e. published in books, journals, etc.).
The reuse of datasets for which consent for reuse for research purposes beyond which the data was originally gathered was provided by the participants and for which all data have been robustly anonymised. <top>

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of the Editor

The editor and field editors of JSOMER should hold the following ethical responsibilities that are based on the guides "COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" published as Open Access by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). These can be accessed on the link below: https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf)

While fulfilling editorial duties and responsibilities, adopting balanced and objective behaviours; and approaching the authors fairly without discriminating against anyone on the grounds of her/his gender, religious belief, political standpoint, ethnic background, or nationality.
Evaluate the manuscripts sent to JSOMER based on the “manuscript submission guidelines”, the significance of the study and its originality, and if she/he decides to reject a manuscript after the editorial evaluation, inform the authors of the rationale behind this decision clearly and objectively. Informing authors and allocating the necessary time for amendment, if she/he decides that a manuscript needs a thorough revision as a result of several typesetting, punctuation, writing, and layout errors as well as some problems related to the referencing system.
Taking the necessary cautions and assessing the demands from both sides, if there is a conflict of interests.
Assessing and evaluating the works submitted to JSOMER based on their content, without providing privilege to any of them.
Ensuring that all manuscripts go through a blind peer-reviewing process and the authors do not know anything about the reviewers nor do the reviewers have any information related to the authors.
Handling sponsored research or studies on special topics in the way that all other manuscripts go through.
Supporting the authors’ freedom of expression.
If the authors demand information about their manuscripts, carefully inform them about the processes and state of their manuscripts without breaching the rules and regulations related to blind peer-reviewing processes.
Continuously updating the manuscript template presenting and explaining what has been expected from the authors.
Ensuring that all the published papers include the dates of sending and acceptance.
Endeavouring to improve the quality of the journal and contribute to its development.
If there is a complaint about breaching an ethical principle, take the necessary action in accordance with JSOMER’s relevant policies and procedures. Providing the authors the necessary opportunities to answer the complaints addressed to their manuscript or to defend themselves, and imposing the relevant sanctions fairly and objectively.
Inviting the reviewers to express that they do not have any conflict of interest with the author(s) of a manuscript before starting to review it.
Renewing and expanding the number of reviewers while keeping their areas of expertise or specialities in mind.
Excluding those reviewers who do not fulfil their duties on time or provide feedback and comments being impolite and lacking quality.
Rejecting a manuscript that is not appropriate to JSOMER’s aims and scope.
Finding and assigning new members for the Editorial Board, who have the potential to contribute to its development.
Informing the new members of the Editorial Board in relation to JSOMER’s manuscript submission guide; explaining to them what is expected from a member of the Editorial Board, and informing them about their responsibilities.
Reviewing the critics/criticism about the journal and answering them, if it is seen as necessary. <top>

Ethical Responsibilities of the Reviewers

The fact that all manuscripts are reviewed through "Blind Double Review" has a direct influence on the publication quality. This process ensures confidentiality through objective and independent review. The review process at JSOMER is carried out on the principle of double-blind review. Neither the reviewers know and/or contact the authors directly, nor do the authors have any information related to the reviewers. The reviews and comments are conveyed through the journal management system. In this process, the reviewer's views on the evaluation forms and full texts are assigned to the author(s) by the editor. Therefore, the reviewers doing review work for JSOMER are supposed to bear the ethical responsibilities listed below. Reviewers must;

To assist the editor in decision-making procedures, agree to review only those works in their subject of expertise and review the manuscript sent to them fairly, objectively, and on time.
Fill in the relevant ‘Reviewer Evaluation Form’ and ensure that any information related to her/his (the reviewer) identity has not been reflected in the form. Indicating her/his decision in respect of whether the manuscript should be accepted for publication or not along with the justification of this decision.
Review the manuscript objectively and only in terms of its content and ensure that nationality, gender, religious and political beliefs, and economic apprehension do not influence the review.
Rigorously review a manuscript in an unbiased and confidential manner and provide relevant feedback to improve its quality.
Review the manuscript in a constructive and kind tone, and avoid making personal comments including hostility, slander, and insult. If it is seen that the reviewers’ comments do not have a scientific quality, they might be invited to revise their assessment and feedback.
Review only the content of a manuscript objectively.
Protect the privacy of information provided by the editor or the author(s) and destroy the manuscript after the review process.
Inform the editor of the journal if they think that they encounter a problem that may harm the double-blind review process and decline to review the manuscript during the review process.
Dispose of the manuscripts they have reviewed in accordance with the principle of confidentiality after the review process. Reviewers can use the final versions of the manuscripts they have reviewed only after publication.
Be aware of the potential conflict of interests (financial, institutional, collaborative, or those between the authors or related to other relationships), and warn the editor to withdraw the relevant manuscript from the review process. <top>

Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

Like all other stakeholders, the publisher also has to obey ethical principles and behave accordingly.
The publisher bears all the responsibility to take precautions against scientific abuse, fraud, and plagiarism.
The publisher protects the intellectual property rights of all the articles published in JSOMER and holds the responsibility of keeping a record of each published product.
The publisher accepts that the editor and editorial board are entitled to make all the decisions related to reviewing, editorial, and publication processes.
All stakeholders should not hesitate to contact the publisher if they see or recognize any unethical conduct or behaviour. <top>

Conflict of Interests

Matters in which persons or groups benefit economically or personally may also cause a conflict of interest. The reliability of scientific research and published papers is partly related to objectively handling the conflicts of interest in the processes of planning, applying, writing, assessing, revising, and publishing them.
Financial relations might include the most easily defined conflicts of interest, which may inevitably influence the reliability of the journal as well as the authors in a negative way. , These conflicts may arise from various issues including interpersonal relationships, academic competition, or intellectual approaches. The authors may want to avoid those sponsors, either commercial or non-profit ones, that may restrict access to all study data or propose to interfere with the processes of data analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, publication, etc.
To prevent conflict of interests, the editors may try not to assign certain people as reviewers of certain manuscripts submitted by certain authors The editor giving the final decision about a manuscript should ensure that she/he does not have a personal or financial relationship with the relevant author(s).
To make the reviewing processes independent of any unethical conduct, the authors are expected to inform the editorial board in case of a potential conflict of interest.
The editorial board of JSOMER promises to consider all these possibilities and strive to make the reviewing process as objective as possible. <top>

Open Access Policy

Aiming to support the idea of accessing information most easily, JSOMER adopts an open-access policy and supports the idea of requiring peer-reviewed journals to become open-access appearing in the Budapest Open Access Initiative signed on September 12, 2012. Thus, the open-access policies adopted by the editorial board of JSOMER can be found at http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/boai-10-recommendations.

Budapest Open Access Initiative defines the concept of “open access” as [peer-reviewed works’] “… free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.”

In this respect, authors hold the copyrights of their manuscripts as well as the final papers. The authors hold the copyright without any restrictions. Copyright transfer agreements and similar agreements are not requested from the authors. Solely for keeping the integrity and quality all JSOMER content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. This license terms are not binding for authors. JSOMER full-text articles are published online immediately after their procedures and are openly and freely accessible afterwards. No fees or subscriptions are required for access to the full-text articles. In thinking of sharing knowledge/information in the expansion of scientific developments, open-access policies promise great potential for researchers and readers. Based on this perspective, JSOMER invites its readers to freely access and use its published works by referring to their sources and authors. The readers do not need to obtain permission from the authors or the publisher. <top>

Creative Commons

All articles published by JSOMER are licensed with “Creative Commons Attribution License (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International CC BY-NC-ND)”. This license entitles all parties to use scientific work for a non-profit purpose under the condition of providing references. Open access is an approach that eases interdisciplinary communication and encourages cooperation among different disciplines. Therefore, JSOMER contributes to the field of social media research by providing more access to its articles and a more transparent review process. The publication processes of JSOMER are executed by the manuals of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), National Information Standards Organization (NISO, Council of Science Editors (CSE), and European Association of Science Editors (EASE).

Authors who send their manuscripts to the Journal of Social Media Research (JSOMER) read and approve the text of the responsibility statement on the screen of the control list when they upload their studies on the online system of the journal. By marking the box “I warrant that it conforms with the items above” at the end of the control list, it is deemed to have accepted the text of the responsibility statement.

Author(s) declare(s) to approve the statements at below:

The manuscript sent to be published in the Journal of Social Media Research (JSOMER) is the author(s) own original work,
A part or the whole of this work has been not published and has not been sent for publication elsewhere.
All the authors have read and approved the manuscript as it is. They all acknowledge that it has been sent to JSOMER for publication.
The author(s) are responsible for the content and information presented in the manuscript.
All approved rights such as patents, etc. copyrights are of the author(s);
The author(s) can use the whole work in their books, courses, oral presentations, and conferences.
They have the right to reproduce the work as a whole or in part for their use.
That the text, figures, and documents in the article do not violate the copyrights of the third parties, the publisher is not responsible for any claims or lawsuits to be made by third parties due to copyright infringement, and all responsibility belongs to authors. <top>

The Processes of Reviewing and Publishing Manuscripts

The reviewing process of the manuscripts sent to JSOMER proceeds following these steps:

The manuscript is reviewed by the Editor to see whether its aims, subject, content, and style of writing fit the requirements of JSOMER (Maximum 10 days). The manuscript is approved by the Editor and sent to the Field Editor. Other manuscripts not approved by the Editor were sent back to their authors/owners for revision and resubmission.
The examination/review of the Field Editor results in the decision of either sending the manuscript to reviewers or returning it to their authors/owners for revision (Maximum 10 days).
The selection processes of referees are based on expertise and experience in the relevant field. The referees are given 20 days to review a manuscript sent to them.
If a reviewer thinks that she/he cannot complete the reviewing process within the given time, she/he can ask the Editor for extra time or let the Editor know that she/he is not able to review the manuscript due to various reasons, such as the shortage of time. Doing these things helps the Editor assign new reviewers without losing too much time.
If a reviewer cannot review the manuscript assigned to her/him within the given scope of time, she/he is sent a reminder e-mail with an additional 10 days to complete the reviewing process. If she/he does not return the reviewed manuscripts within the additional time, that manuscript may be withdrawn from her/him. After that, it is assigned to another reviewer.
If there is a divergence of opinion between the two reviewers (one accepting the manuscript and the other rejecting it), the field editor examines the review reports and compares and contrasts the reviewers’ critics and viewpoints, as well as their reasoning to arrive at a decision.
If the field editor may not decide after examining the reviewer's reports, then the manuscript is assigned to a third reviewer.
The decision for a manuscript is supposed to be given within the first 90-120 days. Then the authors are informed about the decision. The accepted papers are to be published in the following issue of JSOMER. <top>

Publication Fee Policy (Free of Charge)

JSOMER does not require any subscription publication fee or any other type of payment for accessing and/or using electronic information sources. JSOMER does not charge any fee from the authors during the publication process. <top>

Update Date: 31.01.2024