Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

The Journal of Historical Science (Tarihbilim Dergisi) upholds the principles of academic integrity, transparency, and scientific impartiality at the highest level throughout its publishing processes. To safeguard international academic publishing standards, our journal fully adopts and implements the "Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing" (2022), a joint declaration by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). In accordance with the criteria of international indices, the prevention of academic misconduct constitutes the fundamental editorial responsibility of our journal.

The core ethical policies established within this framework are classified as follows:

Academic Misconduct and the Integrity of Scholarly Literature Any action that undermines the reliability of the scholarly literature is deemed unethical and is categorically rejected.

  • Plagiarism and Similarity: All manuscripts submitted to the journal are screened via iThenticate or intihal.net software. The similarity index is strictly expected not to exceed 15% (excluding the bibliography). Plagiarism, improper citation of one's own work (self-plagiarism/duplication), and the fragmentation of research (salami-slicing) constitute absolute grounds for rejection.

  • Data Falsification and Fabrication: In instances involving the manipulation of research data (falsification) or the generation of fictitious data or sources (fabrication), the manuscript is unequivocally expunged from the evaluation process.

  • Citation Manipulation: The inclusion of superfluous references that are incongruous with the manuscript's content, solely for the purpose of artificially inflating citation metrics, is strictly prohibited.

Authorship and Contributorship

  • Authorship Criteria: Individuals listed as authors on a manuscript must have made a direct and substantive academic contribution to the conceptualization, design, data analysis, and drafting of the research (strictly adhering to ICMJE criteria).

  • Unethical Authorship: The inclusion of individuals who have not contributed to the study (gift/guest authorship) or the omission of individuals who have contributed (ghost authorship) is considered scientific misconduct.

  • Utilization of Artificial Intelligence (AI): If Large Language Models (LLMs) or analogous AI tools are utilized in text generation or data analysis, this must be transparently declared within the "Acknowledgment/Declaration" section. Under no circumstances can artificial intelligence be granted the status of an author.

Conflicts of Interest

  • Authors: Authors are obliged to explicitly declare any financial, institutional, or personal relationships that could potentially influence their work at the time of submission.

  • Reviewers: Should reviewers identify a potential conflict of interest regarding the authors, funding bodies, or institutions of the manuscript they have been assigned to evaluate, they must immediately notify the editor and recuse themselves from the review process.

  • Editors: Editors maintain absolute autonomy in their decision-making processes. They shall not manage the editorial workflow of manuscripts wherein they possess a personal or professional conflict of interest with either the authors or the reviewers.

Complaints and Appeals The Journal of Historical Science approaches author appeals regarding peer-review decisions or allegations of academic ethical violations concerning published articles with the utmost gravity.

  • Complaints and appeals must be submitted directly to the Editor-in-Chief in writing and with substantiated rationale via [tarihbilim.org].

  • The Editor-in-Chief shall examine the allegations objectively, consulting independent external experts if necessary, and provide transparent, prompt, and constructive feedback to the complainant/author in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Data Sharing and Reproducibility In the interest of ensuring the objectivity and verifiability of historical research, authors are strongly encouraged to share primary sources, archival documents, or datasets that form the empirical basis of their research—provided such sharing does not infringe upon copyright or legal permissions—either as supplementary material to the manuscript or within open-access data repositories.

Intellectual Property and Ethical Oversight

  • Intellectual Property: All articles published within the journal are made available through open access under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)license. While authors retain the proprietary rights to their work, they grant the journal the right of first publication.

  • Ethical Oversight: In research predicated upon archival documents, rare manuscripts, or private collections (e.g., visual materials, maps, etc.), it is the absolute responsibility of the author to ensure that legal usage rights and all requisite permissions have been officially secured.

Post-Publication Discussions, Corrections, and Retractions Fostering a culture that values scholarly debate, the journal's administration welcomes academic critiques and commentaries regarding published works.

  • Corrections: Should minor errors be detected in a published manuscript that do not invalidate the overarching findings of the research, a transparent correction notice shall be published in the subsequent issue.

  • Retractions: If fundamental errors that invalidate the original findings, instances of data fabrication, duplicate publication, or severe plagiarism are identified, the article shall be immediately retracted in accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines. The decision to retract, alongside its detailed justification, shall be prominently declared across all digital platforms.

Duties and Responsibilities of Stakeholders

Duties of the Editors

  • Editorial Independence: In rendering decisions to accept or reject submitted manuscripts, editors act completely independently of factors such as nationality, gender, religious, or political beliefs, basing their judgments solely on scientific quality, originality, and alignment with the journal's aims and scope. Neither the publisher nor any external institution may interfere with editorial decisions.

  • Confidentiality and Double-Blind Peer Review: The evaluation process is conducted exclusively via a rigorous double-blind peer review methodology. Editors are bound by an absolute obligation to maintain the strict confidentiality of both author and reviewer identities.

Duties of the Reviewers

  • Objectivity and Constructiveness: Peer-review evaluations must remain within the boundaries of academic objectivity, be grounded in evidence, and provide constructive feedback. Reviews containing unscientific, derogatory, or ad hominem remarks directed at the authors shall be censored or entirely excluded from the evaluation process.

  • Competence and Timeliness: Reviewers must solely accept manuscripts that fall within their specific domain of expertise and are obligated to submit their comprehensive reports within the designated timeframe.

Duties of the Authors

  • Originality and Exclusive Submission: Authors formally guarantee that the submitted manuscript has not been previously published in any medium (including in a different language) and is not concurrently under consideration by any other journal.

  • Accuracy: Research methodologies, primary sources, and empirical findings must be presented transparently and in accordance with the conventions of academic literature; both in-text citations and the bibliography must be exhaustive and precise. All educational, institutional, or financial sponsors must be explicitly acknowledged. Publications derived from a singular research project or academic dissertation must be clearly declared in the initial footnote.