Süleyman Demirel University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences (J. Nat. Appl. Sci.) (hereinafter referred to as the journal) is a supporter of current policies regarding publication ethics standards. In this context, the journal complies with the standards, policies, principles and recommendations regarding publication ethics determined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive. Accordingly, manuscripts that are found not to comply with ethical standards are returned to the corresponding author without being reviewed. Articles that are found not to comply with ethical standards after publication are also treated accordingly. Within the scope of publication ethics, all authors and parties involved in the manuscript are expected to bear ethical responsibilities.

The points to be considered and followed by the editorial board (editors, section editors, associate editors, etc.), reviewers and authors are stated below:

1. The manuscript review processes are described on the relevant pages of the journal website. Editorial Board members show the utmost sensitivity and care for the routine operation of these processes, except for force majeure and acceptable valid reasons.

2. Editorial Board members agree not to submit a manuscript to the journal in which they are “Corresponding Author”. If they are “Author” of a manuscript, they agree not to take part in the processes of the relevant manuscript.

3. Editorial Board members show the necessary sensitivity and care to protect the confidentiality of the content of the manuscripts submitted to the journal.

4. Editorial Board members show the necessary sensitivity and care to ensure that the manuscripts are reviewed fairly and impartially within a reasonable time frame.

5. Editorial Board members show the necessary sensitivity and care to act objectively in the reviewer invitation and decision processes regarding the review of the manuscripts. The characteristics of the author(s) such as authority, position, institution, religious/political views and/or beliefs, gender, nationality, etc. should not influence the Editorial Board members and their decisions. Editorial Board members are not included in the processes related to the manuscript if any academic, commercial, social, etc. relationship and/or conflict of interest is detected with the author(s) of relevant manuscript.

6. Editorial Board members show the necessary sensitivity and care in reviewing the manuscripts submitted to the journal in terms of academic/scientific originality and level, contribution to the literature, suitability to the scope of the journal, compliance with similarity index criteria, etc.

7. Editorial Board members act with the knowledge that they should not share the content of the manuscripts submitted to the journal with any third party (except reviewers) and/or institutions, except in legally mandatory cases, and that they cannot use any content of the manuscript in any of their works without the written permission of the author(s).

B. Reviewers
1. In order to review a manuscript, researchers/experts who have knowledge in the field of the relevant manuscript can be invited as reviewers. The invitation process is carried out only through the DergiPark system and the invitation must be accepted or rejected within the period specified in the electronic message sent for this purpose.

2. Reviewers are expected to review the scientific content of the manuscript, its compliance with the scope and standards of the journal, its suitability for presentation to the scientific community, and its compliance with ethical principles.

3. The entire review process is carried out only through the DergiPark system. Reviewers are expected not to communicate with the author(s) or third parties regarding the manuscript content or processes. In case of detection, the relevant individuals will be excluded from the process and new reviewer(s) will be invited in their place.

4. Single-blind peer review is used as the standard procedure in the journal. In this context, the names of the reviewers are not disclosed to the authors.

5. Reviewers are expected to accept invitations for manuscripts that they can allocate sufficient time and that are in the field of their expertise. Regardless of their opinions, reviewers are expected not to share their decisions with the author(s) or third parties during and after the process.

6. Reviewers are expected to convey their comments on the manuscript from an honest and objective point of view, respecting the principles of confidentiality and impartiality. The characteristics of the author(s) such as authority, position, institution, religious/political views and/or beliefs, gender, nationality, etc. should not influence the reviewers and their decisions. Reviewers are expected to be aware that if they have any academic, commercial, social, etc. relationship and/or conflict of interest with the author(s), they should not be involved in the processes related to the manuscript.

7. Reviewers are expected to act with the awareness that a re-review process will need to be planned due to careless and superficial reviews and that this will be a lost of time for all parties.

8. Reviewers have the option of accepting, requesting minor revision, requesting major revision, or rejecting the manuscript. Reviewers are expected to explain and justify their opinions and decisions on scientific grounds and express them clearly. In this process, they are expected to display a constructive and courteous language and attitude in accordance with academic ethics and general ethical rules. Hostile, condescending, humiliating, insulting expressions and discourses that are the expression of similar feelings should be avoided.

C. Authors
1. Manuscripts submitted to the journal must be original scientific studies.

2. Only the names of the contributing authors should be included in the manuscripts and situations that are incompatible with ethical principles such as guest authorship, honorary authorship, gift authorship, ghost authorship or artificial intelligence authorship should be avoided.

3. Manuscripts should not have been published before and should not have been submitted to more than one journal at the same time for review.

4. Manuscripts must include appropriate permission and/or bibliography for content taken from another source, even if it is the authors' own previously published study, in accordance with the journal writing rules and ethical principles.

5. Manuscripts must not violate any rights of any person and/or organization, including any intellectual property rights, commercial rights and/or privacy rights.

6. It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that all content, data and results presented in the manuscripts are unmanipulated and unaltered. In this context, it is necessary that the data in the manuscripts belong to the authors and/or have the necessary permissions for the use, reproduction, distribution, derivation, etc. of these data.

7. If Acknowledgements, Supporting Institution and/or Project Number information is available in the article file, this information must be added to the DergiPark system at the time of article submission.

8. In addition to the manuscript file, "Publication Ethics and Ethics Committee Permission Declaration Form" and "Copyright Transfer and Conflict Declaration Form" documents must be uploaded during the manuscript submission.

9. Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with the Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive and the content and recommendations regarding publication ethics determined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In addition, it is expected that absolute importance and attention should be paid to the fact that none of the actions specified under the title of Actions Contrary to Scientific Research and Publication Ethics of the aforementioned directive (click here for the document accessed on 25.05.2024) have been carried out.

10. Upon request, the raw data of the content of the manuscripts should be provided in full and complete.

11. Manuscripts should be prepared as described in the relevant pages of the journal website and as exemplified in the manuscript template.

12. In order for the manuscripts to be reviewed by competent and qualified researchers/experts in the field, these individuals must first be identified. Subsequently, these individuals are invited and if they accept the invitation, the review process begins. All these stages should be understood by the author(s) and it is necessary to be aware that these processes are carried out within a time flow.

A. General Policies
1. Süleyman Demirel University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the journal) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published regularly three times a year (in April, August and December) and scanned in various national and international indexes.

2. All manuscripts are treated equally and all are subjected to the same processes.

3. Original scientific research manuscripts in Turkish and English languages in the fields of natural, engineering and architectural sciences are reviewed in the journal. Technical notes, letters to the editor, case reports, discussions and/or reviews are not considered for review.

4. If at any stage it is determined that the articles are not in compliance with the ethical principles and publication policy, the processes of the articles are terminated and the articles are returned to the responsible authors.

5. The content, information, findings, conclusions and all other statements in the articles published in the journal are not the views of the journal and all responsibility for them belongs to the authors.

B. Fee and Copyright Policy
1. No fee is requested from authors or institutions under any name for the manuscripts submitted to the journal.

2. No in-kind or cash royalties are paid for the published articles.

C. Plagiarism Policy
1. All manuscripts submitted to the journal are checked for plagiarism and a report on the similarity index is generated.

2. The creation of the similarity index report for the manuscripts submitted to the journal is carried out by the Journal Secretariat at the preliminary control stage. Authors do not need to upload any files in this context.

3. Manuscripts will not be reviewed if the total primary source matching value is above 25 % or any single primary source matching value is above 5 % as a result of the similarity index report (excluding the bibliography/references title). Even if the specified similarity values are not reached, manuscripts will not be reviewed if mass/block similarity is detected.

4. All authors of the manuscripts submitted to the journal are deemed to have accepted that no plagiarism has been made in their manuscripts, that all responsibilities that may arise due to plagiarism detected later belong to them and that the journal will not accept any responsibility for these issues.

D. Special Issue Publication Policy
1. With the evaluation and approval of the Editorial Board, additional/special issues may be published in thematic areas such as scientific events, national and/or international special days, topics focused on a specific research area in accordance with the purpose and scope of the journal.

2. The number of additional/special issues cannot be more than 1/3 of the normal period.

3. Manuscripts to be reviewed within the scope of additional/special issue are subjected to the same processes as the manuscripts reviewed in the normal period.

4. Editorial Board may appoint Guest Editor(s) for additional/special issue(s) if deemed appropriate.

E. Manuscript Submission Process
1. It is possible to submit manuscripts to the journal only through the DergiPark system and all procedures are carried out only through the DergiPark system. Manuscripts of authors who try to obtain information through other means of communication and/or engage the members of the editorial board in this matter to the extent that it causes discomfort will be returned regardless of the stage they are at.

2. During the manuscript submission process, at least 1 (one) and at most 3 (three) topics most suitable for the manuscript should be selected on the Article Metadata page in accordance with the current UKOD version. For information about UKOD, the relevant page of DergiPark may be examined.

3. During the manuscript submission process, all authors in the manuscript should be added to the DergiPark system in accordance with the explanations on the Authors page in the DergiPark system.

4. During the manuscript submission process, the required Submission Files must be uploaded in accordance with the explanations on the Files page in the DergiPark system. File names should be arranged as shown in the File Type field.

5. During the manuscript submission process, the data requested on the Additional Information page must be added exactly the same as the data in the full text file of the manuscript.

6. During the manuscript submission process, the data shown on the Preview page should be checked and the Submission Checklist should be read and approved. The Notes to the Editor field can be used for information and notes to be sent to the editor.

7. Manuscripts must be prepared as exemplified in the template and as specified in the writing rules. All information of all authors (name, middle name, surname, institutional information, ORCID information, etc.) must be correct and complete. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of this information.

8. Acknowledgements, Supporting Institution and/or Project Number fields can be added to the articles if deemed necessary.

9. Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with the rules of research and publication ethics. For each submission, in addition to the full text file, the "Publication Ethics and Ethics Committee Permission Form" and "Copyright Transfer and Conflict Declaration Form" documents must be signed by all authors and uploaded to the DergiPark system during manuscript submission. In case of missing information/documentation, manuscripts are not reviewed.

F. Ethical Declarations
1. It is assumed that all authors accept all statements available on the Ethical Principles and Publication Policy page.

2. It is assumed that all authors of the manuscripts accept the standards, policies, principles and recommendations on publication ethics set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive.

3. It is assumed that all authors of the manuscripts agree that they have not committed any plagiarism, forgery, falsification, distortion, duplication, slicing and similar ethical violations, in any way.

4. It is assumed that all authors agree that only the names of the contributing authors will be included in the manusciprts and that all authors agree to avoid situations that are incompatible with ethical principles such as guest authorship, honorary authorship, gift authorship, ghost authorship or artificial intelligence authorship.

5. If there is financial and/or in-kind support in the articles, Acknowledgement, Supporting Institution and/or Project Number fields must be added.

6. All kinds of research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from participants using survey, interview, focus group study, observation, experiment, interview techniques, the use of humans and animals (including materials / data) for experimental or other scientific purposes, clinical research on humans, research on animals, retrospective studies in accordance with the law on the protection of personal data will be considered as studies that require ethics committee permission regardless of when they are conducted. For studies within this scope, Ethics Committee Authorisation Document should be provided, submitted to the journal and detailed and explanatory information must be added in the text of the manuscript.

7. The following statement of COPE regarding the use of artificial intelligence in scientific studies has been adopted in the manuscripts submitted to the journal: "The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT or Large Language Models in research publications is expanding rapidly. COPE joins organisations, such as WAME and the JAMA Network among others, to state that AI tools cannot be listed as an author of a paper. AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements. Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics."  In this context, it is assumed that all authors accept that artificial intelligence tools are not used in the manuscripts submitted to the journal for the purpose of writing part or all of the manuscript. If any artificial intelligence tools have been used to improve spelling and/or grammar, it is assumed that all authors agree that this should be clearly and comprehensively stated in the text of the manuscript.

8. It is assumed that all authors of the manuscripts submitted to the journal are aware that they are responsible for all situations and consequences that may occur in contrary to the statements described in the Ethical Principles and Publication Policy area and accept that the journal has no responsibility in this regard.

G. Review Process
1. Each manuscript submitted to the journal is first taken to the preliminary control stage by the Journal Secretariat. At this stage, the manuscript is examined for compliance with the scope of the journal, spelling rules, plagiarism policy and the availability of the necessary files. It is aimed to complete this stage within thirty (30) days, except for force majeure and acceptable valid reasons.

2. Upon the decision of the Journal Secretariat, the manuscript may be returned for corrections, continued in the review process, or rejected. For manuscripts returned for correction, the necessary arrangements are expected to be completed within thirty (30) days. If requested by the corresponding author, an additional period of maximum fifteen (15) days may be granted, taking into account force majeure and acceptable valid reasons. If no response is received within the defined period, the journal has the right to reject the article and terminate the process.

3. After the preliminary control stage, the editor, section editor and/or assistant editor are assigned to the manuscripts. At this stage, manuscripts may be excluded from the process by considering criteria such as journal publication policy, journal purpose, journal scope, sufficient scientific maturity, originality and quality. If deemed necessary, a Language Editor and/or Statistical Editor may be assigned to the manuscripts.

4. The assigned editor, section editor and/or associate editor invites the most reasonable number of researchers/experts suitable for the subject and field of the relevant manuscript as reviewers in order to make an objective, impartial and reasonable review process. The same researcher/expert may be invited as a reviewer more than once for the review of one or more manuscripts.

5. Single-blind peer review is used as the standard procedure in the journal. In this context, the names of the reviewers are not disclosed to the authors. Authors also have the right to request double-blind peer review. In double-blind peer review, the names of reviewers and authors are not disclosed to each other. Authors who will make this request should not include any author information in their manuscript files. Author information should be prepared as a separate file in accordance with the explanations specified in the manuscript template and writing rules and should be uploaded to the DergiPark system at the time of manuscript submission.

6. Reviewers have the right to accept or reject the review invitation within the period specified in the automatic e-mail sent to them by complying with the issues described in the Ethical Principles and Publication Policy page. At the end of this period, the editor, section editor and/or associate editor may renew the review invitation or invite another researcher/expert as a reviewer.

7. The review process for reviewers starts with the acceptance of the invitation and and continues until the end of the standard period specified in the DergiPark system. Within this period, it is expected that the relevant forms provided to the reviewers in the DergiPark system are filled in completely. In case of force majeure and acceptable valid reasons, additional time may be given to the reviewers. If no comments are received within the defined period of time, the related review process may be terminated and another researcher/expert may be invited as reviewer.

8. Reviewers have the option to accept, request minor revision, request major revision, or reject the manuscript.

9. The editor, section editor and/or associate editor has the right to accept, minor revision, major revision or rejection of the manuscript by taking into account the reviews and comments made by the referees.

10. Manuscripts with minor revisions or major revisions are returned to the corresponding authors. The corresponding author has the right to accept or reject the revision request. If the revision is accepted, the authors are expected to complete the necessary revision process within the period specified in the automatic e-mail sent to them and in the DergiPark system. If requested by the corresponding author, an additional period of maximum thirty (30) days may be given, taking into account force majeure and acceptable valid reasons. If no response is received within the defined period, the journal has the right to reject the article and terminate the process.

11. The revised manuscript may be forwarded for re-review by the editor, field editor and/or associate editor to the same or different reviewers as in the first evaluation round. Reviewers who indicate that they would like to see the article again as a result of the revision process are asked for their opinion again after each evaluation round in which they express this request.

H. Publication Process
1. Manuscripts that are accepted by the editor, field editor and/or associate editor proceed to the publication stage.

2. During this process, layout and publication editors may be assigned to the article.

3. If they deem it necessary, layout editors can contact the authors and request that the article be adapted to the journal writing rules and template, as well as request spelling corrections and various other checks. In such a case, authors should absolutely not make any changes in the content of their articles. In case the contrary is detected, the journal has the right to reject the article and terminate the process.

4. It is important for authors to realise that the publication process involves several stages that can span a significant period of time. In this context, disturbing any Editorial Board member, regardless of the reason, by early publication of an article or a similar suggestion may constitute a reason for the rejection of the article.

5. The journal may publish a limited number of articles for each issue. In this context, the number of articles to be published in an issue is decided based on technical situations, process details, workload and planning. The volume and issue in which an accepted article will be published are planned taking into account the above-mentioned parameters.

1. About the article withdrawal procedure: With the announcement made by DergiPark on 30.05.2024, it was stated that the withdrawal procedure has been revised. The explanation made in this context is as follows: 

2. The articles published by the journal are considered to be the final version of the relevant text and the authors are assumed to accept this. In case of error detection, correction or retraction request is processed in accordance with COPE guidelines. Requests for correction or retraction must be made by submitting a document containing detailed justification, including the article title, DergiPark ID number and all other publication information, prepared with wet signatures by all authors, to the official communication channel of the journal by the corresponding author.

3. If it is understood that the error detected in the published article is at a level that does not significantly affect the findings, an erratum or a corrigendum may be published in the next issue. In this case, the erratum or the corrigendum page containing the detailed explanation is added to the relevant issue and published by referring to the original article.

4. If it is understood that the error detected in the published article is at a level that will greatly affect the findings or if ethical violations are in question, it may be retracted by the editor and/or author. In this case, a retraction page containing the detailed explanation is added to the relevant issue and published by referring to the original article.

J. Open Access and Archiving Policy
1. Adopting the idea that providing the articles it publishes free of charge to the public and the scientific community will increase the global knowledge sharing, the journal offers articles as open access following their publication. In this context, the journal adopts and supports the Open Access policy and accepts the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) declaration.

2. In accordance with the definition of Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), the journal adopts the view that peer-reviewed scientific studies should be freely accessible, readable, downloadable, copied, distributed, printed, scanned, linked to full texts, indexed, transferred to software as data and used for any legal purpose without financial, legal and technical barriers via the internet.

3. Authors agree that published articles will be made available free of charge under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence. Click here for detailed information about this licence.

4. The journal uses the LOCKSS system, provided by DergiPark, to allow participating libraries to create a distributed archiving system, allowing libraries to create permanent archives for preservation and restoration purposes.