The publisher and users (chief editor, editors, field editors, authors, reviewers, readers, etc.) of the Geological Bulletin of Turkey (Geol. Bull. Turkey) must abide by the ethical rules and responsibilities determined by the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE).
Journal Policy:
Open Access Policy: The Geol. Bull. Turkey is a peer-reviewed journal. It publishes in print and online in the electronic environment and has an open-access system. Journal issues are published three times per year in the months of January, April and August. Publication processes ensure sharing of information produced freely and objectively with the scientific method. The review process for articles applies a blind review system. All issues of the Geol. Bull. Turkey published since 1947 are archived as both print and electronic versions by the publishing organization, the Chamber of Geological Engineers (CGE), and as electronic versions by TUBITAK – DergiPark.
Price Policy: The publishing organization of the Geol. Bull. Turkey is the CGE. The CGE and/or Geol. Bull. Turkey do not demand any fee or subscription costs for printed and electronic versions of the journal or any publishing costs or similar from authors.
Copyright Transfer: The CGE and/or Geol. Bull. Turkey receive written permission from authors to obtain the copyrights of articles that will be published. The relevant authors, as writer/owner in their own name and the name of other authors, transfer copyright of the article offered to the journal to the CGE and/or Geol. Bull. Turkey. It is mandatory to complete the Copyright Transfer Form and upload it to the journal system when submitting the manuscript. The responsible author must guarantee that this manuscript has not been published in similar form in other places, that the manuscript is original and that it will not be sent for publication elsewhere. All authors of the submitted manuscript must sign and transfer all rights and all copyright for the article to the CGE and/or Geol. Bull. Turkey. The CGE and/or Geol. Bull. Turkey receive the right to use all or part of the relevant article in future works like lessons/lesson notes, reports and textbooks/printed books without any payment and to copy the relevant manuscript for their own use. The CGE and/or Geol. Bull. Turkey reserve all rights apart from copyright, such as patent rights, except for commercial purposes.
Article submission: The authors of articles submitted for assessment by Geol. Bull. Turkey must first be members of DergiPark. The corresponding author must submit the study (original article, review, etc.) to Geol. Bull. Turkey through the DergiPark system.
Plagiarism Policy: In addition to the corresponding author submitting the article to the journal, they must upload a similarity report using “iThenticate Plagiarism Detection Software” or “Turnitin” or equivalent plagiarism program, along with the signed Copyright Transfer Form and the Ethics Report Form to the DergiPark system. The similarity index rate for articles must be below 20%, excluding the reference list.
Author Contribution Statement and Conflict / Conflict of Interest Statement: Each of the authors need to have made significant scientific contributions to each article, so every author is accepted as carrying equal ethical responsibility. All authors of an article are obliged to recall or make corrections in situations involving mistakes.
The authors must clearly state all types of conflict/conflict of interest in relation to topics such as other researchers studying similar topics and potential reviewers. In situations where no conflict/conflict of interest is considered to exist, this must be clearly stated.
Blind review: Geol. Bull. Turkey applies a blind review system with the aim of ensuring objective assessment of all scientific publications. In the stage of assigning reviewers for an article, care is taken that there is no conflict/conflict of interest between reviewers and author(s). With this aim, care is taken that between reviewers and author(s) a) there are no thesis advisor/student relationships, b) no common research or publications between author(s) and reviewers in the recent past (last 2 years), c) they are not employed in the same organization, d) they have not contributed to the manuscript submitted to the journal in terms of form or content, e) author(s) and reviewer have no disputes that were referred to judiciary or ethical committees, f) there is no kinship between reviewer and author(s), g) no publicly stated prejudice of the reviewer toward the author(s), h) no commercial relationship between reviewer and author(s), etc. In case of situations missed by the journal editors, the reviewers must warn the editors of such a situation. Additionally, reviewers are requested;
• To only assess articles that are within their field of expertise,
• To perform assessments unbiased, objectively and confidentially,
• To avoid bias in assessments due to reasons such as nationality, sex, religious beliefs, political leanings, commercial concerns, etc.,
• To provide opinions and recommendations within academic etiquette, with constructive and academic language, avoiding language which will create personal polemic,
• To avoid delaying assessments in a way which lengthens the publication process without reason.
Evaluation Process:
Preliminary Check (before reviewer assessment): Firstly, manuscripts submitted to Geol. Bull. Turkey are reviewed by the chief editor for suitability in terms of the aims and scope of the journal. If manuscripts do not abide by the aim and scope of the journal, they are rejected within 15 days maximum and information is sent to the author. Manuscripts which are suitable for the aim and scope are first investigated for spelling, language and expression and study plan before reviewer assessment. Authors of manuscripts which are inadequate in this regard will be requested to revise the manuscript. During assessment, authors are responsible for responding to the opinions, recommendations and criticisms of the editor and reviewers. The authors must respond to questions asked based on reviewer opinions, assess opinions and recommendations, and provide positive or negative responses to criticisms with evidence in a detailed letter to the editor. Academic etiquette must be used in the letter, personal discussions should be avoided. If a corrected copy of manuscripts with revision requested in line with reviewer opinions is not received without a valid reason within 30 days, the editor reserves the right to reject the manuscript when it is re-submitted. After revisions, the revised manuscript may be sent by the editor for reviewer assessment again or may be directly accepted or rejected by the editor.
Peer Review Process: Manuscripts found suitable for peer review after investigating the content of all sections will be sent to the reviewers. However, articles that are not suitable for peer review for any reason will be rejected with the editor’s assessment report. Information will be given to the authors within 15 days. Manuscripts sent for reviewer assessment will be sent to at least three reviewers by the editor from within or outside the journal pool according to content and area of expertise. Care will be taken about elements within the scope of conflict/conflict of interest mentioned above when determining reviewers for manuscripts. Reviewers must guarantee that they will not share any information or documents related to the review process with anyone. The duration for the review process is 30 days. Revision recommendations from the reviewers or editor must be completed by the authors within 30 days. Reviewers will investigate corrections on the article and decide on suitability or if necessary, request more revisions. The review result and opinions of reviewers will be investigated by the editor within maximum 15 days. As a result of the investigation, the editor will communicate the final decision about the manuscript to the author. Rejected manuscripts will be archived.
Article Withdrawal: Author(s) who wish to withdraw their manuscript during assessment must communicate a memo related to the topic with wet signature to the publication board via the journal email address tjbdergi@gmail.com. The Publication Board will investigate the withdrawal request and respond within maximum 15 days. Author(s) of manuscripts with request denied by the Publication Board will not be able to send their manuscript to another journal. If the author(s) become aware of any mistakes or errors related to the study after publication, in the early submission or review stages, they are obliged to cooperate with the journal editor. The author(s) must have the right to use any data which does not belong to themselves and must have documents showing necessary permissions related to the research/analysis.
The editors carefully manage processes to ensure development of the journal and increase the quality of published studies. In situations with suspicions raised about copyright or plagiarism for any manuscript in the publication stage, review stage or as unpublished manuscripts, the Publication Board of Geol. Bull. Turkey will begin an investigation related to the manuscript. If the investigation identifies copyright and plagiarism suspicions related to the manuscript, the Publication Board will withdraw the manuscript in the review stage making a detailed explanation and report to the author(s) within 15 days.
Confidentiality: All personal information in the Geol. Bull. Turkey system is used for scientific purposes and will not be shared with third parties.
Disclaimer: The chief editor and Publication Board members are not responsible for the opinions of authors or manuscript content. The authors are responsible for the ethical originality and possible errors in their manuscripts. The authors are responsible for all errors before final reading (proofreading) and that may occur when formatting pages. Errors occurring after final proofreading are the responsibility of the journal authorities.