The publication process at International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education is the basis of the improvement and dissemination of information objectively and respectfully. Therefore, the procedures in this process improves the quality of the studies.

Peer-reviewed studies are the ones that support and materialize the scientific method. At this point, it is of utmost importance that all parties included in the publication process (authors, readers and researchers, publisher, reviewers and editors) comply with the standards of ethical considerations. International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education expects all parties to hold the following ethical responsibilities.

Ethical duties and responsibilities are written in the light of the guide and policies made by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Responsibilities of Editors

The editor and field editors of International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education 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 byCommittee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

General duties and responsibilities

Editors are responsible for each study published in International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education. In this respect, the editors have the following roles and responsibilities:

•  Making efforts to meet the demand for knowledge from readers and authors,
•  Ensuring the continuous development of the journal,
•  Managing the procedures aimed to improve the quality of the studies published in the journal,
•  Supporting freedom of expression,
•  Ensuring academic integrity,
•  Following the procedures without making concessions on intellectual property rights and ethical standards,
•  Being transparent and clear in issues that require correction or explanation.

Relationships with Readers

Editors must make decisions taking into consideration the knowledge, skills and expectations of all readers, researchers and practitioners need. They must also ensure that the published studies contribute to literature and be original. Moreover, they must take notice of the feedback received from researchers and practitioners and provide explanatory and informative feedback.

Relationships with Authors

Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with authors:

•  Editors must make positive or negative decisions about the studies' importance, originality, validity, clarity in wording and suitability with the journal's aims and objectives.
•  Editors must accept the studies that are within the scope of publication into pre review process unless there are serious problems with the study.
•  Editors must not ignore positive suggestions made by reviewers unless there are serious problems with the study.
•  New editors, unless there are serious issues, must not change the previous editor's decisions about the studies.
•  Blind Review and Review Process must be published and editors must prevent possible diversions in the defined processes.
•  Editors must publish an Author's Guide that is comprehensive enough in answering queries by authors. This guide must be updated regularly.
•  Authors should be provided with explanatory and informative feedback.

Relationships with Reviewers

Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with reviewers:

Editors must

•  choose reviewers according to the subject of the study.
•  provide the information and guidance reviewers may need during the review process.
•  observe whether there are conflicting interests between reviewers and authors.
•  keep the identities of reviewers confidential in blind review.
•  encourage the reviewers to review the manuscript in an unbiased, scientific and objective tone.
•  evaluate reviewers regularly based on criteria like performance and timing.
•  develop practices and policies that increase the performance of reviewers.
•  take necessary steps to update the reviewer pool dynamically.
•  prevent unkind and unscientific reviews.
•  make effort to ensure the reviewer pool has a wide range.

Relationships with the Editorial Advisory Board

Editors must make sure that the members of the Editorial Advisory Board follow the procedures in accordance with the publication policies and guidelines, and must inform the members about the publication policies and developments. The editors must also train new members of the Editorial Advisory Board and provide the information they need.

Moreover, editors must

•  ensure that the members of the Editorial Advisory Board review the manuscripts in an unbiased and independent manner.
•  select the new members of the Editorial Advisory Board from those who can contribute to the journal and are qualified enough.
•  send manuscripts for review based on the subject of expertise of the Editorial Advisory Board.
•  regularly communicate with the Editorial Advisory Board.
•  arrange regular meetings with the Editorial Advisory Board for the development of publication policies and the journal.

Responsibilities of Authors

The authors who submit their manuscripts to International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

•  Author(s) must submit original studies to the journal. If they utilize or use other studies, they must make the in-text and end-text references accurately and completely.
•  People who have not contributed to the study at the intellectual level should not be indicated as author.
•  If the manuscripts submitted to be published are subject of conflicting interests or relations, these must be explained.
•  During the review process of their manuscripts, author(s) may be asked to supply raw data. In such a case, author(s) should be ready to submit such data and information to the editorial and scientific boards.
•  Author(s) should document that they have the participants' consent and the necessary permissions related with the sharing and research/analysis of the data that are used.
•  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 early release or publication process and to cooperate with the editors during the correction or withdrawal process.
•  Authors cannot submit their studies to multiple journals simultaneously. Each submission can be made only after the previous one is completed. A study published in another journal cannot be submitted to International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education.
•  Author responsibilities given in a study (e.g.: adding an author, reordering of author names) whose review process has begun cannot be changed.

Reviewer's Responsibilities

•  Reviewers should agree to review submissions only relevant to their specific fields.
•  Reviewers should not Access to information about author(s) identity. In case of accessing or receiving such information, evaluation process must be ended.
•  The evaluation process should be completed in total objectivity and confidentiality.
•  If reviewers believe that there is a conflict of interest, they should reject to evaluate the manuscript and inform the Editor on the issue.
•  Reviewers can use the content of the manuscripts they evaluate only after acceptance. They cannot use any information from the manuscripts rejected for publication.
•  Reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited.
•  Evaluation process must be completed objectively on the content of the manuscript. Personal characteristics such as nationality, gender, religion, political views, or commercial conflicts must not interfere with the reviewers' decisions.
•  Reviewers should have a constructive and polite attitude towards submitted work. They should avoid degrading or offensive language in communication with authors.
•  Reviewers should comply with evaluation deadlines and ethical responsibilities.

Publisher's Responsibilities

•  Editors are fully responsible for publication processes. Because editors hold the responsibility of decisions on the submissions and published articles, the Publisher declares and guarantees free editor decisions to be maintained.
•  The Publisher holds the right of property and copyright of each published work and has the responsibility to keep a copy.
•  The Publisher has the responsibility to take all the precautions to avoid scientific exploitation, plagiarism crimes against the Editor.

Protecting the Reliability of Scientific Work

Ethical considerations in reporting research results: A sound scientific method is based on reproducibility and verifiability. Data, including visual materials, cannot be manipulated, changed, or reduced in order to verify research hypotheses or to obtain desirable results.

In case there is a mistake in the published version of an article, the author(s) must announce the mistake(s) to the audience. When such a mistake is recognized by the author(s), the Editor is informed for correction. Each corrected version and the corrections made are announced to the audience on the Journal's website.

Data storage and sharing: In case the reliability of the submitted research is questioned, author(s) are responsible to provide the data used to the Editor. If authors fail to provide their data, the submission is rejected and is not accepted for evaluation again. Authors are required to store the data, applications procedures, and other materials utilized in their submissions for at least 5 years. After publication, if other researchers or authors request, data can be shared. Before sharing data, information, codes, or symbols about participants'/subjects' identities must be deleted. If a study is funded by an institution, the rights of the institution must be protected and relevant acknowledgement must be added. If authors desire to share data, there must be a signed letter of agreement between the author(s) and the owner(s) of the data regarding the aim(s), the method(s), the scope, the conditions, and the limits for the use of the data.

Re-publishing part of or full Data: Re-publishing data refers to when findings from an accepted paper are re-used in another publication as if original. Re-publishing is an act of violation of copyright and related regulations because an author cannot give copyright permission for the same work to more than one entity. The full length or part of a previously published work cannot be published again or cited over the appropriate limits. A previously published work or one with significantly similar scope cannot be submitted for publication again. Papers presented in conferences but not published in conference proceedings can be submitted for publication by stating the conference presented at in a footnote. Papers which have been presented and published in conference proceedings cannot be submitted for publication.

In case authors wish their work to reach other audience, the following conditions must be met to re-publish the results:

•  The re-published version must be considerably shorter than the original one.
•  A notification that the work has been previously published and relevant referencing must be clearly given in a footnote.
•  If the tables, graphs, or other visuals that have been used in the previously published version are used in re-publication, this must be clearly stated and referenced in a footnote.
•  The original work must be properly added to the references list.

Findings should be presented in unity and should not be presented in only some parts. Publishing multiple studies each of which cover a part of the same bulk of findings can be misleading. However, in cases where research has a wider scope, conducted during long periods, or has interdisciplinary focus, multiple studies based on the same data source can be published. When studies have interdisciplinary nature, publishing findings on one source may not be sufficient. If studies are conducted in a long period, findings obtained in different phases of this period can contribute to the field, and thus these can be published provided the phase is stated. In this case, the research based on previous phases needs to be cited. If a study conducted in long period is published following the studies based on the findings from previous phases, repeating the same findings should be avoided and quotes from such previous work should be cited.

The Editor should be notified when multiple studies based on the same research are submitted for evaluation. The editor decides whether the secondary studies meet the publication requirements.

Global or Self Plagiarism: Authors cannot use other researchers' opinions or thoughts as their own. Similarly, authors cannot use thoughts, opinions, and parts of research from their own previous work without citing properly.

Protection of Participants' Rights and Interests

Confidentiality of the information obtained from participants should be maintained. Therefore, submitted work must not include information about participants' identity. Participants should agree to be involved in research and when there is a hierarchical relationship between the researcher and the participants (e.g., teacher-student, director-teacher, etc.), researchers must not pressure participants to give consent. Particularly, in case an academician perceives his or her students as "potential subjects", this would lead to misleading or subjective data resulting from reluctant responses from students and to violating participants' rights and interests. Therefore, a special care should be given not to force students to participate.

If a study is based on the evaluation of a product or a service, the author(s) must not have a conflict of interest or a commercial benefit with the institution or the organization. In case there is a conflict of interest or such a potential, this should be indicated in the study as a limitation even if it is thought not to influence objectivity of the results.

Protection of Intellectual Copyright

Authorship right is gained by contributing considerably to research and by taking the responsibility of a published work. Considerable contribution may refer to: formulizing research problems or hypotheses, developing research design or application procedures, conducting statistical analyses, interpreting results of analyses, or writing part of a study. Individuals contributing to such processes are listed among the authors of the study. Individuals who contribute to a study other than mentioned means are cited in footnotes explaining their contributions. These contributors can help research by helping to create data collection tools, giving advice on data analysis methods, helping in data collection process, assisting to reach participants, or conducting routine observations.

In order to determine the order of authors in author list, each author is evaluated based on his or her contributions to the study and the one who has contributed most is written at the top of the list. When the contributions of the authors are thought to be equal, the list is done in alphabetical order and a note explaining the order of the list is added. Organizational or professional status or titles are not considered as a factor in deciding on the order of author list.

According to Article 35 of Intellectual and Arts Copyright Act Number 5846 (and Act number 4630 that changed it), any type of information taken from other sources must be cited and referenced. Act Number 4630 states that:

"Article 35 ' Other sources can be quoted in the following cases:

 Quoting sentences or parts from publicly known work in a scientific or literary work;

 Including themes, patterns, passages, or parts from its characteristics of a previously published musical composition into musical work;

 Including acceptable portions of publicly known work of art or other published work in a scientific work in a way that the included part or the whole is clarified and its content is explained;

 Including acceptable portions of publicly known work of art in scientific conferences or lessons and using projections to show in order to talk about or explain the work.

Quotes or integrations must be made clear. The parts of the work quoted or integrated must be clearly and properly cited.

In case the limits explained in the Act are violated, the act is considered as a crime and imposes punishment regulated in Article 71 of Act Number 4630:

"Article 71 - (Changed Article: 01/11/1983 -2936/Article 11; Changed Article: 23/01/2008-5728 S.K./ Article 138)

Violating intellectual and art work moral, commercial or relevant rights protected under this Article:

 Individuals using, reproducing, changing, distributing, broadcasting using any audio or visual means, publishing, or selling illegally produced copies, lending, renting, purchasing for commercial purposes, importing or exporting, keeping for non-personal needs, or storing a work of art, a performance, a phonogram, or a production without obtaining legal permission from its owner are sentenced to imprisonment between 1 and 5 years and are fined.

 Individuals giving their names to the work of others are sentenced between 6 months and 2 years and are fined. If this act is followed by distributing or publishing the work, upper limit of imprisonment is 5 years and no fine is applied.

 Individuals discussing the content of others' work publicly without obtaining legal permission are sentenced up to 6 months imprisonment.

 Individuals citing other work wrongly, insufficiently or misleadingly are sentenced up to 6 months imprisonment.

 Individuals reproducing, distributing, or publishing others' work, performances, phonograms, or products using other well-known individuals' names are sentenced to imprisonment between 3 months and 1 year and are fined.

Individuals who commit crimes stated in Paragraph 1 of the Additional Article 4 of this Act and individuals who provide content information and continue to commit the crimes mentioned are sentenced to imprisonment between 3 months and 1 year in case there are no other reasons for harsher penalties.

If individuals who sell or buy illegally reproduced, distributed, or published others' work, performances, phonograms, or products reports the names of people from whom they have obtained the work before prosecution process may receive remission or may not be sentenced at all."