Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

Publication and Authorship

Acta Medica Ruha is an online, international, double-blind peer review, scientific, academic, open to public access journal. Journal's publishing language is Turkish and English. Published in four issues (March, June, September, December) online and open to public access. It may publish special or additional issues.

For any sorts of writing sent to our journal, they accept and declare that they will follow all the "Writing Rules" of Acta Medica Ruha journal and all conditions stated in the journal, and they transfer all kinds of publishing rights indefinitely to Acta Medica Ruha journal.

Acta Medica Ruha journal has all copyrights of the articles accepted to publish.

Authorship and Changes in Authorship

All authors are expected to contribute significantly to each of the following aspects:

  • Conceptualisation and design of the study, acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data.
  • Drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content.
  • Giving final approval to the version to be submitted. Before submitting their manuscripts, authors should carefully review the list and order of authors to ensure accuracy and completeness.

Changes to the author list, such as additions, deletions, or rearrangements, should only be made prior to acceptance of the manuscript and with the approval of the journal Editor. To initiate such changes, the corresponding author must submit to the Editor: (1) justification for the changes to the author list and (2) written confirmation (by e-mail or letter) that all authors agree to the proposed addition. The approval of the corresponding author is also required in the case of adding authors, changing the author ranking, or deleting authors. The editor will only consider changes in authorship after the manuscript has been accepted. Publication of the manuscript will be suspended during the editor's review of the request. In addition, after an article has been accepted for publication, authors will not be allowed to leave the article, authors will not be allowed to be added, and reordering will not be allowed.

Editors, Reviewers and Other Parties

Considering the conflicts of interest between our editors, referees, other parties and the publisher, all parties in the journal Acta Medica Ruha accept and declare that they have transferred all their rights to Acta Medica Ruha indefinitely and gratuitously in order to ensure that the publication process of the studies is completed independently and impartially. All rights of Acta Medica Ruha journal belong to its publisher (Principal owner/concessionaire). Our editors, referees and other parties cannot claim any material and moral rights from the publisher (Principal owner/concessionaire). They accept and declare all duties gratuitously on a voluntary basis.

Otherwise, they can resign from editorial, refereeing and other duties after notifying the publisher (Principal owner/concessionaire) in writing. They cannot make any claims for the period prior to the notice of resignation.

Our editors, referees and other parties accept and declare that they comply with all the conditions in Acta Medica Ruha journal and transfer all kinds of copyright/material/moral rights to Acta Medica Ruha indefinitely and gratuitously.

Open Access Policy

Acta Medica Ruha is an e-journal that is open to public access. Open access policy is based on the rules of Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) . By open access, it is implied that all users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print and search whole texts and give link to them, and that the journal is free for public use on the Internet.

Plagiarism

Acta Medica Ruha journal accepts all terms and conditions of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) regarding plagiarism policy. Flowcharts and workflows determined by COPE regarding plagiarism are embraced.

All articles sent to Acta Medica Ruha journal to be published are checked by using Turnitin / iThenticate software. Acta Medica Ruha journal studiously demands and reviews all plagiarism reports from authors for their articles sent. The similarity rate of the articles sent to our journal should be below 20%. Articles that are determined having plagiarism in the first stage of evaluation are denied and not considered for publishing.

Ethical Principles

Acta Medica Ruha journal editorial committee embraces the criteria of (ICMJE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in terms of ethical principles.

All authors must contribute significantly to the research. Authors are responsible for subjects such as plagiarism, forgery, falsification and false authorship. In case of detecting any of those, the article is rejected. An article that is in the evaluation process cannot be sent to another journal or published. The author is responsible for uploading the document and information on the system that are asked for the studies that require ethical committee permission. Our journal makes authors obliged to identify the ethical committee that approves the research.

Scientific studies must comply with International Declaration of Helsinki, US Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects and European Medicines Agency Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice  and our journal expects authors to comply with these standards.

Studies Requiring Ethical Committee Approval:

  • Clinical studies conducted on humans,
  • All sorts of researches conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require collecting data from participants by using surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation, experiment and interview methods,
  • Retrospective studies in accordance with the law on the protection of personal data,
  • Researches on animals,
  • Using humans and animals (including material/data) for experimental or scientific purposes.

Additionally;

  • Stating that "Informed Consent Form" is received for case reports,
  • Getting permission from the owners and stating while using scales, surveys and photos of others,
  • Stating that copyright regulations are applied for the use of intellectual and artistic works.

Article Withdrawal Policy

Preliminary Evaluation Stage: The articles at this stage can be withdrawn by the author(s).

Referee Evaluation Stage: Authors who want to withdraw the article and publish it elsewhere for reasons such as a delay in the evaluation process of the sent article, etc. may withdraw from the journal with a written application and the approval of the journal editor board of this application.

After Article Acceptance: After the article's acceptance, the requests of the authors to withdraw the article are rejected. In addition, after an article is accepted for publication, authors will not be allowed to leave the article.

Appeal and Complaint Policy

The Editorial Board of the journal handles appeals and complaints in accordance with the COPE guidelines. Authors can contact the Editorial Office directly for their objections and complaints. When necessary, an impartial representative is appointed for issues that the Editorial Board cannot resolve internally. The Editor-in-Chief will make the final decision in the decision-making process for appeals and complaints.

Complaints and Appeals

Our journal handles complaints and appeals by following the procedure below. Complaints are not limited to long delays in the review of manuscripts and publication ethics, but all complaints are first handled by the editors-in-chief of the journal. The editors-in-chief may review the complaints and appeals together with the Editorial Board when necessary.

Complaints Regarding Article Content: The editor-in-chief reviews the authors‘ complaints and the referees’ reports and makes a decision: Confirm the rejection of the manuscript, consider the author's objection, and seek a new opinion from an independent referee. The final decision of the editors-in-chief is communicated to the authors. An explanation of the results of the appeal is shared with the authors when deemed necessary.

Complaints about Processes: Complaints about processes are handled by the editor-in-chief. Long delays in the handling of manuscripts are analysed by the editors and any problems deemed necessary are reported to the editor-in-chief. The editor-in-chief evaluates the complaints, and information is shared with the authors when deemed necessary.

Complaints about Ethical Principles: The editor-in-chief and editors take into account the author's or referee's complaints about publication ethics. The editor-in-chief and editors follow the publication ethics published in our journal. The editorial board of our journal reviews the concerns of complainants or reviewers. Details of the review and its progress are openly shared with complainants. The editors-in-chief or editors provide feedback to the complainants about the course of action and the final decision.

Disclaimer of Liability

The views and opinions expressed in the articles published in the journal reflect the viewpoints of the author(s) and not those of Acta Medica Ruha journal, Editor-in-Chief, Editors, Editorial Board and Publisher. In addition, the ethical and biostatistical responsibility for each study unilaterally belongs to the author(s). The Editor-in-Chief, Editors, Editorial Board and Publisher do not accept any responsibility or liability for such situations. All responsibility for the published content belongs to the authors.