Editorial Policies

Bulletin of the Mineral Research and Exploration is engaged in following the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). It is the duty of our editors to follow Cope Guidance for Editors and our peer-reviewers must follow COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, and the publisher. This comprises all parties treating each other with dignity and respect and refraining from discrimination, harassment, bullying, or retaliation.

Affiliations

Authors must include all relevant affiliations to show where the study was approved, supported, and/or carried out. Authors of non-research studies must include their current institutional affiliation. If an author has moved to a different university or agency before the article is published, they should indicate the affiliation where the work was done, as well as their current affiliation and contact information, in the acknowledgment section. If the author does not have a current relevant institutional affiliation, he/she should state their independent status. Change of affiliation alone is not a valid reason to remove an author from a publication if he or she meets the authorship criteria.

Appeals and complaints

The journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelineson appeals to journal editor decisions and complaints about a journal’s editorial management of the peer review process.

We encourage genuine appeals to editor decisions. However, you will need to offer strong evidence or new data/information in order to address the editor's and reviewers' criticisms. This is significant since the majority of journal scholarly articles are reviews and original research that depend on reliable scientific evidence.

Editors rarely overturn their first decisions and don't anticipate many appeals. You are highly encouraged to submit your manuscript to a different journal if you learn that it has been rejected. The editor's assessment of priority and importance will frequently factor into the decision to publish or reject an article. Authors typically are unable to resolve these issues through an appeal. However, if you think there is a valid argument for an appeal, please get in touch with the editor-in-chief.

Acknowledgment

Individuals who participated in the development of a manuscript but do not qualify as an author should be acknowledged. Organizations that provided support in terms of funding and/or other resources should also be acknowledged. The authors are responsible to notify and obtain permission from those they wish to define in this section. Sharing the article should be a part of the permissions procedure so that people who are recognized can confirm the context of the acknowledgment of their work.

Authorship

Including the names of the authors on an article is a crucial way to acknowledge individuals who made a significant contribution to the work. Additionally, it guarantees transparency for those in charge of maintaining the accuracy of the information.
Authors listed in an article must fulfill all of the following requirements:

1. Made a significant contribution to the research, whether that’s in the conception, study design, execution, acquisition of data, analysis, and interpretation, or in all these areas.
2. Have drafted or written, substantially revised, or critically assessed the article.
3. Have agreed on the journal to which the article will be submitted.
4. Reviewed and agreed on all versions of the article before submission, during revision, the final version accepted for publication, and any significant changes introduced at the proofing stage.
5. Agree to take responsibility and be accountable for the contents of the article and to share the responsibility to resolve any questions raised about the accuracy or integrity of the published work.

Any changes in authorship before or after publication must be agreed upon by all authors, including those being added or removed. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to obtain confirmation from all co-authors and to provide a full explanation about why the change was necessary. If a change in authorship is necessary after the publication of the article, this will be amended via a post-publication notice. Any changes in authorship must comply with our criteria for authorship, and requests for significant changes to the authorship list after the article has been accepted may be rejected if clear reasons and evidence of author contributions cannot be provided.

Authorship Criteria

Only significant contributions should be given authorship credit listed below:

1. Concept and design of study or acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
3. Final approval of the version to be published

Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content of the manuscript. The order of naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of the contributor towards the study and writing the manuscript. Once submitted the order cannot be changed without the written consent of all the contributors. The journal prescribes a maximum number of authors for manuscripts depending upon the type of manuscript, its scope, and the number of institutions involved (vide infra). The authors should provide a justification if the number of authors exceeds these limits.

Contribution Details

Participants should provide the specific contributions that each of them made to the manuscript. The description should be divided into the following categories, as applicable: concept, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing, and manuscript review. The authors' contributions will be printed along with the article. From inception to publication, one or more authors should assume ownership of the work's integrity and should be identified as "guarantors."

Citations

Research and non-research articles must cite relevant, timely, and verified literature (peer-reviewed, where appropriate) to support any claims made in the article. You must avoid excessive and inappropriate self-citation or prearrangements among author groups to inappropriately cite each other’s work, as this can be considered a form of misconduct called citation manipulation. Read the COPE guidance on citation manipulation. If you’re the author of a non-research article (e.g. a Review or Opinion) you should ensure the references you cite are relevant and provide a fair and balanced overview of the current state of research or scholarly work on the topic. Your references should not be unfairly biased toward a particular research group, organization, or journal. If you are unsure about whether to cite a source you should contact the journal editorial office for advice.

Conflicts of Interest/ Competing interests

The author and all co-authors must state any competing interests related to, or which can be supposed to be relevant to the article.

• A competing interest can occur where you (or your employer, sponsor or family/friends) have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations, or with the people working with them which could influence the research or interpretation of the results.
• Competing interests can be financial or non-financial in nature. To ensure transparency, you must also declare any associations which can be perceived by others as a competing interest.

Corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions

It may occasionally be required to make changes to an article after it has been published. The Editor will only proceed with this after giving it great thought and making sure that any adjustments are made in compliance with the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

A post-publication note that is permanently linked to the original article will accompany any necessary modifications. This can be in the form of a Correction notice, an Expression of Concern, a Retraction, and in rare circumstances a Removal. To protect the accuracy of the scholarly record, this system of permanent and transparent adjustments has been put in place.

Consent for Publication

For all manuscripts that include details or images relating to an individual person, written informed consent for the publication of these details must be obtained from that person (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 18). The consent must be for publication of their details under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (such that they will be freely available on the internet). If the person has died, consent for publication must be obtained from their next of kin. The manuscript must include a statement that written informed consent for publication was obtained.

Authors can use the consent form to obtain consent for publication, or a consent form from their own institution or region if appropriate. The consent form must state that the details/images will be freely available on the internet and may be seen by the general public. The consent form must be made available to the Editor if requested and will be treated confidentially.

Confidentiality

A manuscript that has been submitted is a confidential item. Academic journals will only share submitted papers with those involved in the processing and preparing them for publication (if accepted) in the journal. Editorial staff, corresponding authors, prospective reviewers, actual reviewers, and editors are some of these people. However, in circumstances of suspected misconduct, a manuscript may be disclosed to members of the ethics committees for academic journals and institutions/organizations that may need it for the resolution of the wrongdoing. Where applicable, academic journals must adhere to the COPE flowcharts.

Data falsification/fabrication

Where deliberate action has been taken to inappropriately manipulate or fabricate data. This is considered a serious form of misconduct and is designed to mislead others and damage the integrity of the scholarly record with wide-reaching and long-term consequences.

When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure all data contained within their manuscript is accurate and correctly represents their work. To help assist the journal with manuscript evaluation, authors are expected to retain all raw data represented in their manuscripts.

If the original data cannot be produced on request, acceptance of a manuscript or published paper may be declined or retracted.

Desk rejection policy

1. The topic / scope of the study is not relevant to the field of the Journal.
2. There are publication ethics problems, non-adherence to international standard guidelines, and plagiarism (set at a similarity index of higher than 20 %).
3. The topic does not have a sufficient impact, nor does it sufficiently contribute new knowledge to the field.
4. There are flaws in the study design.
5. The objective of the study is not clearly stated.
6. The study of the organization is problematic and/or certain components are missing.
7. There are problems in writing or series infelicities of in the style of grammar.
8. The manuscript does not follow the submission guideline of the Journal.

Duplicate submission/publication

Authors are required to declare upon submission that the manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere, and as such the detection of a duplicate submission or publication is typically considered to be a deliberate act. This includes articles previously published in another language. For acceptable forms of secondary submissions or publications (e.g. an article translated into English), in accordance with ICMJE guidance, authors must seek permission from the publisher and copyright holder of the original article and must inform the Editor of the receiving journal about the history of the original article. It must also be made clear to readers that the article is a translated version, with a citation provided to the original article.

Funding

The journal requires that authors declare all the sources of funding including financial support in their manuscript. The authors should describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in any of the stages from study design to submission of the manuscript for publication. They should also state if the sponsor(s) had no such involvement. Please ensure that this information is accurate and in accordance with your funder’s requirements.

Images and figures

Photographs, video, or audio recordings which can reveal the identity of patients or study participants can only be included if they (or their next of kin if participants are deceased; parents or guardians if they are underage or considered to be vulnerable) have provided Consent to Publish.

Authors should be aware of any cultural sensitivities or restrictions associated with any images included in their manuscripts. For example, images of human remains or deceased humans is restricted in some cultures, and appropriate ethical guidelines should be adhered to by considering the views and approval processes of the affiliated communities.

Experimental photographic images including microscopy should accurately reflect the original image. Where images have been modified or enhanced in any way this must be stated with a full explanation within the manuscript as well as in the figure legend so as not to mislead readers about what the images show. Authors should be prepared to share the original, uncropped, unannotated, and unprocessed images with the journal editorial office upon request.

Please note that any modifications are only acceptable if these are minor in nature and have been applied to the whole image. Authors are required to include details of image-gathering methods and details of processes for any modifications made to images, including the name of the software (with version number) used. Any modifications which can alter the scientific interpretation of the image are not allowed.

Any images or figures which have been obtained from another published source can only be re-used if the authors have obtained the appropriate permissions for re-use from the copyright owner. A statement to confirm this must be included within the figure legend. The original source of the image must be cited, even in cases where the image or figure is not under copyright, or if re-use is allowed under a license that permits unrestricted re-use.

Misconduct

The journal takes all forms of misconduct seriously and will take all necessary action, in accordance with COPE guidelines to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

Examples of misconduct include (but are not limited to):

• Affiliation misrepresentation
• Breaches in copyright/use of third-party material without appropriate permissions
• Citation manipulation
• Duplicate submission/publication
• “Ethics dumping”
• Image or data manipulation/fabrication
• Peer review manipulation
• Plagiarism
• Text-recycling/self-plagiarism
• Undisclosed competing interests
• Unethical research

Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts that are found to have been published elsewhere, or to be under review elsewhere, will incur duplicate submission/publication sanctions. If authors have used their own previously published work, or work that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they are required to cite the previous work and indicate how their submitted manuscript offers novel contributions beyond those of the previous work.

Citation Manipulation

Submitted manuscripts that are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal, will incur citation manipulation sanctions.

Data Fabrication and Falsification

Submitted manuscripts that are found to have either fabricated or falsified experimental results, including the manipulation of images, will incur data fabrication and falsification sanctions.

Improper Author Contribution or Attribution

All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims. It is important to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution, including students and laboratory technicians.

Redundant Publications

Redundant publications involve the inappropriate division of study outcomes into several articles.

Image manipulation

Misconduct constitutes a violation of this editorial policy, journal policies, publication ethics, or any applicable guidelines/policies specified by COPE, WAME, ICMJE, and STM. Any other activities that threaten/compromise the integrity of the research/publication process are potential misconduct. Suspected cases of misconduct will be investigated according to COPE guidelines

Open Access Policy

Every peer-reviewed research article appearing in this journal will be published open access. This means that the article is universally and freely accessible via the internet in perpetuity, in an easily readable format immediately after publication. A CC user license manages the reuse of the article.

Publication Ethics

The journal and its editorial board fully adhere to and comply with the policies and principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Publishing ethics issues

• Monitoring/safeguarding publishing ethics by the editorial board;
• Guidelines for retracting articles;
• Maintain the integrity of the academic record;
• Preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards;
• Always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.
• No plagiarism, no fraudulent data.

Duties of Editors

Editorial responsibilities

• Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article;
• Editors should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept;
• Only accept a paper when reasonably certain;
• When errors are found, promote the publication of correction or retraction;
• Preserve the anonymity of reviewers.

Duties of Editors

• Publication decision
• Fair play
• Confidentiality
• Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
• Involvement and cooperation in investigations

Publication decisions

The editorial board of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. Members of the board confer and refer to reviewer recommendations in making this decision, constrained by legal requirements related to libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. Editorial decisions are not affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors.

Confidentiality, disclosure, and conflicts of interest

During the review process, editors must not disclose information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and other editorial advisers. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's, reviewer’s, or any other reader’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Readers should be informed about who has funded the research or other scholarly work and whether the funders had any role in the research and its publication and, if so, what this was.

Author relations

Editors strive to ensure that peer review at the journal is fair, unbiased, and timely. The journal has established policies for handling submissions from editorial board members to ensure unbiased review. Author instructions provide guidance about the criteria for authorship.

Reviewer relations

The Journal encourages reviewers to comment on ethical questions and possible misconduct raised by submissions (e.g. unethical research design, and inappropriate data manipulation), and to be alert to redundant publication and plagiarism. Reviewers’ comments should be sent to authors in their entirety unless they contain offensive or libelous remarks. Contributions of reviewers to the journal are regularly acknowledged and cease to use reviewers who consistently produce discourteous, poor quality, or late reviews.

Quality assurance

Editors should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish, recognizing that different sections have different aims and standards. Editors should seek assurances that the research they publish has been approved by an appropriate body (e.g. research ethics committee, institutional review board) where one exists. Editors should be alert to intellectual property issues and work with their publishers to handle potential breaches of laws and conventions. Errors, inaccurate, or misleading statements must be corrected promptly and with due prominence.

Duties of Reviewers

Responsibility for the reviewers:

• Judgments should be objective;
• reviewers should have no conflict of interest with the research, the authors, and/or the research funders;
• reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited;
• reviewed articles should be treated confidentially.

Duties of Reviewers

• Contribution to Editorial Decision
• Promptness
• Confidentiality
• Standards of Objectivity
• Acknowledgment of Source
• Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Contribution to editorial decisions

Reviewers assist the editorial board in making editorial decisions. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the paper. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.

Qualification of reviewers

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Acknowledgment of sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. References to the ideas of others should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge

Duties of Authors

Duties of Authors

• Reporting standards
• Data Access and Retention
• Originality and Plagiarism
• Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication
• Acknowledgment of Sources
• Authorship of the Paper
• Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
• Fundamental Errors in Published Works

Author’s responsibilities

• Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process;
• All authors have significantly contributed to the research;
• A statement that all data in the article are real and authentic;
• All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of revisions.

Reporting standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. Authors should be prepared to provide public access to raw data in connection with a paper and retain such data for at least two years after publication. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Originality, plagiarism, and concurrent publication

Authors should ensure their work is entirely original and that any work and/or words of others have been appropriately acknowledged. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Submitting essentially the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Authorship of the paper

The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in the published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor and work with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Duties of the Publisher

MTA is committed to ensuring that commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. In addition, the International Journal of Management, Modern Sciences, and Technologies will assist in communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful to editors. Finally, we are working closely with other publishers and industry associations to set standards for best practices on ethical matters, errors, and retractions–and are prepared to provide specialized legal review and counsel if necessary.

Peer review process

Bulletin of the Mineral Research and Exploration is a peer-reviewed journal. It has an online submission process and an open-access system. The peer-review process is single-blind; referees are kept anonymous if they do not prefer their names visible. Manuscripts may be rejected without peer review by the editor-in-chief if they do not comply with the instructions for authors or if they are beyond the scope of the journal. After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, after referee-recommended revisions are complete, the author will not be permitted to make changes that constitute departures from the manuscript that was accepted by the editor.

All manuscripts are kept under plagiarism control using the iThenticate tool by the BULLETIN OF THE MINERAL RESEARCH AND EXPLORATION. Authors should strictly avoid plagiarism, including self-plagiarism. Articles with results exceeding 20% of the similarity report are not published. Articles submitted to the Bulletin must be original and not published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

Plagiarism

The peer review process is at the heart of the success of scientific publishing. As part of our commitment to the protection and enhancement of the peer review process, BMRE has an obligation to assist the scientific community in all aspects of publishing ethics, especially in cases of (suspected) duplicate submission or plagiarism.

When a reader discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in a paper published in BMRE, or have any other complaint about editorial content (plagiarism, duplicate papers, etc.), he/she should make a complaint by e-mail to: redaksiyon@mta.gov.tr. We welcome complaints as they provide an opportunity for improvement, and we aim to respond quickly and constructively.

Preprints policy

Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time. If accepted for publication, we encourage authors to link from the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Authors can update their preprints on arXiv or RePEc, etc. with their accepted manuscript.

Standards of reporting

Research should be communicated in a way that supports verification and reproducibility, and as such, we encourage authors to provide comprehensive descriptions of their research rationale, protocol, methodology, and analysis.

Use of third-party material

Authors must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in the article. The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for criticism and review without securing formal permission. If authors wish to include any material in their paper for which they do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, they will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner before submission. For more information on requesting permission to reproduce work(s) under copyright please send an email to the following address redaksiyon@mta.gov.tr.