CHAPTER II: PUBLICATION PRINCIPLES

Descriptions, Objective, Scope, and Contents

These principles are intended not only for use by authors, editors, and referee who are involved in peer review, but also for those who take responsibilities in the journal such as, editorial and scientific advisory committee members

1.     Descriptions:

a)      Journal: Bulletin of Palestine Studies (BPS);

b)      Field: the any science field/ discipline which in the topic areas/ key areas/ subject areas/ keywords of Palestine, Israel, Jerusalem, and Judaism;

c)      Expert: person who specialized in the same expert field as the journal topic;

d)      Member of editorial board: person who specialized in the same expert field as the journal topic by outstanding scientific works and serves in the editorial broad;

e)      Scientific advisory committee: At least five faculty members who are specialized in the field and selected from different five universities;

f)       Author: Students, faculty member or researcher who submit a article to journal in the field;

g)      Referee: at least two anonymous faculty members who specialized by outstanding scientific works in his/her filed;

h)      Editor: researcher who specialized in the field by outstanding scientific works and coordinate in author, reader, the editorial board and scientific advisory committee;

i)       Article: the article submitted for publication in the journal;

j)       Web page: webpage of the journal in the DergiPark hosting services and editorial workflow management.

Aims and Scope:

2.       The aim of the journal is to provide an independent academic reference sources/ authority for expert in different disciplines who studies academically in the topic areas of Palestine, Israel, Jerusalem, and Judaism which are related with the Middle East Studies.

3.       The journal places special emphasis on improving the existing connections with other disciplines and the creation of new links and aims to extend the methodologies, areas of interest and conceptual frameworks inside the field.

4.       The journal is published biannually (June/ summer and December/ winter).

5.      The journal is a refereed international journal.

6.      It is online, free and open-source journal.

7.      As an International journal, journal needs to ensure that the committees have international expertise and content is from a wide range of international authors.

8.      It encourages work from younger scholars at the start of their academic careers, as well as welcoming contributions from established and senior scholars.

9.      As a new journal, it is desired to become established journal overtime and make academic contribution to the field with its content. In this framework, ULAKBİM Social and Human Sciences Database (SHSD) and other indexes are desired to be members.

10.   The journal aims the improving of communication between the author, the referee, and the advisory committee and decision maker.

11.   Each published issue of the journal will be uploaded as a PDF file to the DergiPark. and whenever and pressed the hardcopy of it will be sent to the authors.

Responsibilities, Ethnics, and Rules Determining the Functioning of the journal:

Responsibilities of the Editorial Board:

1.   To offer expertise in their specialist area, an editorial board who is primarily made up at least five experts works directly work with the Editor to ensure ongoing development of the journal.

2.   It takes the decisions with absolute majority.

3.   It is important that the Committee members are active in their specialist field and are therefore up to date with what is happening in research and developments in that field. He/ she decides journal policy and scope. He/ she attracts new and established authors and article submissions.

4.      Editorial board examines the articles to the journal in terms of suitability of form and field (pre-evaluation), identifies experts in the academy (based on theses, publications and the field of expertise), and submits them to relevant referee evaluations.

5.      It decides whether the article will be published or not according to referee decisions, and makes the ordering and list of articles to publish for those approved by the referee.

6.      It decides on the assignment of issue/theme editor, book review editor, section editor, members of editorial, scientific, and ethics committee etc. He/ she decides to organize some events which promote the journal such as conference,

7.      A new member is to be accepted to the committee. Experts who wish to be part of editorial board submit a Curriculum Vitae (CV) along with an e-mail outlining their reason for the request and which roles they are interested in.

8.      Editorial board meets twice a year in person or/and by conference call in usual circumstances.

9.      All members of the editorial board shall be obliged to attend these meetings.

10.   Where it is deemed necessary, scientific advisory committee must also be invited by the Editor to the meetings of the editorial board for delivering opinions. Where voting is required in the editorial board, only the members of the editorial board shall have the right to vote.

11.   The members of the editorial board who have failed to attend the meetings of the editorial board or who have attended the meetings but hampered his duties and responsibilities their membership terminates.

12.   The member who acts against the research ethics, his/her committee member duty in the journal shall come to an end.

13.   To submit some of their own work for consideration, ensuring that they adhere to Conflict of Interest rules and stating their relationship to the journal. This is very important as the journal cannot be seen to publish only articles from members of the editorial board.

Referee

12.   Referees (Reviewers) examine the articles submitted as to methodology, scope, and originality and decide whether they are appropriate for publication. They may change in each issue depending on the content of the article.

13.   Referees must give unbiased consideration to each article submitted for consideration for publication with its academic merits, without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, seniority, or institutional affiliation.

14.   Referees must keep the peer review process confidential; information or correspondence about an article should not be shared with anyone outside of the peer review process.

15.   Referees should provide a constructive, comprehensive, evidenced, and appropriately substantial peer review report.

Author

14.   Authors must confirm that their submitted article is their own original work, which does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any other person or entity, and cannot be construed as plagiarizing any other published work, including their own previously published work (self- plagiarism). They should obtain permission or cite to reproduce any content from other sources.

15.   The corresponding author must ensure all named co-authors consent to publication. All persons who have made significant scientific or literary contributions to the article submitted should be named as co-authors. The names of the individuals who contributed only certain parts should be mentioned in the list of acknowledgment

16.   If required, authors must facilitate access to data sets described in the article.

17.   Studies based on part of thesis/ dissertation can be published even if the university (ProQuest, or author) makes it available for download. In such cases, the thesis is not considered to be formally published. However, if the thesis is published by a publisher it cannot be published in the journal.

Editor

16.   An Editor’s role is vital to the success of the journal. Editor should make all reasonable effort to follow publication process of submitted articles in an efficient and timely manner.

17.   Editor ensures coordinated working of all units of the journal by ensuring the coordination among the various committees of the journal.

18.   Editor calls the editorial board to meet twice a year in person or by conference call, except for special times, in order to make a pre-evaluation of articles to the journal. He also sent invitation to the scientific advisory committee for acknowledgement.

19.   Prepare annual activity report and report concerning the subjects discussed and decisions taken. The report shall be forwarded electronically to the members of the Editorial and Science Committee.

20.   Editor takes up the editorial responsibilities on behalf of the editorial board.

21.   Editor corrects the articles submitted to the journal and makes the journal ready for printing.

22.   Editor follows up the messages received by the journal via e-mail, and perform the other routine correspondence.

23.   Editor must issue a ‘call for articles’ a “call for reviewers”, and “e-mail list” alert to invite more contribution of articles, to develop the reviewer panelists, and to introduce the articles.

24.   Editor is responsible for creating and updating the web page and social media account of the journal, especially twitter.

25.   An editor should always be mindful of the number of articles in review and should encourage reviewers to speed up the process if they know the deadline is near.

26.   Editor-In-Chief is a person having the qualifications stated in the Press Law numbered 5187 and responsible for the fulfilment of the provisions concerning the periodicals included in this Law.

27.   On subjects where the absolute majority be ensured in the editorial board, the Editor shall give the final decision taking into account of the tendencies in the editorial board.

28.   Editor can call the members of editorial board to assistance in extraordinary circumstances on matters related to his/her responsibilities in order prevent disruption of work.

29.   Editor can assign any experts as an Associate Editors in assisting himself/ herself in ensuring coordination between the members of the editorial board, following up referee process of the articles, examining the referee reports and solving technical problems.

Scientific Advisory Committee

18.   The members of the scientific advisory committee shall be elected from the people experienced on subjects or scientific fields covered by the journal, adherent to the academic ethics and in the nature of capable of bringing the journal up to the international level. The scientific advisory committee shall consist of at least 5 Turkish and 5 foreigner university staffs.

19.   Scientific advisory committee members’ expertise should represent the subject areas covered by the journal's aim and scope. The scientific advisory committee shall introduce advise for the development of the scientific content and quality of the journal

20.   Scientific advisory committee members will serve a variety of functions. These may include:

acting as ambassadors for the journal;

supporting and promoting the journal;

submitting their article for publication;

reviewing submissions to the journal;

attending and contributing to editorial board meetings.

21.   A journal's scientific advisory committee normally undergoes a partial renewal after a set period determined by the editorial board. This will involve removing some members, inviting others, and renewing some existing members for another term according to their functions. It is important when inviting a Committee member that this issue of scientific advisory committee members’ functions is included in the invitation letter to avoid any misunderstandings that can arise.

22.   The Editor should be familiar with these experts and can invite new members from these colleagues and peers. Many of these will be authors of written books/ articles on related topics. Editors need to be very clear as to why they have chosen to invite someone to the scientific advisory committee.

These principles and guidelines are compiled by Journal’s first issue editor, M Mustafa KULU. During these principles and guidelines are compiled, İGÜSBD, Nazariyat, COPE, Elsevier and other related web sources are used.