ILEF Journal Ethical Principles and Publishing Policy

ILEF Journal is a peer-reviewed journal in the field of communication research and media studies. It seeks to reflect the variety of intellectual traditions and multidisciplinary approaches to provide a free and critical platform for scholars. ILEF Journal encourages contributions in areas such as the conjunctions of class, gender, ethnicity and sexuality in audiovisual culture, conventional and new medias, histories and theories of journalism, film, television, video, and digital media; and politically engaged approaches to a range of media practices. 

It is an open access journal, published biannually on-line by Faculty of Communication at Ankara University; the oldest institute in the field of communication in Turkey and in the surrounding region.  ILEF Journal adheres to the following ethical principles and publication policy, formulated based on the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Directive, which can be found on https://publicationethics.org/.

ILEF Journal does not demand a submission or a publication fee.

Publisher's Responsibilities

ILEF Journal is published by Ankara University Faculty of Communication (ILEF). The editor-in-chief and ownership status is held by the faculty dean in the name of ILEF.

The editorial board of the journal is composed of members put forth by the departments in ILEF in every two years. The editors have absolute editorial independence with respect to Ankara University.

Ankara University Faculty of Communication publicizes and distributes ILEF Journal, and protects the printed versions and the intellectual property rights of authors and partners in publishing.

The first version of the manuscripts submitted by the authors to the journal, all kinds of modified and edited versions during the evaluation process, and the published text can be archived by the authors in any medium.

Review and Publication Process

ILEF Journal accepts submissions and carries out reviewing process in an ongoing basis.  There is no deadline for submissions except for themed special issues. 

The submitted manuscripts are initially screened by the editorial board in order to determine whether the manuscript is appropriate for the aim and scope of ILEF Journal and whether it displays potential for quality academic publication. Manuscripts that pass this initial screening process are sent out for peer-review. Manuscripts that are accepted at the end of the review process are published in the forthcoming issue. According to the resolution of the Editorial Board, 5 to 7 articles at most can be published in each issue. In the case that the number of accepted manuscripts exceed this limit, the publication of the most recently accepted manuscripts are postponed to the following issue.

ILEF Journal accepts submissions via two e-mail addresses; editor@ilefdergisi.org and ilefjournal@gmail.com

Revision and Withdrawal Processes

Revisions may be demanded from the manuscripts submitted to ILEF Journal by the editor or the reviewers.  The authors comply with the revision demands as they see fit.  The authors are asked to account for the revisions they choose not to make.

The authors have the right to withdraw their submissions at any point of the publication process.

Authors' Responsibilities

The texts/works submitted to ILEF Journal must not contain plagiarism and must be original.
Author(s) should cite the sources they use in their studies in line with ethical principles and the format of the journal.
It should be noted that the presented study has not been published in any other medium before and that it should not be applied to more than one medium with the same study.
Author(s) should avoid using a sexist and discriminatory language.
Any potential or apparent conflict of interest, including funds and grants received, must be disclosed.
Works/texts must not violate the privacy and intellectual property rights of a third party.
The author(s) should document the usage rights of the data they employ in their studies, the necessary permissions related to it, and the consent of the participants on whom they have researched, to submit, if requested.
In the following cases, the author(s) should obtain permission from the ethics committee:
All kinds of research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from the participants by using survey, interview, focus group work, observation, experiment, interview techniques,
the use of humans and animals (including material/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,
clinical studies on humans,
animal studies,
retrospective studies in accordance with the personal data protection law,

Moreover;
It must be stated by authors that an “informed consent form” was acquired in representation of any research data,
Obtaining and specifying permission for the use of properties belong to third parties, such as use of scales, questionnaires, photographs, and any other materials,
It should be stated that copyright regulations are complied with for the intellectual and artistic works used.
Ethics committee approval is not requested from the author(s) for a review article.
Retrospective ethics committee approval is not required for articles that were published before 2020, produced from master's/doctoral studies (must be specified in the article), applied for publication to the journal in the previous year, and accepted but not yet published.
If the author(s) is not a university member, they can apply to the ethics committees in their region.
In articles to be published in journals, it should be stated whether ethics committee permission and/or legal/special permission is required. If these permissions are required, the decision of the board; The name, date and number of the board should be stated in the relevant part of the article in the form of footnotes. In addition, the document showing the decision of the ethics committee should be submitted to the ILEF Journal together with the candidate study.
Raw data about their work can be requested from the author(s) during the evaluation process, for such a case, the author(s) should be ready to submit the raw data at the stage when they submit the study to ILEF Journal. In addition, in case the study is published, the author(s) are obliged to keep the data related to the article for five years.
The author(s) are obliged to indicate all the people who contributed to their work; Individuals who have contributed significantly to the work should be listed as co-authors, and the author(s) must have obtained the consent of all co-author(s) for the work to be submitted.
Copyright Transfer Form must be filled in by the responsible author and submitted with the work.
Articles produced on the basis of one or more chapters of a Master's or DR thesis are expected to have a single author.
The author(s) should indicate if an old version of the work/text has been published elsewhere.
All illustrations, quotations, tables and images that exceed the "fair use principle" defined by the current copyright law must be authorized by the author(s).
It cannot be proposed to change the author liability of the studies included in the evaluation process (removing, adding or changing the order of authors).
In case of a conflict of interest, ethical violation or error is detected in a study in the evaluation process, the author(s) should share the issue with the editor; must show the necessary sensitivity for correction or retraction.

Editors' Responsibilities

The editors are obliged to conduct the review and publication process of each study submitted for evaluation within the framework of the ILEF Journal's Ethical Principles and Publication Policy.

Editors are responsible for every text they publish and the sole responsibility for accepting or rejecting a text belongs to the editors. Editors can meet with referees or members of the editorial board when they make a decision about the publication process. Texts are considered and accepted according to their academic merits.
The editors act with an effort to continuously improve ILEF Journal and increase its publication qualities.
Editors show the necessary sensitivity in order to provide the necessary critical discussion environment in the field of communication and media studies.
No one from the editors and editorial staff can disclose about the submitted text, except in consultation with the relevant author, referees, potential referees, other editorial consultants, and the publisher.
Each text should be treated impartially; texts should be valued regardless of the author's gender, political views, seniority, and institutional affiliations.
Editors are obliged to take the necessary precautions in cases such as violation of intellectual property rights, actions that are not in accordance with scientific ethics, and plagiarism during the publication process.
The relationship between the editors and the publisher is based on the principle of independence. Every decision taken by the editors is independent of the publisher, other people and organizations.
Editors carry out publishing activities by putting the public interest in the centre instead of personal gain and interests.
Papers submitted by authors who have a conflict of interest with editors are reviewed by a member of the Editorial Board. Work submitted by members of the Editorial Board is submitted for review by an assistant or guest editor to ensure an appropriate and fair process.
At least one referee of each article must have no affiliation with ILEF. ILEF members should not evaluate work submitted by faculty colleagues.