Article policy

Corrections, Retractions, and Removals Policy

The Journal of Turkish Science Education (TUSED) is committed to protecting the integrity of the academic record. While published articles are intended to serve as permanent, unaltered accounts of scientific inquiry, specific circumstances may dictate the need for corrections, retractions, or removals.

The Editor-in-Chief retains final authority over publication decisions, ensuring compliance with ethical standards and legal obligations, including copyright, privacy, and defamation laws. When modifications to the published record are essential, TUSED ensures transparency by permanently linking correction notices to the original publication, allowing the scientific community to track any changes.

Reporting an Error If authors discover a significant error in their published work, the corresponding author must immediately contact the TUSED editorial office via the webpage. The editorial team, alongside relevant subject-area experts, will evaluate the reported error and the provided evidence. If necessary, the proposed correction may be subjected to a secondary peer review before the Editor determines the most appropriate method for rectifying the scientific record.

Article Corrections Minor errors that do not affect the study's core findings or scientific integrity are addressed through formal corrections:

  • Corrigendum: Issued when authors need to correct an error or omission of their own making. All co-authors must approve the Corrigendum text, which is then digitally linked to the original paper.

  • Erratum: Published when the journal's editorial or production staff introduces an error during the publication process. This notice is also permanently hyperlinked directly to the affected article.

Expressions of Concern TUSED editors or the Ethics Committee may issue an Expression of Concern to alert readers under the following conditions:

  • There is inconclusive evidence of publication or research misconduct, but readers need to be aware of the ongoing debate.

  • A formal investigation into alleged misconduct is unlikely to be impartial or conclusive.

  • An investigation is underway, but a resolution will be significantly delayed.

Expressions of Concern can be temporary or permanent. Temporary notices are eventually replaced by a definitive Editor’s Note, Corrigendum, or Retraction, detailing the final outcome of the investigation.

Article Withdrawal This procedure applies strictly to "Articles-in-Press" (accepted manuscripts that are published online early but have not yet been assigned to a formal issue). Withdrawals may occur if the manuscript:

  • Contains fundamental flaws or scientific errors.

  • Is discovered to be an accidental duplicate of another published work.

  • Violates TUSED’s ethical guidelines (e.g., plagiarism, data fabrication, unauthorized authorship). When a pre-publication manuscript is withdrawn, the document files (PDF and HTML) are removed from the system and replaced with a formal statement confirming the withdrawal.

Article Retraction TUSED will retract a published article to correct the scientific record if there are severe ethical violations or critical methodological flaws. Grounds for retraction include:

  • The findings are demonstrably unreliable due to major errors, data fabrication, or falsification.

  • The research was published elsewhere without appropriate disclosure (redundant publication).

  • The work contains plagiarized material or unauthorized data.

  • There is clear evidence of compromised peer review, citation manipulation, sold authorship, or undisclosed conflicts of interest.

The Retraction Process: A formal notice titled “Retraction: [Article Title]” is published and permanently linked to the original article. To maintain the historical record, the original PDF remains accessible but is prominently watermarked as "Retracted." The HTML version of the article is typically removed.

Article Removal (Legal Limitations) Removing a published article entirely from the journal's database is an extreme measure reserved for exceptional circumstances where retaining the text poses a legal or safety threat. An article will only be completely removed if:

  • It is highly defamatory or severely infringes on the legal rights of others (where a simple retraction is insufficient).

  • It is subject to a formal court order.

  • It contains information that poses a severe public health or safety risk if applied by readers. In such instances, bibliographic metadata (title and authors) will remain visible, but the full text will be replaced with a notice explaining the legal or safety reasons for its removal.

Article Replacement If a published article contains severely flawed data that could lead to public harm or critical educational mismanagement, authors may opt to retract the original piece and simultaneously publish a corrected version. The retraction notice will clearly outline the document's history and provide a direct link to the replaced, updated article.