Ethics and Publication Policy

The ITECX International Congress on Technology, Education and Contemporary Sciences (ITECX 2026) regards the reliable, transparent and accountable production and dissemination of scientific knowledge as its fundamental responsibility. This policy sets out the ethical principles to be observed by authors submitting papers to the congress, by reviewers taking part in the evaluation process and by members of the organising and scientific committees, together with the rules governing congress publications.

Everyone who submits a paper, acts as a reviewer or serves on a committee is deemed to have read and accepted this policy. The policy applies in conjunction with the Review Process, Author Guidelines and Participation Conditions pages.

1. Scope and Core Principles

This policy covers abstracts and full-text papers, poster presentations, reviewer evaluations, committee decisions and the proceedings books published after the congress within the framework of ITECX 2026. Papers may be presented in Turkish, English or Russian; the same ethical standards apply to all works regardless of the language in which they are written.

Guidance Referred To

ITECX 2026 has established its ethical principles on the basis of the following internationally and nationally recognised guidance. Reference to this guidance does not imply membership of, or endorsement by, the organisations concerned.

• COPE Core Practices: the core practices published by the Committee on Publication Ethics, in particular those concerning the handling of allegations of misconduct, appeals, corrections and retractions.
• ICMJE authorship criteria: the authorship criteria defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, adapted to the nature of conference papers.
• YÖK Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive: the acts contrary to scientific research and publication ethics defined in the Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive (Yükseköğretim Kurumları Bilimsel Araştırma ve Yayın Etiği Yönergesi).

2. Responsibilities of Authors

Originality and Plagiarism

Submitted works must reflect the authors’ own original contribution. Using the ideas, methods, data, text, images or findings of others without acknowledging the source constitutes plagiarism. Reusing the authors’ own previously published work without citation (self-plagiarism) also falls within this scope.

All papers are subjected to a similarity check. The acceptable similarity rate, excluding references, is below 20%. A rate below this threshold does not in itself mean that no plagiarism exists; cases such as extensive copying from a single source are examined separately.

Fabrication, Falsification and Image Manipulation

• Producing data or findings from research that was not conducted (fabrication) and altering research data, methods or results in a way that misrepresents the facts (falsification) are strictly prohibited.
• Images, graphs and tables must accurately reflect the underlying raw data. Adjustments such as brightness, contrast or colour may only be applied uniformly to the entire image; adding, removing, moving or concealing a specific element is not acceptable.
• Images compiled from different sources must be clearly indicated, and authors must obtain the necessary permissions for images belonging to third parties.

Duplicate and Simultaneous Submission

Works that have previously been published in a journal, a book or the proceedings of another scientific event, or that are under review by another publication outlet, may not be submitted to ITECX 2026. Splitting results obtained from the same data set into several papers without justification (salami slicing) is also regarded as duplicate publication. Papers derived from theses must state the bibliographic details of the thesis.

Authorship Criteria and the Corresponding Author

Every person listed as an author must have made a substantial contribution to the design of the work or to the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data, taken part in drafting or critically revising the text, approved the final submitted version and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work. Contributions that do not meet these criteria are acknowledged in the acknowledgements section. Adding persons who do not qualify as authors (gift authorship) or omitting contributors from the author list (ghost authorship) constitutes misconduct.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors are aware of the submission and agree on the order of authorship, for communicating with the secretariat, for responding to revision requests and for confirming the accuracy of all declarations. Once the review has begun, authors may be added, removed or reordered only upon a justified request accompanied by the written consent of all authors.

Declaration of Funding and Conflicts of Interest

Institutions, projects or funding sources supporting the work must be stated together with project numbers. Financial, institutional, commercial or personal relationships that could influence the evaluation or the interpretation of findings must be declared as conflicts of interest. Where no conflict of interest exists, this must also be stated explicitly.

Ethics Committee Approval and Informed Consent

Research involving human participants (surveys, interviews, administration of scales, experiments, etc.) and studies involving animals must have been approved by the relevant ethics committee. The name of the ethics committee and the date and number of its decision are stated in the methods section of the paper. It must be stated that informed consent was obtained from human participants, and the identity and personal data of participants must be kept confidential. The congress committees may request the approval document where they deem it necessary.

Data Availability, Reproducibility and Citation

• Methods, sample, data collection instruments and analytical procedures must be presented clearly enough to allow the work to be evaluated and reproduced by other researchers.
• Subject to confidentiality and legal restrictions, authors should be prepared to share the data underlying the work with the committees upon request.
• Citations must be accurate, verifiable and compliant with the APA 7 style specified in the Author Guidelines. Citing sources that have not been read, unwarranted self-citation and reciprocal citation arrangements are not acceptable.

Corrections after Acceptance

Authors are obliged to notify the secretariat without delay if they discover a significant error in their work. Corrections made before the proceedings book is published are processed through the participant panel or the secretariat; after publication, the correction and retraction rules described in Section 7 of this policy apply.

3. Generative Artificial Intelligence Policy

If generative artificial intelligence tools were used in the preparation of the work, this must be transparently declared at the paper submission stage. The declaration must include the name and version of the tool and the purpose for which it was used. Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors and cannot take the place of an author to be cited as a source.

Permitted Uses

• Grammar checking, spelling and style editing, and translation support.
• Use as an auxiliary tool in writing or debugging analysis code (provided that the authors verify the correctness of the code).
• Use as an auxiliary tool in literature searches (provided that the authors verify every source against the original).

Prohibited Uses

• Generating data, findings, images or participant responses, or altering existing data.
• Creating non-existent sources, citations or quotations.
• Having scientific interpretations and conclusions generated entirely by artificial intelligence without the critical contribution of the authors.
• Uploading the text of a paper or review notes to artificial intelligence tools during peer review in a manner that breaches confidentiality.

Responsibility

Even where artificial intelligence support has been used, full responsibility for the content, accuracy, originality and ethical compliance of the work rests with the authors. If undeclared use or fabricated content generated by artificial intelligence is detected, the procedure set out in Section 6 is applied.

4. Responsibilities of Reviewers

Confidentiality and Double-Blind Review

Papers submitted to the congress are evaluated through a double-blind peer review process; the identities of authors and reviewers are kept mutually confidential. Each paper is assigned to at least two reviewers who are experts in the field. Reviewers:

• treat the papers they evaluate as confidential documents, do not share them with third parties and do not attempt to identify the authors;
• do not use ideas, data or findings from unpublished work for their own research or interests;
• do not upload the text of papers or the content of their reviews to artificial intelligence tools or to any other service that does not guarantee confidentiality.

Competence, Objectivity and Timeliness

Reviewers accept only papers that fall within their field of expertise and complete their evaluation within the set deadline; if they foresee that they will be unable to meet the deadline, they inform the secretariat in good time. They decline the assignment in cases of conflict of interest such as working at the same institution as the authors, close collaboration, a supervisory relationship, competition or a personal relationship. Reviews must be free of personal criticism, reasoned and constructive; the nationality, gender, beliefs, institution or political views of the author must not influence the evaluation.

Evaluation Criteria and Decisions

On the reviewer evaluation form, each paper is scored against the following criteria: scientific originality, methodology, relevance to the literature, academic language, quality of findings, ethical compliance and relevance to the scope of the congress. On the basis of this evaluation, reviewers recommend acceptance, minor revision, major revision or rejection. Comments to be forwarded to the author and confidential notes visible only to the committee are written in separate fields. Reviewers report any suspicion of plagiarism, data manipulation or duplicate publication to the committee in the confidential notes. Details of the process are explained on the Review Process page.

5. Responsibilities of the Organising and Scientific Committees

Fair and Independent Decisions

The committees make decisions on papers solely on the basis of scientific quality, ethical compliance and relevance to the scope of the congress. Decisions are based on reviewer reports; where reviewer recommendations conflict, an additional reviewer opinion may be sought. Registration fees, sponsorship or institutional relationships do not influence the scientific decision-making process.

Committee Members’ Own Submissions

Papers authored by members of the organising or scientific committees go through the same double-blind process as all other papers and are assigned to independent reviewers who have no conflict of interest with the member concerned. The member may not take part at any stage in the assignment of reviewers, the evaluation or the decision-making process regarding their own paper and has no access to its review records. The same rule applies to any other paper in which a committee member has a conflict of interest.

Confidentiality, Diversity and Non-Discrimination

Committee members do not use or share submitted papers or information about reviewers and authors outside the decision-making process. Reviewer reports and decision records are stored securely for possible appeal and investigation procedures; details of the processing of personal data are provided in the Personal Data Protection (KVKK) Notice. In appointing session chairs, reviewers and speakers, the committees take disciplinary, institutional, gender and geographical diversity into account. No discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnic origin, gender, disability, belief, nationality or career stage is permitted.

6. Handling of Allegations of Misconduct

Reporting

Anyone who suspects misconduct in relation to a paper, a peer review or a committee decision may submit the allegation, together with supporting evidence, to info@itecx.international. The identity of persons reporting in good faith is kept confidential; however, anonymous reports lacking concrete evidence may not be considered.

Investigation Procedure

1. Preliminary assessment: The scientific committee assesses whether the allegation falls within the scope of this policy and whether there is sufficient basis for an investigation. Where deemed necessary, the publication process of the paper is suspended until the investigation is completed.
2. Request for explanation: The allegation is communicated in writing to the corresponding author (and, where necessary, to all authors), who is asked to provide an explanation within 15 days of the date of notification.
3. Investigation and decision: The committee reviews the authors’ explanation, similarity reports and, where necessary, the opinion of an independent expert, and reaches a decision with the participation of members who have no involvement in the matter. The decision and its reasons are communicated to the authors in writing.

Possible Sanctions

Sanctions are applied proportionately, taking into account the nature and severity of the misconduct and whether it was intentional. The table below summarises possible actions for commonly encountered types of misconduct.

In cases of serious or repeated misconduct, the corresponding author or the authors concerned may be banned from submitting papers to future ITECX events for a period determined by the committee according to the severity of the misconduct. Presentation certificates and acceptance letters relating to retracted papers or papers withdrawn from the programme may be revoked.

Appeals Procedure

Authors may appeal against a rejection decision or a misconduct decision by submitting a reasoned appeal to info@itecx.international within 15 days of the date on which the decision was communicated. Appeals are examined by committee members who did not take part in the original decision and, where necessary, by independent experts, and are concluded within 30 days of the date of the appeal. The decision on the appeal is final. Appeals based solely on disagreement with reviewer opinions and containing no new scientific grounds may be dismissed at the preliminary stage.

7. Publication Policy

Proceedings Books

Accepted papers are published in the abstract proceedings book and the full-text proceedings book with ISBN and made available in the Publications section of the website. Only the papers of participants who have completed their registration and payment and presented their paper in an on-site or online session are published. Before inclusion in the proceedings book, full texts undergo a further similarity check and are checked for formal compliance with the Author Guidelines. Scientific and legal responsibility for the views expressed in the proceedings books rests with the authors.

Copyright, Licence and Open Access

Authors retain the copyright of their work. By submitting a paper, authors grant the organising committee a non-exclusive licence to publish, reproduce and archive the accepted work in the proceedings books and on the congress website. The proceedings books are published free of charge and in open access; unless otherwise stated in the proceedings book, the content is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, which permits sharing and adaptation provided that appropriate credit is given. Authors are responsible for obtaining the necessary permissions for any third-party material used in their work.

Corrections, Errata and Retractions

• Erratum: Where an error is identified in a published paper that does not affect the results but requires correction, the online version is corrected and a notice explaining the nature and date of the correction is published.
• Retraction: Where serious misconduct or an error that invalidates the results is identified, the paper is retracted. The record of the paper is not deleted; the title and author details are retained, a retraction notice stating the reason and date of retraction is published, and the text is marked “Retracted”.
• Authors may also request the correction or retraction of their own papers by submitting a reasoned application.

Archiving

Published proceedings books are kept permanently accessible in the Publications section of the website and are securely archived with backups by the organising committee. Correction and retraction notices are stored in the same place, linked to the paper concerned.

Development into Journal Articles

Works presented at the congress and published in the proceedings book may be expanded and developed into journal articles, provided that this is consistent with the publication policy of the target journal. In such cases, authors must inform the journal that the work was previously presented at ITECX 2026 and cite the proceedings book appropriately.

8. Certificates and Verification

Participation, presentation, reviewer and invited speaker certificates, as well as acceptance letters, are issued with a unique serial number and a QR code as part of transparent and auditable records. Anyone can check the validity of a certificate by scanning its QR code or by entering the serial number on the Certificate Verification page. Altering certificates or producing forged certificates is regarded as misconduct and, where necessary, legal action is taken.

9. Updates to this Policy

The organising committee reserves the right to update this policy in line with developments in national legislation and international guidance. The current text is published on this page and takes effect from the date of publication; ongoing investigation and appeal procedures are concluded in accordance with the rules in force on the date on which they were initiated.

10. Contact

You may send questions about this policy, reports of misconduct, and correction and appeal requests to info@itecx.international or use the form on the Contact page. Using the phrase “Ethics Report” in the subject line of misconduct reports helps ensure that they are routed promptly.

Last updated: 14 September 2026