EASE Turkish Chapter

The Turkish chapter of EASE was established last year in order to promote awareness of EASE and organize training activities and thematic meetings in Turkey and in the surrounding region. The chapter’s main objectives are to develop collaboration among regional editors and to organize training activities promoted by EASE.

There are more than 3000 scientific journals in Turkey. The number is increasing as the Turkish governmental organization (TUBITAK-ULAKBIM) provides free service (i.e. web hosting, manuscript submission system, etc.) for journals using the DergiPark systems.

The members of EASE Turkish Chapter, who are mostly active researchers from different fields, actively follow science publishing events. They presented seven original posters on science publishing issues at the 2018 EASE Conference in Bucharest (June 2018).

One of the members, Kadri Kıran, won the poster prize. The chapter’s chair and supporter (Cem Uzun and Taner Erdag) also gave lectures at the conference. Cem was one of the organizing members of the conference and he has been elected to the EASE council for the term 2018-2021.

The EASE Turkish Chapter has organized or contributed to several events done in the past year:

“Trakya university scientific journals symposium” (25 June 2018): A symposium was held in Trakya University by Prof. Cem Uzun using information from the EASE Bucharest conference. It covered the highlights of the conference, from editing and publishing journals in non-English environments, data sharing, transparency and ethics, to peer review and journal evaluation.

"EASE workshop: How to become successful authors and editors” (4-5 December 2018): This joint event, at which Pippa Smart (President), Ana Marusic (Past President of EASE) and Cem Uzun (Council Member) spoke, was hosted by Trakya University, Edirne, Turkey.

It was a great success with 222 registered participants (mainly from Turkey but also from Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Greece, Romania and Ukraine) and several thousand viewers of the Live Streaming via Facebook! The full programme (slides and videos) can be downloaded from here and the meeting report was published in European Science Editing, and more details can found on the EASE website.

A one-day course titled “Study Planning, Reporting and Publishing in Health Sciences: from A to Z” (05 January 2019) was held at Cumhuriyet University in Sivas. Chapter members Cem Uzun and Taner Erdag were among the instructors.

“Stop Predatory Science Workshop” (07 March 2019): This event was facilitated by Cem Uzun and attracted participants from Trakya University who discussed open science, predatory journals and predatory conferences, and how to stop researchers submitting to them. A report was written and given to the Rector of the university for further measures that should be taken within the university.

A Workshop on “Editing and Reviewing in Medicine and Health Science Journal: (18 March 2019): This was hosted by Mustafa Altindis at the Sakarya University. Scientific journal editors from the Sakarya University and the Marmara region of Turkey attended, and the following presentations were made by the members of the chapter: “How to improve your journal” & “Ethics for reviewers” by Cem Uzun and “An actual problem: Predatory journals” & “Good reviewing for good quality publishing” by Taner Kemal Erdag.

The Meeting of the Publication and Publishing Group of the Turkish Society of Otorhinolaryngology and Head-Neck Surgery (participants among the Members of the Chapter: Cem Uzun, Taner Erdag, Orhan Yilmaz) was organized in Antalya (4 April 2019).

The EASE Turkish Chapter and the Turkish Academic Network & Information Center ran an editor workshop in Edirne for 148 editors from all over Turkey (6 May 2019). It was live broadcasted. The Chapter members gave instructions on Turkish TR Index, Open Science Policy, International Standards for Editors, Publication Ethics, Peer Review and Predatory Journals.

The Turkish Academic Network & Information Center ran an “Introduction and Educational Seminar on Turkish TR Index” (13 September 2019). EASE Turkish Chapter members Sibel Tabanlioğlu and Zafer Kocak spoke at the seminar.

A round table discussion on “Medical journals publishing; current state and perspectives” (25 October 2019) was organized by the Montenegrian Academy of Science and Arts in Podgorica, Montenegro. Editors and authors from Balkan countries attended. Cem Uzun gave a lecture on “Publication ethics in medicine”.

We also have several confirmed activities planned for November 2019:

A course on “Scientific Publication in Otorhinolaryngology” moderated by Cem Uzun, with speakers (editors from international otorhinolaryngology journals) will be run in Antalya. Orhan Yilmaz and Taner Erdag are among these speakers (13 November 2019).

A panel discussion on “Academic Publishing and Scientific Publication Ethics” will be organized in Antalya. The chapter members Taner Erdag, Cem Uzun and Orhan Yilmaz are among the panelists (16 November 2019).

A course entitled “Writing a Scientific Paper in the Academic Life” will be run by Orhan Yilmaz, Sibel Tabanlioglu and Ebru Aydin at Karabuk University (25 November 2019).

The chapter members have continuously been giving lectures on publication issues. Here are some of them:

“Research and Publication Ethics” lecture by Cem Uzun. This presentation was given to participants from Mugla Sitki Kocman University, Aydın Adnan Menderes University and Denizli Pamukkale University (9 March 2019).

“Ethics & Publication” lecture by Cem Uzun in Antalya. Participants were Otorhinolaryngologists from all over Turkey (05 April 2019).

“Contribution of Universities to Scientific Publications" lecture by Cem Uzun at the 5th General Assembly Meeting of the Balkan Universities Association at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (17 April 2019).

EASE Turkish Chapter members have also been translating important documents into Turkish and have made them open access to everybody.

Cem Uzun translated the EASE Ethics Checklist for Authors into Turkish.

EASE Turkish Chapter members Orhan Yilmaz and Cem Uzun, with their colleagues, translated the “Handbook for Journal Editors” (by Pippa Smart) into Turkish.

Printing and distribution were supported by Trakya University and the Scientific & Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) and its Turkish Academic Network & Information Center (ULAKBIM). It was supplied to 2000 editors in Turkey and can be downloaded either from the University or ULAKBIM webpages. Foreword by Pippa Smart and Prefaces in English can be read at this link.

Cem Uzun together with Muge Atakan are currently translating the EASE SAGER Guidelines.

The members of the EASE Turkish Chapter are editors or past editors of important scientific journals in Turkey or professionals at governmental bodies. EASE is now better known in Turkey as the result of the chapter’s activities all over the country and its publications. We hope to continue our close collaboration with EASE and to host future joint events.