Thematic Issue

Culture, Education, and Future (CEF) publishes Thematic Issues (TI) by taking the responsibility for providing a discussion platform for researchers studying current and specific issues in the journal's aims and scope. In addition, CEF intends to be a reference source for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers working on the journal's aims and scope and to draw attention to TI topics related to the field. The topics planned for the TI need to be within the purpose and scope of the journal. CEF plans to publish one TI per year for the time being until a new decision is taken by the editorial board. A maximum of 14 articles are published in each TI, excluding editorial articles.

How to Propose the Thematic Issue

The proposals submitted for TI to the CEF take place in two ways. The members of the editorial board can prepare a proposal for a thematic issue or researchers can prepare a proposal for a thematic issue and send it directly to the Journal Editor for the approval of the editorial board.

The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board of the journal review the thematic issue proposals to determine whether the content is within the scope of the journal and the academic conventions are followed. The board makes the final decision on thematic issue proposals and also supervises the selection of Guest Editors.

The Procedure of the Thematic Issue Proposals

Author Guidelines of the CEF apply to full-text manuscripts submitted for the thematic issue. However, Guest Editors prepare the call letter for the thematic issue by considering the policies of the journal and the aims & scope of the journal.

The call letter for research proposals prepared by the Guest Editors should specify the title, topic and scope of the Thematic Issue, the details of how the Thematic Issue is to be carried out and the time intervals at which it is to be announced. The call letter should include the word limit for research proposals, contact information for the Guest Editors and the journal, and where to submit research proposals.

The process for a Thematic Issue is carried out by the following steps below:

• The research proposals are submitted to the email addresses of the journal (journals@symphonypub.com) by the authors.
• The research proposals submitted undergo pre-evaluation by the Guest Editors. Once the pre-evaluation is completed, the authors are notified of the decision within the timeframe specified in the call letter.
• Research proposals that pass the pre-evaluation are invited to be developed into full-text manuscripts and submitted to the journal's system as full-text manuscripts.
• Guest Editors carry out the double peer review process of the submitted full-text manuscripts on the system by inviting external reviewers. After the double-blind peer review of the submitted manuscript is completed, the authors are notified of the decision on their full-text manuscript by Guest Editors.
• The accepted papers are prepared for publication by the Journal Editorial Office.

Guest Editors’ Responsibilities and Ethics

Publication Ethics & Malpractice Policy of the CEF and all thematic issue processes must be carried out in accordance with this policy.

Content Relevance: Guest Editors must ensure that the content published in the Thematic Issue is consistent with the aims and scope of the journal.

Citation Policies: The Guest Editors may not request that authors submit references solely to promote citations to their own or co-authors’ work, the journal, or another journal with which they are involved. The inclusion of references that are not relevant to the text is severely discouraged.

Guest Editor's Submission: The Thematic Issue may accept contributions from Guest Editors. However, these contributions may not exceed 25% of the articles published in the Thematic Issue, excluding the editorial manuscript. The editorial process of any manuscript submitted by a Guest Editor is carried out by one of the Editors with double-blind peer-review externally.

Confidentiality: The Guest Editors must maintain the confidentiality of all material submitted to the journal.

Conflicts of Interest: When problems arise regarding conflicts of interest, the journal's Conflicts of Interest Statement policies should be followed.

Peer Review Procedure of Submissions

The submissions for Thematic Issue are peer-reviewed externally in accordance with the journal’s Peer-Review Policy.

_{*Prepared by the publisher, reviewed, and approved by CEF Editors and commissioned Editorial Board Members. Updated on 28 March 2024.}