Corrections, Retractions and Post-Publication Updates Policy

Maintaining the integrity of the permanent scholarly record is of paramount importance to Tourist Destination. The journal strictly adheres to guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) regarding corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, post-publication updates, and data reproducibility.

1. Corrections (Erratum & Corrigendum)

• Erratum (Publisher Correction): Published to rectify significant technical, typesetting, or layout errors introduced during the journal's production process.
• Corrigendum (Author Correction): Published to rectify substantial factual, computational, or typographical errors made by authors that affect scientific accuracy but do not invalidate the overall findings.
• Linking & Transparency: Correction notices are assigned their own persistent DOI and are bidirectionally hyperlinked to the original published article. The online record is updated transparently.

2. Expression of Concern

An Expression of Concern may be issued by the Editor-in-Chief when:

• Well-founded evidence indicates research or publication misconduct, but an institutional investigation is inconclusive or remains ongoing for an extended period,
• Concerns arise regarding the integrity of data, figures, or ethical permissions, but definitive proof for a full retraction is not yet established.

The notice is published to alert the scholarly community while an ongoing inquiry is resolved.

3. Article Retractions

In accordance with COPE Retraction Guidelines, an article will be formally retracted if:

• There is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable due to scientific misconduct, empirical data fabrication, falsification, or honest calculation errors,
• The manuscript constitutes plagiarism or redundant (duplicate) publication,
• Unethical research practices occurred, or major undisclosed conflicts of interest prejudiced the results.

Retracted articles remain accessible in the permanent scholarly archive to preserve the record, but are clearly marked with a "RETRACTED" watermark on all PDF pages, accompanied by a formal Retraction Statement explaining the reasons.

4. Article Removal (Exceptional Circumstances)

In extremely rare and exceptional circumstances, the full text of an article may be removed from the online platform. Article removal is restricted to cases where:

• The article is subject to a binding court order or legal injunction,
• The content is defamatory, infringes on third-party legal rights, or severely breaches human subject privacy,
• The content poses an imminent and severe public hazard if left online.

In all removal cases, the article metadata, persistent DOI, and an official Removal Notice detailing the legal/ethical rationale remain permanently online.

5. Article Versioning and Update Procedures

When an article is updated post-publication, clear versioning is enforced (e.g., Version 1.0 - Original Version of Record; Version 1.1 - Updated Version of Record). Every version change is assigned a modification date, and a transparent revision summary is recorded.

6. Data Sharing, Availability, and Reproducibility

Tourist Destination actively promotes open science and the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles:

• Authors are strongly encouraged to deposit their raw research datasets, simulation codes, questionnaires, and materials in trusted open data repositories (such as Zenodo, TÜBİTAK Aperta, Harvard Dataverse, OSF, or institutional repositories).
• All published articles must include a Data Availability Statement specifying where and how the supporting data can be accessed (e.g., repository DOI link, available upon reasonable request, or ethically restricted).

7. Post-Publication Discussions & Letters to the Editor

The journal welcomes scholarly post-publication commentary and discussions. Readers and researchers may submit formal Letters to the Editor regarding published articles to editor@tourdes.org. Valid scientific commentaries are peer-reviewed or editorially assessed, authors of the original article are given a right of reply, and both items may be published as linked discussion notes.