Ethical policy

Policy of ethics and scientific integrity in the publication

  1. Authorship
  2. Pairs
  3. Scientific integrity
  4. Retractions
  5. Open access
  6. Transfer and copyright

The Revista UNIMAR takes as a reference the guidelines on ethics and good editorial practices of the COPE (Committee of Ethics for Publications – Committee on Publication Ethics), whose purpose is to guarantee the implementation of ethical practices in research, good editorial practices, prevent inappropriate conduct, and promote scientific quality, so that they are assumed as a cultural rule by society.

  1. Authorship

All the people who appear in an applicant manuscript are cataloged as authors since it is understood that they have made scriptural contributions to both the research and the preparation of the manuscript; that is, there is a shared responsibility when errata appear in the article (errors), fraud (false results), plagiarism (copying from another) or self-plagiarism (copying from oneself). Plagiarism is an unacceptable conduct; it is considered a serious breach of professional ethics and carries legal and criminal sanctions.

After the initial presentation of a manuscript, the addition, deletion, or change in the order of the authors is not accepted, since it is the duty of the publishing entity as well as the authors to ensure proper ethical conduct.

Basic authorship criteria

The Council of Science Editors (CSE), heir to the Council of Biology Editors (Ruíz-Pérez et al., 2014) since 2000, establishes authorship when it has participated in:

  • The idea and design of the study.
  • In the acquisition or analysis of data.
  • In the writing of the article or its critical intellectual review.
  • In the final approval of the manuscript to be published.

Note: data collection or other routine tasks are not enough to achieve copyright; the people who participate in the data collection obtain their respective credits when they are mentioned in the acknowledgments.

General authorship criteria

  1. The order of appearance of the authors will be respected, according to the one designated at the time of delivery of the manuscript, since it is a joint decision of the co-authors.
  2. It is the responsibility of the authors to provide the full names and their correct spelling, to eliminate later confusion. It is recommended to standardize the signature (Iralis) and use a pseudonym correctly so that it does not affect the citation index or the obtainment of the respective credits.
  3. The students and the advisors of the degree works can appear as authors if their participation adjusts to the basic criteria of authorship exposed previously.

Editorial UNIMAR, as the publishing entity, reserves the right to reject the manuscript when it has been submitted to the journal and fails to comply with the guidelines for authors of the Revista UNIMAR or the Ethics and Scientific Integrity Policy in publication. It should be clarified that under no circumstances will be accepted the withdrawal of an article during any phase of the editorial process since the different processes and procedures demand financial and human resources, which must be used to the maximum and are assumed by this dependency.

Contribution

Authors must identify the level of writing contribution and contribution to the manuscript, in order to establish the order of appearance.

Transparency

Authors must declare the source of funding for their research.

Originality

The manuscript that has not been published or accepted in another publication. The author must declare through the established format (Format 3: Partial use license) that the manuscript will not be sent partially or completely, simultaneously or successively to other journals or publishing entities, during the evaluation process carried out by Revista UNIMAR.

Plagiarism

The applicant manuscripts will be submitted to the PlagScan anti-plagiarism software implemented by Editorial UNIMAR; those that exceed the 20% coincidence rate will be immediately discarded. In those that minor citation difficulties are identified, the respective comment and accompaniment will be made to continue the evaluation process.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must declare if they have conflicts of interest: financial (financial aid: money, payments in kind, or any type of aid), personal (friendship or enmity), political (membership of parties), intellectual (not agreeing with the line editorial of the magazine), racist, religious, etc. (Graf et al., 2010).

Post duplication or multiple posts

Duplicate publication is understood as that manuscript or part of a manuscript, which has been published previously and has an ISSN or ISBN as a result of participation in forums, meetings, and congresses, among others; therefore, it will not be taken into account for evaluation and will be withdrawn as soon as the situation is known.

Keep in mind that, although several products can be generated from one investigation, this does not mean that several publications showing the same results, with minimal and non-significant changes, are admitted. In this case, the author must carry out a different scriptural process for each article that he/she wishes to present. In addition, a publication with a ‘salami effect’ should be avoided, where research results are divided into several manuscripts, which only deteriorates its quality.

The intentional sending or forwarding of work to more than one journal is considered a breach of editorial ethics, therefore, a serious offense.

  1. Pairs

An evaluator peer is characterized by carrying out a rigorous, clear, and formal evaluation. It is his/her duty to inform the editor in those cases in which plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and/or fraud is suspected, that is, copying, self-copying, falsification, or manipulation of the research results.

He/she may not make use of the information in the manuscript that is evaluating (such as disclosure of results prior to their publication, or disclosure of the concepts developed) for personal benefit, make it known or make it available for the benefit of any other person or organization.

If in reading the work he/she finds any ethical impediment or conflict of interest that may affect the issuance of the concept, he/she must inform the editor so that the document can be reassigned to another peer reviewer.

  1. Scientific integrity

The Revista UNIMAR welcomes the Declaration of Singapore, which emerged within the framework of the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, held from July 21 to 24, 2010, in Singapore. From it, the principles and responsibility in relation to scientific integrity are taken up.

Taking into account that there is an intimate relationship between the Singapore Declaration on Research Integrity and, therefore, publications, it is essential to ensure and promote a clear and responsible culture, permeated by ethics and good editorial practices.

In the field of scientific research, according to Casado et al., (2016), integrity is imposed primarily as a “duty, as an ethical-legal requirement common to most deontological codes” (p. 48) and is defined “from the identification and characterization of the specific situations that constitute effective risks of violation of said integrity” (p. 48).

Principles 

  • Honesty in all aspects of the investigation.
  • Responsibility in carrying out investigations.
  • Professional courtesy and fairness in working with others.
  • Good administration of the investigation on behalf of others.

Responsibilities

Integrity: Researchers should need to be responsible for the honesty of their research.

Compliance with regulations: Researchers should be aware of the regulations and policies related to research and comply with them.

Research methods: Researchers should apply appropriate methods, base their conclusions on a critical review of the evidence, and report their results and interpretations fully and objectively.

Research Documentation: Researchers should maintain clear and accurate documentation of the whole research so that others can verify and reproduce their work.

Research results: Researchers should share data and results openly and without delay, as soon as their use and ownership have been prioritized.

Authorship: Researchers should take responsibility for their contributions to all publications, funding requests, reports, and other forms of presenting their research. The lists of authors must include all those who meet the applicable criteria for authorship and only them.

Acknowledgments in publications: Researchers should mention in publications the names and roles of those who have made significant contributions to the research, including editors, sponsors, and others who do not meet the authorship criteria.

Peer review: When evaluating the work of others, researchers should provide impartial, prompt, and rigorous evaluations and respect the confidentiality.

Conflicts of Interest: Researchers should disclose any conflict of interest, financial or otherwise, that would compromise the reliability of their work, in research proposals, publications, and public communications, as well as in any evaluation activity.

Reporting Irresponsible Research Practices: Researchers should report to appropriate authorities any suspected research misconduct, including fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other irresponsible practices that compromise their reliability, such as negligence, wrong list of authors, lack of information about conflicting data, or the use of misleading analytical methods.

Responding to Irresponsible Research Practices: Research institutions, journals, professional organizations, and agencies that have research commitments should have procedures in place to respond to allegations of unethical or other irresponsible research practices and to protect those who in good faith report such behavior. If professional misconduct or other irresponsible research practice is confirmed, appropriate action should be taken immediately, including correcting the research documentation (World Conferences on Research Integrity, 2021).

  1. Retractions

The Revista UNIMAR adheres to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in terms of retractions, ensuring the integrity and scientific quality promoted by the journal, therefore, the Editor or Editorial Committee will retract any document where one of the following cases is identified:

  • Clear evidence that the results are not reliable: data falsification, calculation or experimental errors and/or data fabrication.
  • Evidence of plagiarism.
  • Duplicate or multiple publication, that is, the results have been published previously and there is no permission or justification to republish them.
  • Materials or data without authorization of use.
  • Copyright infringement or another legal issue.
  • Manipulation of the peer-review process.
  • When the authors have not informed that there is a conflict of interest and the editor considers that this would have affected the interpretations of the work.
  • When it is identified that a contribution was postulated simultaneously in the magazine and/or some other magazine and that it has been published in both.

The retraction process will be carried out in accordance with the recommendations stipulated by COPE: https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines

In addition, the respective notification will be made in all the bibliographic indexing databases of the journal.

Errors in published articles. Any error or inaccuracy will be communicated by the editorial team, and the necessary corrections will be made in the online version of the article.

  1. Open access

The Revista UNIMAR provides unrestricted availability and access to final publications, based on the principle that offering the public free access increases the global exchange of knowledge.

Disclosure and dissemination of titles, summaries, and final content, for academic, scientific, cultural, and non-profit purposes is allowed, as long as the respective source is cited and the same PDF that generated the journal is shared.

Users are allowed to search, read, download, cite or link the published articles, in accordance with the Creative Commons License of the magazine.

Free Publication

Participation in the calls for the reception of articles has no cost for the authors, nor for their publication.

  1. Transfer and copyright

By participating in the call, the author authorizes the Universidad Mariana, specifically the Editorial UNIMAR, so that it can exercise the following attributions, faculties of temporary and partial use, aimed at disseminating, facilitating, promoting, and deconstructing knowledge, as a product of the research, review, and reflection processes:

  • The reproduction, its transfer to digital systems, and its availability on the Internet.
  • Its link to any other type of support available to the magazine, serving as the basis for another derivative work in printed or digital format.
  • Public communication and its dissemination through the media established by the magazine.
  • Its translation into English, Portuguese, and French, to be published in printed or digital form.
  • Its inclusion in various databases, or in web portals to enable the visibility and impact of both the article and the journal.

In relation to the previous dispositions, the policy of the magazine is for free reproduction of all the documents that are published in it, on the condition that the source is cited.

Creative Commons License (By)

La Revista Unimar is published by Editorial UNIMAR of the Universidad Mariana under the terms of the Creative Commons Reconocimiento 4.0 Internacional (CC BY 4.0) 

Any exploitation of the work, the creation of derivative works, the distribution of which is also permitted without any restriction, is allowed.