Ethics and best practices in publication
Ethics and best practices in research and publication are key concerns of the journals of the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM). Thus, this document, based on the declaration of ethics of other journals and the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), defines the ethical parameters to all agents involved in the publication process: Editors, Editorial Council, Scientific Council, Ad hoc partners, Authors, Technical Team, and Publisher.
The Editor in chief is responsible for:
- Evaluate actions to be taken in cases of misconduct.
- Name qualified section editors.
- Plan and organize editions.
- Organize the editorial team.
- Invite qualified personnel for the diverse roles in the journal.
- Promote the development of the journal.
- Ensure the editorial qualities of the journal.
- Ensure the fulfillment of the Policies of the journal.
- Update Policies and documents when needed.
- Ensure the compliance with institucional plans.
Editors and members of the Editorial Council are responsible for:
- Analyze the submitted manuscript, approving the ones that are according to the journal’s scope, considering the established guidelines, and legal aspects, such as defamation, violation of copyright, and plagiarism.
- Advise authors and reviewers on the editorial flow and peer review process.
- Guarantee that the peer review process is anonymous, fair, and impartial, ensuring that information remains confidential.
- Guarantee the anonymity of authors and reviewers involved in the evaluation process.
- Carry out the proper selection of reviewers.
- Organize the list of reviewers and keep their data up to date.
- Ensure that the data, arguments, or interpretations are not used in research and publications made by editors or members of the Editorial Council without the authors’ authorization.
- Respond to inquiries related to a published article, regarding the possibility of editorial misconduct, following COPE guidelines.
- Publish, when necessary, corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies.
- Ensure autonomy and independence of the editorial decisions.
- Protect intellectual property and copyright.
- Ensure the best editorial practices.
Invited editors are responsible for:
- Define the theme, and scope of the thematic dossier, as well as define a chronogram to submission, editorial flux and publication.
- Guide the authors regarding the dossier and its editorial flux.
- Analyze the submitted manuscript, approving the ones that are according to the dossier’s scope, considering the established guidelines, and legal aspects, such as defamation, violation of copyright, and plagiarism.
- Ensure, in conjunction with the editors, the adequate choice of reviewers.
- Elaborate an editorial/presentation of the dossier.
Reviewers members of the Editorial Council or ad hoc partners are responsible for:
- Notify editors about their availability to review manuscripts.
- Refuse the review invitation, whenever they do not feel qualified due to:
- the theme;
- the identification of aspects that may lead them to recognize the manuscript’s authorship;
- the existence of conflicts of interest;
- the inability to meet deadlines.
- Inform in confidentiality to the editors about the identification of bad scientific practices, violation of copyright, and/or plagiarism practices.
- Provide accurate, courteous, unbiased, and justifiable reports as quickly as possible.
Authors are responsible for:
- Know the focus and scope, as well as the submission guidelines.
- Know and use the template correctly.
- Prepare a manuscript based on good scientific practices, addressing and problematizing coherently the duly collected and interpreted data, presenting the contribution to the corresponding area of knowledge.
- Ensure that there is a complete consensus of all coauthors in approving the final version of the document and its submission to the journal.
- Guarantee that the submitted manuscript is original and unpublished.
- Not submit simultaneously the same manuscript in another journal.
- Pay attention to the norms of the Research Ethics Committee of the institution which the research of the article is associated with, when humans are involved.
- Ensure that there are no excerpts that configure plagiarism.
- Give proper credit to sources of direct and indirect quotes, whether the content is textual or illustrative.
- Ensure that the manuscript was not published in another journal.
- Assign authorship to those who significantly contributed to the conception and development of the work, indicating the individual contribution of each participant through the CRediT taxonomy.
- Inform the journal the necessity of correction on published manuscripts.
- Maintain a courteous communication with editors and members of the technical team.
The technical team (Subdivisão de Periódicos - SUPE) is responsible for:
- Provide support to editors, reviewers, and authors.
- Perform competent, efficient, and agile work.
- Maintain courteous and professional communication with editors and authors.
- Advise the Pró-Revistas bidding comitee.
- Maintain the online support room open and available in the working hours.
- Assist in the editorial processes of the journal.
- Keep all data of users confidential, guarenting to not use it for any commercial purpose or make it available to others.
- Provide proof reading to authors prior to the article’s publication.
- Correct typing, diagramming and/or layout errors in already published articles, upon request of authors/editors.
- Design the journal’s website.
- Generate DOI to articles.
- Verify metadata.
- Respect the other Ethics and Best Practices, and Privacy Policies.
The Publisher (UFSM) is responsible for:
- Provide financial and infrastructural support to the institucional
- Recommend and demand solutions to the Subdivisão de Periódicos.
- Maintain a People Management Policies to ensure the permanency of the journals in the Portal.
- Enable the maintenance and improvement of the Portal, as well as the Editora Central de Periódicos UFSM.
- Promote institutional and externally the Portal’s journals.
Sources: https://www.periodicos.unimontes.br/index.php/rees/etica.
