Best editorial practices

Guidelines and best editorial practices

These guidelines refer to the policies of best editorial practices by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), available at: http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines.

Functions of the Advisory Council

• Promote among the national and international academic community the submission of works to be published in the Journal.
• Suggest academic guidelines for the journal’s editorial policy.
• Promote the dissemination of the journal in national and international academic media.
• Participate as reviewers of the works submitted for publication or to recommend other experts as reviewers.

Functions and responsibilities of the editorial committee

• Promote among the national and international academic community the submission of articles to be published in the Journal.
• Support in the selection of reviewers for the works received, as well as deliberate on the best options for possible reviewers where required.
• Decide on the relevance of publishing the submitted materials on the basis of the experts’ reviews.
• Approve the content proposed for each number of the journal.
• Revise and assess each number published.
• Collaborate with the corresponding instances to maintain the periodicity established for the journal.

Functions and responsibilities of the Editor-in-chief

• Coordinate actions toward the fulfillment of the journal’s goals.
• Plan and coordinate the journal’s editorial production process.
• Monitor the technical processing of the materials approved by the Editorial Committee, once the established academic requirements are accredited.
• Ensure high academic level in the published content.
• Receive the works submitted for possible publication and verify the compliance with the Journal’s topic, originality of the contribution as well as the Journal’s format.
• Monitor compliance with the reviewers’ recommendations.
• Inform the authors about the stage of the editorial process in which the submitted text is.
• Monitor proofreading and the journal’s technical quality.
• Monitor metadata marking up, layout and typesetting.

Collaborate to maintain the journal’s publication periodicity and to begin the distribution of each journal’s number the first month of the corresponding period.

Functions and responsibilities of the Associate Editor

• Assign reviewers for the submitted works and follow the academic review process.
• Inform the editorial committee on the review process of all the materials received, ensuring confidentiality.

Functions and responsibilities of the Editorial Coordinator

• Perform the manuscripts’ edition in Spanish and English.
• Propose the content of each number to the editorial committee from the texts corrected and approved at the time.

Responsibilities of the authors

• Follow the journal’s publication requirements regarding originality, not being published, relevance.
• Present their results with honesty and without lying, falsifying or manipulating data.
• Take collective responsibility, if this is the case, for the work submitted and published.
• Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest must be stated in the article.
• Cite the work of others accurately and only refer publications used in the text.
• The authors must inform the editors if the results have been previously published or if any report or multiple analyses of the same dataset are under consideration for publication somewhere else. The authors must provide copies of the publications or related works submitted to other journals.
• The authors must meet the deadlines established by the Journal to address the reviewers’ observations.

Responsibilities of the reviewers

• Accept the review of texts that fall into their specialty area so that an adequate assessment is carried out.
• Declare from the start of the process if there is any conflict of interest.^[1] If the identity of any author is suspected, the journal shall be notified if this piece of information poses any conflict of interest.
• Decline any review immediately if it is not possible for them to deliver it within the established deadline.
• Produce their assessment on the basis of originality, contribution of the article to the topic, methodology resorted to, relevance and up-to-dateness of the reported bibliography, style, coherence and quality in the structure and drafting.
• Immediately inform the journal if over the review process, they discover they do not have the necessary experience to assess all the text’s aspects.
• Their criticisms will be objective, specific and constructive.
• Clearly define the approval, rejection or conditioning of the text.
• Deliver their assessment within the established deadline.
• Respect confidentiality during and after the review process.
• Must not use content of an under-review or reviewed text.
• Will not involve third parties in the assigned review.
• Inform the journal if similarity with other text they have reviewed is noticed or if they identify any sort of plagiarism.
• Transferring the responsibility of undertaking a review to any other person, assistant or collaborator is not allowed whatsoever.

^[1] Conflicts of interest appear when authors, reviewers or editors have nonmanifest interests, which may influence their judgment on the material submitted for publication. These can be personal, academic, economic, political or religious. If such interests are relevant, they have to be communicated to the editors.