Ethical guidelines

Ethical Guidelines document (PDF)

REVISTA ECONOMÍA Y POLÍTICA'S PUBLICATIONS ETHICS GUIDELINES

The aim of this document is to establish guidelines for the participants parties of the journal’s review, management, and communication process: editorial team, authors, and reviewers. This document is inspired by the the conduct rules of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), available at: http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct

This document is public in an effort to make visible the quality standards of the journal.

1. Editorial team

The journal’s Editorial Team is formed by the Faculty’s Editorial Committee, the Internal, and Scientific Committee, the journal’s Director, and the Technical Team, who are responsible for the journal’s published content. This team must ensure scientific quality, avoid publication malpractices, and manage the correct edition of submitted works in a reasonable time.

The management of the manuscripts corresponds to the journal's Direction, which will have the assistance of the editorial team to accomplish the processes, from the submission of the material to its publication or not in the corresponding issue.

Regarding the use of the platform (Open Journal System – OJS), the editorial team is in charge of coordinating task assignments to the different collaborators of the journal. The Editorial Team also have to elaborate an inform of the manuscript's status and notify the authors of any relevant situation.

All the mentioned responsibilities imply observing and enforcing the following principles:

• Confidentiality

People who conform the Editorial Team of the Revista Economía y Política are obligated to maintain confidentiality about the submissions and its contents until it is accepted or not to be published, only then they will be able to disseminate its title and authorship.

Likewise, none of the Editorial Team members may use data, arguments, or interpretations contained in unpublished manuscripts for their own research, unless they have the express written consent from the authors.

• Impartiality

The Editorial Team will be impartial when managing the manuscripts and must respect the intellectual independence of each author, whose right to reply must be recognized in the event of having been negatively evaluated.

The manuscripts with negative results in the research, won't be excluded.

• Manuscript’s review

The Editorial Team is responsible for ensuring that the published articles have been evaluated by at least two experts and that the review process was fair and impartial. To guarantee the quality of this process, the Editorial Team uses the Open Journal System platform in the reception, review, and publication process.

It is the obligation of the journal to make public the method used in reviewing the manuscript that best suits the scientific community to which the journal is directed.

The Editorial Team must ensure the originality and the unpublished nature of the works submitted and must guarantee these aspects during the evaluation process along with the detection of plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and redundant or duplicate publication, understood as the total, partial, or altered copy of a work published by the same author to make it appear different, as well as falsified or manipulated data. In addition, the contents that are subject to peer review must be clearly indicated.

The Editorial Team must value and appreciate the contribution of those who had collaborated in evaluations of submitted works, likewise promote that the academic authorities recognize the peer review activities as part of the scientific process, and must dispense of those who conduct evaluations of low-quality, incorrect or disrespectful, or delivered outside the established deadlines.

• Approve or reject the manuscript

The Editorial Team is totally responsible for approving or rejecting a manuscript. This decision must be based on the peer review reports, which must justify its opinion on the quality of the manuscript in its relevance, originality, and clarity of presentation.

The Editorial Team have the authority of directly reject submitted works without the external review only in the event they consider it inappropriate for lacking the required level of quality, for lack of adaptation to the scientific objectives of the journal, or for presenting evidence of scientific fraud.

• Disavow of published articles in the journal and irregularity notice

The Editorial Team has the right to disavow those articles already published, whose lack of reliability is subsequently determined as a result of both involuntary errors and fraud or poor scientific practices: fabrication, manipulation or copying of data, plagiarism and self-plagiarism of texts and redundant publication or duplicate, omission of references to the sources consulted, use of content without permission or without justification, etc.

The objective guiding the disavow is to correct the published scientific production, ensuring its integrity. If the journal faces a duplicity conflict, caused by the simultaneous publication of an article in two journals, it must be resolved by determining the date of receipt of the work in each journal.

If the lack of quality of a journal article is determined and this is only in part of the article, this can be rectified later by an editorial note or an errata. If the solution does not apply to the concerned article and the conflict persists, the journal will ask the author or authors for relevant explanations and evidence to clarify it and will make a final decision based on these.

The journal has the obligation to publish in its printed and electronic versions, the notice about the disavow of a certain manuscript and it must mention the reasons why such action has been taken, in order to distinguish bad practice from involuntary error. Likewise, the journal will notify the disavow to those responsible from the institution where the author or authors of the article belong. The disavow of a text must be adopted as soon as possible, so it is not cited in its field of research.

Disavowed articles will be kept in the electronic edition of the journal, clearly stating that it is a disavowed article, to distinguish it from other corrections or comments. The printed edition must state the disavowed as soon as possible through an editorial or communication, in the same terms as it was made in the electronic version.

As prior step to definitively disavowing an article, the journal may issue an irregularity notice, providing the necessary information in the same terms as in the case of disavowed. The irregularity notice will stay long enough and will conclude with its remove or with the formal disavow of the article.

• Application of the Regulatory Standard for the Publications of Revista Economía y Política

The person who manages the journal is fully responsible for correctly applying the Standard that regulates the operation of the Editorial Team and must guarantee that its members are aware of it. Among other functions, he is in charge of: coordinating the promotion and dissemination of the journal; suggest and support possible improvements; seek collaboration from leading specialists in the field; review, in a first evaluation the manuscripts received; write editorials, etc.

• Conflict of interests

A conflict of interest is recognized when a work received in the journal is signed, among other possible situations, by a person who is part of the Editorial Team; by someone who has a direct personal or professional relationship; or by someone who is closely related to the past research or present of whoever integrates it.

Specifically, members of the Editorial Team must refrain from managing a manuscript when they fall into any of these or similar situations:

• Have a kinship relationship.
• Present friendship or enmity.
• Be part of the same research group.
• Participate or have participated in the direction or co-direction of a doctoral thesis in the last 10 years.
• Have defended a doctoral thesis under the direction or co-direction of the author or authors in the last 10 years.
• Collaborate or have collaborated on publications or patents in the last 5 years.
• Collaborate in other economic or scientific-technological activities.
• Have a contractual relationship or share funds or national or international research projects, from public or private entities, or of any other nature, in the last 3 years.

The Editorial Team must also refrain from selecting evaluators who are or may be affected by any of the situations explained above.

In cases where bad conduct practices are evident, the journal will be guided by the guidelines presented by COPE (https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/Spanish%20%281%29.pdf )

 

2. Authorship of the articles in the Revista Economía y Política

Revista Economía y Política doesn't establish any costs or APCs for processes of reception, evaluation, or publication of scientific articles, without exceptions.

The authors are primarily responsible for their content and therefore must apply an ethical standard aimed at ensuring their originality and attribution of authorship, among other aspects. The authors approve that their manuscripts are subject to peer review and commit to making any changes requested within the established time frames.

Inappropriate behavior may lead to disavow of published content, as established in sections 1.4 and 1.5 of this document.

In addition to its ethical assessment, improper conduct can lead to the violation of one's own rights or those of third parties, whereby Revista Economía y Política reserves the right to exercise corresponding legal actions.

• Publication standards

Manuscripts submitted to the journal for publication must be the result of original and unpublished research. In addition, it must include the data obtained and used, as well as an objective discussion of its results.

The journal also requires that sufficient information be provided so that any specialist can reproduce the research and confirm or refute the interpretations exposed in the work.

The authors must adequately mention the origin of the ideas or literal phrases taken from other already published works.

When the manuscript includes images as part of the research, the author must adequately explain how they were created or obtained, as long as it is necessary for their understanding. If previously published graphic material (figures, photos, maps, etc.) is reproduced in whole or in part, its origin will be cited, providing the relevant reproduction permissions if necessary.

For better scientific and dissemination practice, unnecessary fragmentation of the articles presented in the journal should be avoided. If it is a very extensive work, it can be published in several parts, so that each one develops a specific aspect of the general study.

The different related works must be published in the same journal to facilitate their interpretation by readers.

• Language treatment

Since its founding, Revista Economía y Política has been published in Spanish and all its articles contain its abstract and keywords in English.

Given the expansion of the English language in the scientific world, the journal also accepts articles in this language for future publication and, in addition, welcomes the possibility of sending the manuscript in more than one language for publication.

• Originality and plagiarism

The authors must assure the Editorial Committee that the data and results presented in the manuscript are original and have not been copied, invented, distorted, or manipulated.

The Oxford Dictionary defines plagiarism as “the practice of copying another person's ideas, words or work and pretending that they are your own" (https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/plagiarism?q=plagiarism). Plagiarism in all its forms, self-plagiarism, multiple or redundant publications, as well as the invention or manipulation of data constitute serious breaches of ethics and are considered scientific fraud.

The authors will not send to Revista Economía y Política manuscripts that are simultaneously under consideration by another editor, nor will they send that material to another editor until they receive notification of its rejection or voluntarily withdraw it. If this situation arises, the manuscript will be withdrawn from the journal's review process, this fact being notified in writing to the authors.

Secondary publications are acceptable if they are aimed at completely different readers; for example, if the work is published in different languages or if there is a version for specialists versus another aimed at the general public. These circumstances must be specified and the original publication cited appropriately.

All manuscripts received by Revista Economía y Política are inspected in a disciplined manner based on an anti-plagiarism policy that ensures the originality of the articles. To fulfill this task, the TURNITIN system is used, which analyzes full texts in search of grammatical and orthotypographical matches, with the purpose of ensuring that the works are unpublished and contribute to complying with the editorial quality standards of scientific production.

• Work's authorship

In the case of several authors of a manuscript, the person responsible for the work must guarantee the recognition of the rights of those who have contributed significantly to the conception, planning, design, execution, data collection, interpretation, and discussion of the results; in this case, all the people who sign it share responsibility for the work presented.

Likewise, whoever acts as the person in charge and contact person must ensure that those who sign the manuscript have reviewed and approved the final version of the work and give their approval for its possible publication.

The responsible person for the work must ensure there are no omitted signatures nor have any other added that don't apply, satisfying by this the aforementioned co-authorship criterion, avoiding fictitious or gifted authorship, which constitutes a bad scientific practice.

The journal establishes that the contribution of other people who are not listed as signatories or responsible for the manuscript's final version must be appropriately recognized, as an acknowledgment.

In order to prioritize transparency, authors must identify their contribution in the preparation of the manuscript, based on the Taxonomy of Contribution Roles presented by CRediT (https://casrai.org/credit/), which must be indicated in the Cover Letter at the time of sending it.

If the Editorial Team considers it necessary or those who sign the work request it, the published version will briefly describe the individual contribution of each member of the signing group to the work.

If there is any type of funding source for carrying out the research, the authors must clearly state it in their manuscript.

• Significant errors in published works

The journal states, in a mandatory manner, that when an author discovers a serious error in his or her work, he or she has the obligation to communicate it to the journal's responsible immediately, so his or her work can be modified, withdrawn, retracted or publish a correction or errata.

If the possible error is detected by any of the members of the Editorial Team, the authors are obliged to demonstrate that their work is correct or, failing that, they must provide the necessary information for due correction. The journal's Editorial Team will make these modifications as soon as possible.

 

3. Revista Economía y Política's articles evaluation

The people who participate in the evaluation play an essential role in the process that guarantees the quality of the publication. They provide the journal's Editorial Team with a report that directly affects editorial decision-making and helps improve the published works. The reviewers generate a guarantee of scientific accreditation.

People who execute the evaluations have in-depth knowledge of the covered topics or have significant experience in them. Reviewers should reject the journal's review request in cases where they don't consider themselves suitable to execute the evaluation or believe that they will not execute an objective review or evaluation.

The selected reviewers must notify to the journal if they detect the existence of a conflict of interest to review the assigned manuscript.

The evaluation method used will be “double-blind”, maintaining the anonymity of both the author and the evaluators.

• Confidentiality

Whoever is in charge of evaluating a manuscript must consider the work to be reviewed as a confidential document until its publication, both during the review process and after it.

Under no circumstances may the information, details, arguments, or interpretations contained in the manuscript under review be disseminated or used for its own benefit or that of others, or to harm third parties.

The journal states that there will be special cases that may require advice from other specialists in the field, a circumstance that must be reported to the journal's management and proceed only with its approval.

• Objectivity

Whoever is in charge of the evaluation must objectively judge the quality of the complete work, that is, including the information on which the research hypothesis is based, the theoretical and experimental data, and its interpretation, without neglecting the presentation and writing of the text.

The reviewer must specify and express his criticisms, objectively and constructively in his comments. Furthermore, the journal requires that the reviewer must adequately argue his or her judgments, without adopting hostile positions and respecting the intellectual independence of whoever prepared the manuscript.

The person in charge of the evaluation must warn of any relevant similarity between the manuscript submitted for evaluation and another work published or in the process of evaluation in another publication of which he or she is aware. Likewise, attention must be drawn to texts or data plagiarized from others or from the same author or authors of the manuscript evaluated, or to the suspicion or well-founded certainty that they are falsified, invented, or manipulated.

The evaluator or reviewer must notify the journal's Editorial Team in case of suspicion of bad practices or ethical violations in the reviewed manuscripts.

• Promptness in response

The reviewer must act quickly and deliver his or her report within the agreed time and will notify the journal's management of any possible delays.

If the reviewer doesn't consider himself or herself capable of judging the manuscript submitted by the Editorial Team or believes that he or she can't complete his or her task within the agreed period, must notify the journal's management as soon as possible and, if possible, issue the notification upon receipt the manuscript.

• Recognition of information sources

Reviewers must check that relevant research already published on the topic are cited. With this objective, the bibliography collected in the text will be reviewed, suggesting the elimination of superfluous or redundant references, or the incorporation of others not cited.

 

4. Guidelines for filing complaints or reports

Revista Economía y Política will be ready to address any duly justified complaint or allegation of bad practices at any time during the editorial process, or once publication has been made.

In the event of possible complaints or allegations, Revista Economía y Política will be guided by the procedures indicated in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the standards established by the journal. In cases where necessary, the support of a member or several members of the Editorial Committee will be requested.

Complaints sent to the journal's email address will be attended by the Editorial Team (revista.economiaypolitica@ucuenca.edu.ec).