About the Journal

All the content of Maskana magazine (past and present editions) is preserved not only in the digital repositories of the University of Cuenca, but also stored in the cloud via Google Drive.

Maskana gives each published article a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) code.

Permanence of content

Since the December 2017 issue, MASKANA has adopted the Crossmark scheme, whereby MASKANA editors commit to maintain the published content and alert readers to changes, should they occur.

Crossmark is an initiative of several Crossref publishers that provides a standard way for readers to locate the authoritative and current version of a document.

By clicking on the Crossmark logo, you will be informed of the current status of a published document and will also be provided with additional information about it.

Maskana content subject to Crossmark

Maskana content that will feature the Crossmark icon is restricted to the current and future content of the regular issues of that magazine hosted on the official website. It applies to two specific publication types:

• Full-length original research article.
• Review article based on a comprehensive literature review.

Corrections and recall policies

On rare occasions, a published article may need a correction note; this means that an erratum or a notice exposing or identifying relevant errors or ethical concerns will need to be published. In other cases, a published article may even be removed or deleted, which is relatively easy in electronic journals. MASKANA's policies for these situations are set out below.

The Editorial Team may consider removing a published article if:

• has clear evidence that the findings of a publication are unreliable, either due to research misconduct on the part of the authors (e.g. data fabrication) or due to bona fide errors (e.g. experimental errors or miscalculations),
• the findings have already been published in any other medium without clear cross-reference, permission or justification (e.g. redundant publication),
• the publication constitutes a case of plagiarism,
• breaches of professional codes of ethics.

The Editorial Team will issue an alert note linked to the published article if:

• receives inconclusive evidence of investigative misconduct on the part of the authors,
• there is evidence that the findings are unreliable, but the sponsoring institution does not investigate the case,
• there is evidence that the investigation, which has resulted in publication, has been conducted through investigative misconduct, and therefore the publication has not been, or would not be, fair, impartial or conclusive,
• an investigation is ongoing, but a judicial verdict will not be available for some considerable time.

The Editorial Team will issue a correction note (errata) if:

• a small portion of the otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading (especially due to a bona fide error),
• the list of authors or contributors is incorrect or incomplete, i.e. an author who deserves to be on the list has been omitted or someone who does not meet the authorship criteria has been included.

In order to ensure the maintenance of the historical record of scholarly publications, MASKANA supports the principle of favouring the policy of "corrections" or "retraction" over that of "deletion" or "withdrawal" in all possible cases. In this regard, a notice of withdrawal or deletion will comply with the following considerations:

• will be linked to the withdrawn article whenever possible (i.e. in all electronic versions),
• clearly identify that the article has been removed from publication (e.g. by including the title and authors in the heading of the removal notice),
• be clearly identified as a deletion (i.e. distinct from other types of notices, corrections or comments),
• will be published promptly to minimise the harmful effects of misleading publications,
• will be freely available to all readers (i.e. not behind access barriers or available only to subscribers),
• it shall be indicated who has withdrawn the item,
• the reason(s) for the deletion shall be indicated (to distinguish it from a case of bona fide error),
• potentially defamatory statements shall be avoided.

The considerations set out in this section, in terms of content permanence, retraction notes and withdrawal or deletion of articles, are based on the recommendations made by the Guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and by the International Association of STM Publishers, as well as the MASKANA Journal's Statement on Publication Ethics and Malpractice (PEMS).

Maskana makes use of Turnitin, a plagiarism detection service that verifies the originality of submitted content before publication. The software checks the document submitted to the journal against content from websites, libraries, books and databases. Each submitted manuscript will be checked in the shortest possible time.
In this process, Turnitin provides a similarity report which highlights, on the one hand, the resulting percentage of similarity according to the number of words and, on the other hand, the marking of the various sections, expressions or terms that were found in other documents. The Maskana Editorial Team checks the similarity report. The decision as to whether a manuscript should be rejected due to fraud or proceed to the peer review process rests with the Editorial Team. The similarity report can also be made available to external reviewers.