Code of Ethics for Comunicación UPB

Comunicación is inspired by the ethical code of publications prepared by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and aimed to editors, referees and authors.

 

Duties of Editors

• Decisions on publication: The editors ensure the selection of the most qualified reviewers and scientifically specialists to issue an expert and critical appreciation of the manuscript, with the least possible level of bias.
• Honesty: the editors evaluate the articles submitted for publication only on the basis of the scientific merit of the content, without discrimination of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, nationality, political opinion of the authors.
• Confidentiality: the editors and members of the working group undertake not to disclose information relating to the articles submitted for publication to other people other than the author, the referees and the editor. Editors and the Editorial Committee are committed to maintaining the confidentiality of the manuscripts, their authors and their reviewers, in such a way that anonymity preserves the intellectual integrity of the whole process.
• Conflict of interest and disclosure: the editors undertake not to use in their research content of articles submitted for publication without the written consent of the author.
• Respect of time: The editors are responsible for compliance with the time limits for reviews and publication of accepted papers, to ensure rapid dissemination of its results. They reliably undertake to comply with the published deadlines (up to 30 days in accepting/rejecting from the receipt of the manuscript in the review platform) and maximum of 100 days from the beginning of the process of scientific review by experts. Also, manuscripts will not remain accepted in endless waiting lists without being published in the following issue.

 

Duties of Reviewers

• Contribution to the editorial decision: peer review is a procedure that helps editors to make decisions on the proposed articles and also allows the author to improve the contribution submitted for publication. The reviewers are committed to performing a critical, honest, constructive, and unbiased review of both the scientific and the literary quality of the written work.
• Respect of time: the referee who does not feel adequate to the task proposed or who are not able to finish the evaluation of the proposed contribution in the scheduled time is required to promptly notify the coordinators. The reviewers are committed to evaluating the works in the minimum possible time so as to respect the stated deadlines, i.e. given that Comunicación’s policy for holding pending documents is limited and restricted for the purpose of respecting authors and their works.
• Confidentiality: each assigned reading manuescript should be considered as confidential. Therefore, these texts should not be discussed with other people without the explicit permission of the editors.
• Objectivity: the peer-review must be conducted in an objective manner. Any personal judgment about the authors of contributions is considered inappropriate. The referees are required to give adequate reasons for their judgments. The reviewers will submit a complete and critical report with adequate references according to Comunicación’s review protocol and the established public norms for authors, especially if it suggested the rejection of the article.
• Bibliography: the referees undertake to accurately indicate the bibliographical references of fundamental works possibly neglected by the author. The referee must also report to the editors any similarities or overlaps between the text received and other works known to her/him.
• Conflict of interest and disclosure: confidential information or information obtained during the peer-review process must be considered confidential and may not be used for personal purposes. The referee shall not accept in reading articles for which there is a conflict of interest due to previous collaboration or competition with the author and /or her/his institution.

 

Duties of Authors

• Originality and plagiarism: The authors of the manuscripts sent to Comunicación guarantee that the submitted work is original and that the manuscripts themselves neither contain extracts from other authors, nor contain other fragments from written works that were previously published (by the same authors). Furthermore, the authors confirm the veracity of the data, namely that the empirical data have not been altered to verify hypotheses.
• Multiple Publications and /or repetitive: the author should not publish articles that repeat the same search results in more than a scientific journal. The simultaneous proposal of the same contribution to multiple scientific journals is to be considered ethically improper and reprehensible.
• List of sources: the author should always provide the correct indication of the sources and contributions mentioned in the article.
• Authorship: In terms of the authorship of the work, the authors guarantee that there is the inclusion of those individuals who have made a scientifically significant and intellectual contribution to the conceptualization and planning of the work, and have also made a contribution to the interpretation of the results and the actual writing of the article. At the same time, the authors have been hierarchically organized in accordance to their level of responsibility and their respective roles.
• Access and Retention: if the editors deem it appropriate, the authors of the articles should make available also the sources or the data on which research is based, so that they can be kept for a reasonable period of time after the publication and possibly make it accessible.
• Conflict of interest and disclosure: all authors are required to declare explicitly that there are no conflicts of interest that may have influenced the results obtained or the interpretations proposed. Authors must also indicate any research funding agencies and / or the project from which arise the article.
• Errors in published articles: when an author in her/his article identifies a significant error or inaccuracy, it shall promptly inform the magazine editors and provide them with all the information required to list the relevant corrections on the bottom of the article itself.
• Responsibility: all the authors accept responsibility for what they have written.

 

Comunicación UPB Journal adheres to the ethical norms of the COPE Committee on Publication Ethics: Commitée on Publication Ethics: http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct