All journals published by Salamanca University Press (Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca) are committed to keeping the ethics and quality of all articles and revising processes, taking into account the guidelines established by the Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), in order to offer responsible scientific publications.
Editorial teams’ responsibilities
Editorial teams (editorial board, directors, secretaries...) will be impartial regarding the management of the works and will always assure the confidentiality of the evaluation process, the communication between the advisory and the scientific editorial board, as well as the authorship anonymity of the works until they have been approved for publishing.
The articles will be revised by the editing team and external reviewers. Other sections of the journals, such as the reviews, interviews or other kinds of information, may be assessed by the editorial team without external evaluators, following the criteria established by each journal.
Editorial teams have the right to reject straightaway any work, without recurring to external experts, whenever they judge that a manuscript doesn't meet the minimum requirements, doesn’t follow the publishing guidelines, doesn’t meet the journal’s objectives or shows too much similarity to other articles that have already been published. Editorial teams can use the technological tools provided by the University of Salamanca to obtain similarity reports, or any other software they deem necessary.
Members of an editorial team will never use the results of unpublished works for their own investigations without express consent of the authors.
Members of editorial teams will inform the directors of any possible conflict of interest with authors or reviewers, and will abstain from making decisions about manuscripts that could pose a problem in this sense.
Editorial teams will be in charge of selecting which articles will be double blind peer reviewed. Attending to the reports, they will decide which ones will be accepted and published.
Editorial teams will select reviewers with proven experience (either professional or scientific) in the fields of knowledge of the reported article. They will not employ assessors who make wrong and rude reports nor assessors who submit their reports beyond their due date or show potential conflicts of interest.
Journals’ editorial teams will issue the authorship and revising certificates needed.
Editorial teams will try to limit the number of articles sent by their members to the journal. They will also make sure that the originals in which a member of the team has participated will be assessed externally with absolute impartiality.
In case of bad practices, the editorial teams will follow the COPE recommendations, considering the possibility of withdrawing publications, send out notes in case of non-conclusive proof of malpractice or request the corresponding changes.
Authors’ responsibilities
The works sent by the authors must be the result of original and unpublished investigations, devoid of any significant fragments from other authors’ works or any previously published works of their own. The authors must always reference the sources they have used in the making of the manuscript. Plagiarism, as well as multiple or redundant publications, will be avoided at all costs. The works sent must not have been published previously in any language and must not be subdued at the same time to any other publication’s evaluation processes. Works that expand on the content of others that have already been published can be accepted, as long as the modifications entail a substantial improvement and the text that they have used as basis is properly referenced. Those adaptations (translations and revisions of already published texts) that particularly catch the readers’ interest may be valued by the editorial teams, as long as the reason for the adaptation is specified and the original work is properly referenced.
Authors pledge to abstain from infringing the ethics of publishing and present the results with honesty and without forgeries, manipulations or data changes.
Authors will take into account the presentation rules for original works established by the journal.
The authorship of the work will pertain to those who take credit for the content. Pertinent non-substantial contributions will figure as acknowledgments in the body of the text or in a footnote. All the authors that sign must have contributed significantly in the making of the work. No person that has made a significant contribution to the work will be excluded from the authorship.
Authors will acknowledge the publications that have had an influence in the investigation, and will mention the sources that the works is based on, following the rules established by the journal. Non-relevant citations must be avoided.
Authors will clearly indicate the funding sources that went into the study, naming the responsible entity and the identification code, if any.
Authors pledge to notify any possible important mistake that would imply the need to retire or retract the publication, or publishing an erratum.
Authors will notify the editor of any possible conflicts of interest with members of the editorial team or any potential external reviewer.
Authors may suggest names for potential reviewers, explaining the scientific relevance in the topic, as well as express their refusal to be evaluated by potential reviewers with whom they may have conflict of interest. The proposals will be evaluated by the journal’s editorial team, always keeping the confidentiality and anonymity of the process, without communicating the decision to the authors.
Authors pledge to take into account the external evaluators and the editorial team’s considerations and to revise the correction tests in the deadlines established by the journal.
Reviewers’ responsibilities
Reviewers must follow the publisher’s policies and the present good practice guide.
Reviewers will only evaluate articles which they consider to be qualified, and will abstain from evaluating those which may pose a potential conflict of interest.
Reviewers will inform the editorial team of any possible bad practice that could occur for them to analyze it and act accordingly.
Reviewers pledge to revise in a critical, honest, respectful, constructive and impartial manner.
Before accepting a revision proposal, reviewers will make sure they will be able to abide by the journal’s established deadlines, to avoid delays in the publishing.
Conflicts of interest
Conflicts of interest will be considered to exist whenever there is a direct relationship between authors and reviewers, or between authors and members of the editorial team.
It will also be considered a conflict of interest if by any reason the editors or the reviewers deem themselves unable of being objective while dealing with a manuscript.