Ethical code

Code of Ethics for Cuadernos Unimetanos

The journal Cuadernos Unimetanos is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards through its code of good practices. As such, all parties involved in the authorship, submission, management, and dissemination of manuscripts—such as research studies, projects, academic contributions, and book reviews—are required to adhere to this ethical code.

The code consists of the following sections:

1. Editorial Team

The editorial team of the journal, in collaboration with its management and coordination teams, assumes the responsibility of ensuring the scientific quality of its content and preventing inappropriate practices in the publication of research results. To this end, the team commits to the following principles:

• The journal's director and chief editor are responsible for overseeing the journal and making technical decisions regarding its content.
• The editorial team will carry out its tasks in accordance with the journal's publication policy.
• Editors will process manuscripts promptly and keep the authors informed about the status of their article during the different phases of the editorial process.
• Editors will act impartially when managing submissions, respecting the intellectual independence of authors and their right to respond to negative evaluations.
• Editors, along with the journal's director, are exclusively responsible for accepting or rejecting a manuscript. While they will base their decisions on peer review reports, they may also reject manuscripts for other reasons, such as lack of alignment with the journal's scientific objectives, evidence of scientific fraud, excessive self-citation, or lack of quality.
• The editorial team will refrain from handling a manuscript if there is a conflict of interest, such as familial relationships, clear friendships or animosities, being part of the same research group, having supervised or co-supervised a doctoral thesis within the last ten years, having defended a doctoral thesis supervised or co-supervised by the manuscript’s author(s) within the last ten years, having collaborated on publications or patents within the last five years, or having economic or scientific-technological relationships, shared research funds, or international projects in the last three years, among others.
• Additionally, the editorial team will avoid selecting reviewers who may have conflicts of interest as outlined above.
• The editorial team will maintain confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and their content until the time of publication.
• No member of the editorial team may use data, arguments, or interpretations from unpublished works submitted to the journal for their own research without the explicit and written consent of the authors.
• Editors will ensure that published works have been reviewed by at least two specialists in the field using a double-blind review process, guaranteeing the anonymity of both authors and reviewers. In cases of conflicting reviews, a third review will be requested.
• The editorial team will value and acknowledge the contribution of reviewers who have participated in the review process and will promote the academic recognition of peer review activities. Low-quality, incorrect, disrespectful, or late reviews will be excluded.
• The editorial team reserves the right to retract published articles in cases of unreliability due to involuntary errors or scientific misconduct, such as data manipulation, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, or omission of consulted sources. In the event of a conflict, the journal will request explanations and relevant evidence from the authors to resolve the issue and make a final decision. Additionally, the journal will publish a mandatory notice of retraction in its print and electronic editions, explaining the reasons behind the measure to distinguish between misconduct and an involuntary error. The retraction will also be communicated to the responsible institution of the author(s).
• Retracted articles will be retained in the journal's electronic edition, clearly marked as retracted to distinguish them from corrections or comments. If only part of the article contains an error, it may be corrected later with an editorial note or erratum.
• Issues of duplication, caused by the simultaneous publication of an article in two journals, will be resolved by determining the submission date of the manuscript to each journal.
• For articles involving data from studies or research involving human participants or clinical trials, editors will ensure the rights to privacy of the subjects involved. If in doubt, editors may request evidence of ethical compliance, such as informed consent. Authors must obtain the appropriate permissions, and written consents, which may be requested by the editors if necessary.
• Editors will ensure that articles involving human participants comply with the Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects. Authors must include a declaration stating compliance with relevant institutional laws and guidelines.
• The journal’s submission guidelines, including requirements for formatting, image resolution, bibliographic referencing, and other aspects, will be made publicly available.

2. Authors and Co-authors

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication, which will be published on the journal's website under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. Authors must sign the originality and first-publication rights agreement available on the journal's website.

• Authors are the primary responsible parties for the content and statements in their articles, avoiding conflicts of interest with third parties or institutions.
• For multi-authored articles, the corresponding author must ensure that all contributors are appropriately listed and that no fictitious or honorary authorships are included. All authors must review and approve the final version of the manuscript and consent to its submission for publication.
• Authors must agree on the order of appearance of their names in the publication. Any changes during the review process must be communicated in writing and signed by all authors.
• Authors must disclose the exact source of their work (doctoral thesis, research project, teaching experience, etc.).
• Authors must reveal any possible conflicts of interest and include a declaration about them in the published version of the article.
• Authors must list all sources of funding that supported the study, specifying the public or private entity responsible and providing any identifying codes.
• Authors must ensure their manuscripts are original, containing results, data, ideas, or interpretations not copied, invented, distorted, or manipulated.
• Authors must not submit manuscripts already published or under review elsewhere. Exceptions may include works derived from non-published conference proceedings, which must be disclosed upon submission.
• Authors must avoid plagiarism or the misappropriation of others’ texts without prior consent or proper citation.
• Authors must ensure that no more than 20% of their manuscript overlaps with previously created works. The journal will use plagiarism detection software and may reject manuscripts exceeding this threshold.

3. Reviewers

Reviewers must adhere to criteria of impartiality, objectivity, timeliness, confidentiality, respect, and recognition of uncited sources. Reviewers must:

• Conduct fair and objective evaluations.
• Respect review deadlines set by the journal.
• Clearly explain the reasoning behind their evaluations.
• Decline reviews in cases of conflict of interest or insufficient expertise.
• Maintain confidentiality about manuscripts and their data.
• Highlight essential references that may have been overlooked.
• Notify editors of any similarity or overlap between manuscripts and published works.

Violations of this policy may be reported to the editor, who will investigate and escalate the issue to the Editorial Committee if necessary.

This Code of Ethics is based on the Guidelines for Good Practices by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), adapted for Cuadernos Unimetanos.