Ethics in the Scientific Publication of the RCIA Journal

The Colombian Journal of Agroindustrial Research (RCIA) prioritises the ethical quality of its publications and emphasises the integrity of the academic content provided by the authors. This document sets out the principles of good practice considered by the journal, in order to provide a clear and useful guide to the scientific and academic community, as well as to readers, reviewers and editors of national and international nature, who frequent us.

Considerations on publication malpractices

The Revista Colombiana de Investigaciones Agroindustriales (RCIA) follows the international standards established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), a global non-profit organisation that aims to help journal publishers achieve high standards of editorial ethics.   For further clarification of the standards, they can be consulted at the following link: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices.    

Similarly, RCIA Journal wishes to ensure that all parties involved in the editorial management of the journal (authors, reviewers and editors) are aware of and follow the ethical standards available at COPE https://publicationethics.org/files/cope-guias-para-la-retractacion.pdf  with their respective English version https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/retraction-guidelines-cope.pdf.   

Guidelines for Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern

Understanding that there are a variety of reasons for penalising an article, it is important to clarify that the stringency of the standards and control mechanisms will be directly related to the severity and magnitude of the errors detected in the article, and therefore the article may be considered for deletion.

In accordance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics COPE, the RCIA Editorial Team will consider using the system of Retraction, corrections (Errata) or expression of concern about our publications once bad publication practices have been verified.

Depending on the seriousness or type of fault detected in the articles, control mechanisms stipulated by the scientific community, described below, will be applied:

Correction

When an author recognises an error in his or her paper, he or she should formally request the journal to correct it. Depending on the seriousness of the error, the Editorial Management Team may opt for the erratum or retraction.

Correction will be a viable option for authors who feel the need to correct errors in the article, as long as this does not imply that the article will be withdrawn from publication, i.e. it does not affect the entire research document or its conclusions.

Readers will find a notice of correction published under the following circumstances:

- When it is necessary to correct an error or add information omitted by the authors, which affects the publication record.

- When the reputation of the authors or the journal is affected, but the scholarly integrity of the article remains intact.

- When a correction of text or information associated with the author's affiliation or article title is generated, the editor will be responsible for updating the corresponding citation of the article.

Proceedings of the journal in the event of a correction:

The correction must be written by the authors of the article and all must agree to the publication of the error. All errors corrected throughout the article should be highlighted and accompanied by a separate notice. Each notice should specify in detail the error and the manner in which the correction was made.

An article is considered corrected only if it meets the following characteristics:

- The correction must be written by all authors, and all must agree to publication of the correction.

- The article will present a note or notice of correction in the title of the article as follows: Correction of: [Article title].

- A separate erratum or corrigendum notice linked to the corrected version will be published.

- The erratum or correction document shall be paginated and with a new DOI assigned, explaining the corrections made to the original article.

- The erratum should be easily discernible in the table of contents of the issue associated with the corrected article, and should be linked to the originally published article.

Erratum

In exceptional cases, the editor may need to correct an error or omission generated by the journal during the publication of an article. All errors will be accompanied by a separate notice. The notice will provide clear details of the error and the changes that have been made to the paper. In these circumstances:

- The article will be corrected.

- The Errata will be linked to the title of the article as follows: Erratum to [Article title].

- An endnote shall be added to the article with the reference to the erratum notice.

- A separate erratum or corrigendum notice shall be published linked to the corrected version.

- The erratum or corrigendum document shall be paginated and have a DOI.

Retraction of the article

This measure will be applied once problems of a very serious nature (unproven or irreproducible data) have been recognised in the articles and cannot be addressed by a correction notice. RCIA will be impartial to articles that are retracted due to honest error and those that are retracted due to scientific misconduct or plagiarism.

Retraction may be made by the authors of an article or by the Editor of the journal, once they recognise problems such as:

- Serious research errors that invalidate the findings and conclusions of an article.

- Failure to comply with the ethical policy stipulated by the COPE (see guidelines https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines) and the journal.

- Where the article is clearly defamatory or infringes other legal rights.

- When an article is subject to a court order.

Similarly, RCIA will be permitted to issue an immediate retraction if any of the following situations are found to exist:

- There is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, with significant errors evident at the level of the results (e.g. calculation error or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (e.g. of data) or falsification (e.g. manipulation of images).

- It constitutes plagiarism, with all its variants (e.g. self-plagiarism).

- Findings have been previously published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the publisher, nor do they present permission or justification for republication (i.e., cases of redundant publication).

- Contains material or data not authorised for use.

- Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal problem (e.g. defamation, violation of privacy).

- It reports unethical research.

- It has been published solely on the basis of a compromised peer review process or the editorial process has been manipulated.

- The author(s) do not inform the editor or journal of conflicts of interest that could interfere with the work's interpretation processes or peer review and/or editor.

- The author(s) failed to disclose in a timely manner an important competing interest (or conflict of interest) that, in the opinion of the editor, such an omission would have affected the interpretation of the paper or the recommendations of the editors and peer reviewers.

The journal's procedure in case of retraction

Once a decision has been taken to retract an article, readers will be informed as follows:

- A retraction notice, entitled 'Retraction: [Article title]', will be applied to the published article.

- A separate retraction statement, entitled 'Retraction: [Article title]', will be published and linked to the retracted article.

- The retraction statement will be published in a subsequent issue of the journal, appropriately paginated, assigned a new DOI and listed in the table of contents of that issue. In addition, it will be displayed in a .pdf version informing the public why the retraction has been made.

- A link will be established between the original article with notice of retraction and the retraction statement published separately. 

- The original published article will be retained unchanged, only a watermark denoting the word "retracted" will be added on each page of the .pdf.

- The XML version of the online article will be removed. 

Expressions of Concern

RCIA will consider generating a "temporary or permanent" expression of concern when any of the following conditions are met:

- The editor of the Journal or a member of the Editorial Board receives inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct which has been obtained from research and which warrants a reader alert notification.

- Investigations are known to have been initiated into publications that have been editorially managed in the journal for misconduct.

- The projected time to deliberate and reach a verdict on the veracity and praxis in a publication may remain considerable.

Publication of an expression of concern will be temporary depending on the extent of the evidence or may be replaced by a permanent notice of Concern or a notice of retraction, deletion or notice of exoneration in the form of an editor's note, describing the outcome of the investigation, as well as the Editor's conclusions about the case.

Pre-approved article not publishable

Articles that are in the "Editing" phase within the editorial management flow of the journal, i.e. that already present a version accepted for publication but have not yet completed this stage, may be withdrawn before entering the "final publication" phase. This applies when:

- Significant errors are discovered that were not properly corrected in the pre-approval stages.

- After further review, it is determined that the article does not meet the publication standards established by the journal.

- They are found to be an accidental copy of a previously published article.

- The editor points out possible violations of the journal's publication policies, expressed in cases such as: multiple submissions, false authorship, plagiarism and use of fraudulent data. 

When articles already approved are not published, all authors will be notified by the journal's OJS platform and mail of the decision, leaving evidence of the process.

Removal of an article

Although there are limited cases in which an article is removed from an editorial publication, this will only occur when:

- An article is defamatory and libellous or infringes the legal rights of third parties, preventing remedies being found through errata or retraction.

- There is a court order to proceed with the removal of an article.

- It is certain that the article could pose a serious health risk.

If an article is removed, its metadata (authorship and title) will be maintained and the text will be replaced by a .pdf document indicating that the article has been removed for legal reasons.