Members of the editorial team

The misconducts indicated below may occur among the members of the editorial team.

1.- Omission of conflict of interest

The members of the editorial team must declare, in a timely, honest, and clear manner, the conflicts of interest that may influence their actions or decisions. 

2.- Document and data management

No member of the editorial team must manage, hide, or delete proposed manuscripts, issued peer-reviewed reports, received referee’s decisions, editorial decisions, or official letters to favor or be detrimental to someone, affect copyright or for any other unethical reason.

The elaboration of the peer-reviewed report based on referee’s decisions will not be considered document management. Deleting authors’ manuscript traces to protect peer reviews under double blind system does not constitute a misconduct. 

3.- Breach of confidentiality

An ethical violation occurs if any member of the editorial team fails to comply with the confidentiality agreement and discloses personal data or manuscript content, peer-review report, decision, official letter, or any other confidential data to people, institutions external to the journal or public in general without prior, free, informed, and written consent of those who may be affected.

Informing of the title and the abstract of the proposed manuscript to possible referees and sending anonymized manuscript to referees and official letters to confirm the occurrence of ethical violation do not apply to this rule. 

4.- Breach of the journal editorial standards

Failing to strictly comply with the journal editorial standards by the members of the editorial team represents an ethical violation.

5.- Collusion

This ethical violation occurs when a member of the editorial team is colluded with authors, referees, or other members in order to simulate the editorial process.

6.- Concealment of ethical violation

Concealing or omitting an ethical violation committed by an author, referee, or another member of the editorial team is considered an ethical violation.

7.- Barriers to collaboration

Members of the editorial team are committed to provide all the information needed to identify the occurrence of any ethical violation. In this regard, obstructing investigation tasks or taking reprisal against those who make the complaint will be considered a violation to these standards. In addition, evading and eluding responsibilities, and hiding or deleting data from the journal are also considered barriers.