Declaration of Publishing Ethics

Best practices for editors

The Editorial Board of the Boletín Geológico is committed to the scientific community to ensure ethics throughout the editorial process and the quality of papers published according to the standards of indexing systems and summary for scientific journals, guaranteeing compliance with good editorial practices using as reference the Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors prepared by the Committee on Publication Ethics -COPE- (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines).

- Responsibility for the content of the journal.

The editor must assume responsibility for everything he or she publishes and must have established procedures and policies to guarantee the quality of the material published and maintain the integrity of the published record.

- Editorial independence and integrity.

An important part of the responsibility for making fair and impartial decisions is defending the principle of editorial independence and integrity.

- Separation of decision-making from commercial considerations. 

The editor makes decisions based only on academic merit and assumes full responsibility for his or her decisions.

- Relationship of the editor with the person in charge of the journal.

The editor and those responsible for the journal have no role in content decisions for commercial or political reasons. The editor should not be removed from his or her duties due to any journal content unless there is editorial misconduct or the result of an independent investigation has concluded that the editor’s decision to publish was contrary to the scientific-academic mission of the journal.

- Journal metrics and decision making.

The editor does not attempt to inappropriately influence the journal’s ranking  by artificially increasing any metric. For example, it is not appropriate to require that references to the articles of that journal be included, except for purely academic reasons. The editor must ensure that the articles are reviewed for purely academic reasons and that the authors are not pressured to cite specific publications for nonacademic reasons.

Best practices for authors and reviewers

Both reviewers and authors should understand and accept the international standards of research ethics issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics regarding plagiarism and peer review, standards that the Boletín Geológico adheres and that are available in their entirety at: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices

Among them:

- Authorship

 The award of authorship should balance intellectual contributions to the conception, design, analysis and writing of the study against the collection of data and other routine work. If there is no task that can reasonably be attributed to a particular individual, then that individual should not be credited with authorship.

To avoid disputes over attribution of academic credit, it is helpful to decide early on in the planning of a research project who will be credited as authors, as contributors, and who will be acknowledged.

All authors must take public responsibility for the content of their paper. The multidisciplinary nature of much research can make this difficult, but this may be resolved by the disclosure of individual contributions.

Authors must be people.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) or its applications are not supported as an author of an article.  If AI is used in the development of the research, this must be indicated in the article and the name of the application used in each case must be specified.  The authors will always be responsible for the content of the article.

Individuals who contributed to the work but whose contributions were not of sufficient magnitude to warrant authorship should avoid their name to be used in some work to give more credibility to their content.

-  Fabrication and falsification of data

The fabrication of data means that the researcher did not actually perform the study but instead falsified the data. Data falsification means that the researcher performed the experiment but then changed some of the data.

- Plagiarism

Taking the ideas and work of other scientists without giving them credit is considered unfair and dishonest behavior. Copying a phrase from someone else's manuscript, even one that has been previously published, without a proper citation is considered plagiarism; every author should use their own words.

In Boletín Geológico when a manuscript is received, the first step is to scan the manuscript using plagiarism detecting tools such as plagiarism https://www.ithenticate.com/.   In case of finding documents describing essentially the same research or if it has been published in another journal or primary publication, the author will be notified and the publication will be rejected. When the similarity of the documents is not found, the evaluation process of the paper is developed and if it is approved for publication, taking into account that the evaluation process takes a few months, before the layout process can be carried out, the plagiarism tools previously mentioned will be used again.

- Multiple presentations

It is not ethical to send the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time. Doing so wastes the time of the editors and peer reviewers and can harm the reputation of the authors and the journal in which the article is duplicated since the publication will have to be withdrawn.

- Redundant publications (or "salami" publications)

This refers to the publication of many very similar manuscripts based on the same experiment. The combination of the results in a very solid document is of greater interest for a selective journal. It is recommended that the editor reject a weak document when it is suspected of being a slice of “salami”.

Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of author, reviewers, and editors. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. They may be personal, commercial, political, academic or financial. “Financial” interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies and company support for staff.

Such interests, where relevant, must be declared to editors by researchers, authors, and reviewers. Editors should also disclose relevant conflicts of interest to their readers. If in doubt, disclose. Editors, editorial and scientific boards should notify the journal of any significant conflict of interest.

Sometimes conflicts of interest can become so strong that manuscripts cannot be published, or some people (for example evaluators or editors) are excluded from the decisions about the publication.

Dealing with misconduct

- Principles

The general principle confirming misconduct is intention to cause others to regard as true that which is not true.

The examination of misconduct must therefore focus, not only on the particular act or omission, but also on the intention of the researcher, author, editor, reviewer or publisher involved.

Deception may be by intention, by reckless disregard of possible consequences, or by negligence. It is implicit, therefore, that “best practice” requires complete honesty, with full disclosure.

Codes of practice may raise awareness, but can never be exhaustive.

- Investigating misconduct

Editors should not simply reject papers that raise questions of misconduct. They are ethically obliged to pursue the case. However, knowing how to investigate and respond to possible cases of misconduct is difficult.

- Serious misconduct

Editors must take all allegations and suspicions of misconduct seriously, but they must recognize that they do not usually have either the legal legitimacy or the means to conduct investigations into serious cases.

The editor must decide when to alert the employers of the accused author(s).

If editors are presented with convincing evidence—perhaps by reviewers—of serious misconduct, they should immediately pass this on to the employers, notifying the author(s) that they are doing so.

If accusations of serious misconduct are not accompanied by convincing evidence, then editors should confidentially seek expert advice or legal support.

If the experts raise serious questions about the research, then editors should notify the employers.

If the experts find no evidence of misconduct, the editorial processes should proceed in the normal way.

Authors should be given the opportunity to respond to accusations of serious misconduct.

- Less serious misconduct

Editors may judge that it is not necessary to involve employers in less serious cases of misconduct, such as redundant publication, deception over authorship, or failure to declare conflict of interest. Sometimes the evidence may speak for itself, although it may be wise to appoint an independent expert.

Editors should remember that accusations of even minor misconduct may have serious implications for the author(s), and it may then be necessary to ask the employers to investigate.

Authors should be given the opportunity to respond to any charge of minor misconduct.

If convinced of wrongdoing, editors may wish to adopt some of the sanctions.

- Sanctions

Sanctions may be applied separately or combined. The following are ranked in approximate order of severity.

A letter of explanation to the authors, where there appears to be a genuine misunderstanding of principles.

A letter of reprimand and warning as to future conduct.

An editorial giving full details of the misconduct.

Refusal to accept future submissions from the individual, unit, or institution responsible for the misconduct, for a stated period.

Formal withdrawal or retraction of the paper from the OJS, informing other editors and the indexing authorities. The retraction may be initiated by Boletín Geológico in the following cases: intentional errors, previous publication, plagiarism or unethical conduct, and the cases contemplated by the COPE’s retraction guide. Retraction is a mechanism that seeks to correct information and publish and alert readers about unreliable, incorrect or incomplete information that may affect partially or completely the nature of a paper.

Peer Review Process

Once a manuscript is received, the editor verifies that the content is related to the topics and purposes of the Journal, and that the article has been written according to the publishing instructions sent to the authors.

Then, the editor sends the article to at least two reviewers. The reviewers are selected from researchers' databases to which Boletín Geológico has access. The reviewers will be active researchers in the areas of interest having a recognized trajectory in areas related to the topic of the article. These conditions are verified through their curriculum vitae and by reviewing their publications.

Reviewers-to-be will be consulted about their availability to assess the manuscript, and in the case, they accept the revision, they will be provided access to the article and to the assessment guide in order to record their comments and recommendations about the acceptance or rejection of the text. It is expected that the reviewers who accept the assessment of the articles commit to carry out the assessment of the article within a month after receiving the document.  The reviewers use the article review form of the Boletín Geológico that is available HERE.

Reviewer decisions are really just recommendations and they tend to fall into the following categories:

• Accept without any revisions
• Accept but on the condition that minor revisions will be done by the author (paper doesn’t need re-review)
• Revisions required that need re-review by reviewer
• Reject.

When assessments are not sufficiently supported, or if there are discrepancies among concepts or arguments which are not clear for the committee, the concept of additional reviewers can be requested.

The Editor will make a decision regarding the publication of the article according to the assessments, bearing in mind the answers of the authors for the questions made by the reviewers and the editor, and supported by the criteria of their members based on the editorial policies. The decision can be one of the following: acceptance or rejection of the article.

The articles accepted by the editor will be placed in a waiting list for their publication, taking into account the order of submission and approval.

- Confidentiality

Submitted manuscripts will be handled in a confidential manner; this applies to reviewers and also to peer reviewers who may be asked to give their opinion on specific sections. The submitted manuscript should not be retained or copied 

Reviewers and editors should not make any use of the data, arguments, or interpretations, unless they have the authors' permission.

Reviewers should provide speedy, accurate, courteous, unbiased, and justifiable reports.

If reviewers suspect misconduct, they should write in confidence to the editor

- Conflicts of interest

Reviewers should notify the editor if there is any potential conflict of interest with the manuscript. The conflict of interest can be:

Academic conflict of interest: past or present association as thesis advisor, or thesis student; collaboration on a project or on a book, article, report, paper, or conference proceedings within the last 48 months; Co-edition of a journal, conference proceedings within the last 24 months.

Personal conflicts of interest: family relationship as spouse, child, sibling, or parent or any other that might affect the judgement.

Financial conflict of interest: Dependance on one of the authors of the paper for a scholarship, financial support for an internship, resources for a research project and any other situation that may affect the evaluation process, must be declared.

Work related conflict of interest: Interests in a new job in which one of the authors could be the boss, one of the authors was the boss in the last 48 months, some of their close family has a job in which one of the authors is a superior.

Paper-content conflict of interest: Previously known the results presented in the article, participates in the research project from which the paper is derived, or any other situation on the content of the paper that may bias its judgment.

Since Boletín Geológico uses the double-blind review process, the potential for conflict of interest is considerably reduced.

- Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.