Policies of Ethical and Scientific Integrity

The “Conocimiento y Acción” editorial team is committed to the highest ethical standards, quality editing and authorship practices through adhering to the principles of COPE: the Committee on Publication Ethics, Singapore Statement on Research Integrity and the ELSEVIER: Publishing Ethics Resource Kit, and the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), which is expressed in the following criteria:

Authorship and contribution policies

Authors are considered to be those who have made a significant contribution to the research process, writing, presentation and adjustment of the manuscript according to the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT). Authors are requested to indicate in their submission letter the contribution or role of each author in the manuscript.

Authors are presented in the order previously established by them and should include the following information:

It is understood that the author who sends the manuscript or uploads it to the journal platform assumes the role of correspondence author and thus has the responsibility of correspondence throughout the editorial process.

The articles submitted to “Conocimiento y Acción” must be original and unpublished and must not have been submitted or be currently under review for publication in other scientific publications. They must be submitted with the consent of all the authors, and they all must commit to maintaining such conditions until a final decision is made as to whether accept or turn down its publication.

The authors must make a commitment to the journal to provide retractions or corrections of errors at any stage of the process. In the event they are detected, the requests must be made by email to the editor, who shall proceed in accordance with the Publications Ethics policy.

The authors must specify the sources of financing for the research from which the submitted article is derived (research typology), to which end they must specify: the title of the project, the entity or person who financed it, and the project code or identifier (optional).

The received articles will be identified with a code and will be initially reviewed by the journal’s Editor and/or Assistant Editor to verify the relevance of the subject matter, the application of standards and scientific structure before initiating the peer review process (double blind) and its possible publication.

The reviewers’ results will be forwarded to the authors to perform the respective corrections as a condition for accepting the paper through the OJS journal management platform. Because it is a peer-reviewed journal, “Conocimiento y Acción” shall take into consideration the peer reviews for the effects of the publication decision.

Prior to publishing the article, the authors’ property rights must be assigned to the journal “Conocimiento y Acción”, using the form that will be provided by the Publishing Team. This form must be filled out and signed by each one of the authors.

The Editorial and Scientific Committee reserves the right to change the title and the body of the accepted articles, and to make any editing changes it considers appropriate, with the aim of improving the clarity of the article as much as possible. Consequently, authors are advised to carefully draft and spell-check their articles, to use short and homogeneous paragraphs and to make adequate use of punctuation.

 

Plagiarism policy

“Conocimiento y Acción” declares that it finds plagiarism unacceptable, which implies that all articles submitted to the review process must have fulfilled the following prior to their acceptance.

Articles submitted to “Conocimiento y Acción” must be original and unpublished with the consent of all authors. Therefore, authors are requested to use the submission letter format in which they commit to these criteria. The journal will not publish articles previously published in another language.

The fragmentation of large papers may confuse readers or could be detected as plagiarism, thus not complying with the established criteria of originality. Therefore, authors are requested to include the respective citations in case their work mentions previous publications. Likewise, the author must be available for requests from the editorial staff and peer reviewers regarding previously published works on the subject.

All articles received will undergo a strict peer review process and will be evaluated for originality with iThenticate. If the article does not meet the specified originality criteria, it will be declared inadmissible for publication.

“Conocimiento y Acción” is committed to its community and, therefore, will implement necessary retractions and corrections to ensure the journal's transparency and due process in any case of errata detected or reported.

The authors are responsible for the material included in their work such as tables, graphs, photos, figures and other content necessary for the development of the publication and declare that these do not infringe copyright.

 

Fraud in research

“Conocimiento y Acción” only receives articles resulting from research of a scientific nature, and to this effect the author must submit information on the research from which the paper is derived. Also, during the peer review process, the experts consider aspects such as: methodologies, presentation of results, argumentation and derived conclusions to ensure the consistency and accuracy of the presented information, as well as its relevance and contribution to the field of study.

Authors are advised to have available evidence on the information used, because such information and data and other sources of the contents may be requested by the editor and/or the reviewers. Any manipulation, forgery or fabrication of citations and data will be reason for rejection of the article.

 

Submission of a copy of the article

“Conocimiento y Acción” establishes in its instructions for authors that the articles submitted for publication must not have been or be currently under review by other publications. The articles must be original and unpublished, and must be submitted with the consent of all the authors, who must make a commitment to “Conocimiento y Acción” to maintain such conditions until such time as a decision is made on whether or not it will be published.

The plagiarism management policy does not allow the publication of papers that do not adequately handle “paraphrasing.” In cases when the idea is derived from several articles, the original text must be cited using quotation marks and an appropriation citation must be included.

The journal has also established that it will not publish articles that have been previously published in any language. “Conocimiento y Acción” does not accept such option.

 

Fragmentation

“Conocimiento y Acción” establishes that all articles must be unpublished and original. Since the fragmentation of larger works may cause confusion for readers, authors are advised that if their work mentions other studies that have been previously published, adequate citations must be provided for such studies, and the same information should not be repeated because it could be detected as a match that runs against the originality criteria established by the journal. The author must also be available to reply to any inquiries from the publishing team and the peer reviewers regarding previous works published on the topic.

“Conocimiento y Acción” has committed to the community to issue any retractions or erratum that may be required to ensure the transparency of the journal, and to due process in the event of any case that may be detected or reported.

 

Articles where an Artificial Intelligence tool intervenes.

The Journal adopt the WAME Recommendations on ChatGPT and Chatbots in Relation to Scholarly Publications:

  1. Chatbots cannot be authors. Chatbots cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot understand the role of authors or take responsibility for the paper. Chatbots cannot meet ICMJE authorship criteria, particularly “Final approval of the version to be published” and “Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.”. A chatbot cannot understand a conflict of interest statement, or have the legal standing to sign a statement. Chatbots have no affiliation independent of their creators. They cannot hold copyright. Authors submitting a manuscript must ensure that all those named as authors meet the authorship criteria, which clearly means that chatbots should not be included as authors.
  2. Authors should be transparent when chatbots are usedand provide information about how they were used. Since the field is evolving quickly at present, authors using a chatbot to help them write a paper should declare this fact and provide full technical specifications of the chatbot used (name, version, model, source) and method of application in the paper they are submitting (query structure, syntax). This is consistent with the ICMJE recommendation of acknowledging writing assistance.
  3. Authors are responsible for the work performed by a chatbot in their paper(including the accuracy of what is presented, and the absence of plagiarism) and for appropriate attribution of all sources (including for material produced by the chatbot). Human authors of articles written with the help of a chatbot are responsible for the contributions made by chatbots, including their accuracy. They must be able to assert that there is no plagiarism in their paper, including in text produced by the chatbot. Human authors must ensure there is appropriate attribution of all quoted material, including full citations. They should declare the specific query function used with the chatbot. Authors will need to seek and cite the sources that support the chatbot’s statements. Since a chatbot may be designed to omit sources that oppose viewpoints expressed in its output, it is the authors’ duty to find, review and include such counterviews in their articles.
  4. Editors need appropriate toolsto help them detect content generated or altered by AI and these tools must be available regardless of their ability to pay. Many medical journal editors use manuscript evaluation approaches from the 20th century but now find themselves face-to-face with AI innovations and industries from the 21st century, including manipulated plagiarized text and images and paper mill-generated documents. They have already been at a disadvantage when trying to sort the legitimate from the fabricated, and chatbots such as ChatGPT take this challenge to a new level. Editors need access to tools that will help them evaluate content efficiently and accurately. Publishers working through STM are already developing such tools. Such tools should be made available to editors regardless of ability to pay for them, for the good of science and the public. Facilitating their use through incorporation into open-source publishing software such as Public Knowledge Project’s Open Journal Systems, and education about the use and interpretation of screening outputs, would make automated screening of manuscript submissions a much-needed reality for many editors.

Competing Interests: All of the authors report that they have no competing interests aside from any affiliations as editors.

 

Handling of complaints and appeals

The complaint or appeal procedure begins through communication with the journal's Editor in Chief  to cya@up.edu.mx.. The Editor will confirm the receipt of the communication and evaluate the merits of the complaint or appeal, informing the Editorial Committee, which has a period of two weeks to decide on the matter.

The Committee may respond by closing the complaint or appeal or by initiating an investigation, which should be communicated to the parties by means of a report.

In the case of initiating an investigation, the parties will be asked to provide further background information or statements of objections based on which a decision will be made. This decision may include the rejection of the complaint, a request for further background information or the approval of the complaint. In all cases, the decision will be communicated by means of the Committee meeting minutes.

When the information involves the confirmation of the complaint or denunciation, the communication will be shared with the parties as well as with the plaintiff’s affiliated institution.

If the complaint or appeal situation warrants it, an amendment or correction of the corresponding publication will be made in a retraction document in the following issue.

 

Conflict of interest policies

“Conocimiento y Acción” establishes strict criteria to avoid conflicts of interest during the article review process.

It is established that authors must submit a wholly anonymized version of the manuscript which does not allow the identification of authors, institutions, individuals, or funding sources.

It is also established that peer reviewers must be people with research experience and scientific publications.

The “Conocimiento y Acción” peer review process is double-blind, which upholds objectivity throughout the process, since neither authors nor reviewers will know one others’ identities.

“Conocimiento y Acción” ensures that the anonymized communication between authors and reviewers meets the appropriate academic criteria in relation to comments and evaluations of manuscripts. The criteria for establishing the results of the evaluation of a manuscript will be established in the peer review process section.

“Conocimiento y Acción” ensures that there are no conflicts of interest in the peer review process, and to this effect it has established the following criteria:

  1. a) The selected peer reviewers with expertise in the subject matter of the article must have prior publications of scientific nature on the selected subject.
  2. b) For the effects of initiating the review process, its double-blind nature shall be verified, to ensure that the authors and the reviewers do not know each other’s identities, to assure objectivity in handling the paper.
  3. c) Based on the reviewers’ opinions, a consensus will be reached with the editor to jointly determine whether the article is accepted without changes or accepted with changes (minor or substantial) to be made by the authors or turned down. The authors will receive said decision from the editor.

Authors should also have all required permissions to disclose any information that involves naming or mentioning other entities or persons and should clearly state any appropriate previous results used for the research, including informed consents and mentions or acknowledgements of sources of financing and persons who assisted in the research.

For additional information on the review process, please see our instructions for authors.

 

Policies on data exchange and reproducibility

“Conocimiento y Acción” recommends that authors facilitate the exchange and reproducibility of data provided that this does not imply a breach of prior agreements on confidentiality and protection of the identity of research subjects. In any case, it should be considered that the data used may be requested by editors or evaluators as part of the review process. Authors can associate an article with the corresponding dataset by cross-referencing them. It is recommended that this cross-reference is in both directions: from the dataset to the article, as well as from the article to the dataset. Authors can deposit the dataset in the platform of their choice. “Conocimiento y Acción” recommends the use of Mendeley Data.

 

Ethical oversight policies

The “Conocimiento y Acción” Editorial Board will request information from the authors regarding the ethical standards of the research, which should follow the principles of the Singapore Declaration on Integrity in Research.

When appropriate, authors should indicate the ethical procedures developed in their research and, at the request of the editors or reviewers, they should provide relevant information regarding the ethical safeguards developed, especially in all matters involving consent or assent, or regarding the authorization of the use of databases.

The use of photographs in which people appear must have the proper authorizations and must not generate any damage or harm to the people who appear in the images.

 

Intellectual property policy

All manuscripts published in the journal are the sole responsibility of their authors and do not reflect the opinion of the”Conocimiento y Acción” Editorial Board.

It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that the work is unpublished and original.

“Conocimiento y Acción” is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. In this way, the authors' rights are safeguarded, who grant the journal is the property rights for its publication.

 

CORRECTIONS POLICIES

“Conocimiento y Acción”promotes the generation of discussions and debates around the published manuscripts; therefore, when the Editorial Committee deems appropriate, responses or letters to the Editor in Chief will be published, which should be sent to the following email address: cya@up.edu.mx

Post-publication corrections or requests for withdrawal of articles should be sent to the Editorial Committee at the previously indicated email address, which will be evaluated according to the terms established in letter c) of this guideline.

 

PPRIVACY AND USE OF INFORMATION POLICIES

Names and mailing addresses entered in this journal will be used exclusively for the purposes of the editorial process, including notices of new publications or calls for submissions, and will not be made available to any other purpose, person, or organization. “Conocimiento y Acción” does not permit advertising or marketing on the magazine site.