Good Policy for Scientific Practices

POLICY ON GOOD SCIENTIFIC PRACTICES

POLICY ON ETHICAL COMPLIANCE AND PROMOTION IN SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION

Interações is in accordance with the norms and recommendations of ethical standards and responsibility in scientific communication established by national and international institutions, as per:

Additionally, Interações is committed to adhering to best practices concerning ethical conduct in scientific journal editing, based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) code of conduct: COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics): https://publicationethics.org/.

Responsibilities of Chief Editors

As outlined in the SciELO Guidelines and followed by Interações, the essential qualities of the editorial process include transparency, prevention of negligence, and quality control. The responsibilities of chief editors extend to implementing editorial policies, supervising the editorial process, and managing relationships with authors, reviewers, readers, indexers, research support agencies, the scientific community, and the general public (Scielo, 2018, p. 2).

Conduct of Researchers/Authors/Coauthors

Regarding good practices to strengthen ethics in scientific publication, after meeting formal requirements, the editorial process ensures that all authors review and accept responsibility for the content and record the contributions of each at the end of the manuscript (Scielo, 2018, p. 2).

Serious scientific misconduct should be assessed based on the degree of involvement in clear intent of plagiarism, fraud, or deviation from accepted practices by the scientific community. The most common forms of serious misconduct include:

  • i) fabrication of data, procedures, or results that were irregularly or falsely obtained,
  • ii) falsification of data, procedures, or research results, with inaccuracies or incomplete information that undermines the scientific merit of the research,
  • iii) plagiarism of formulations used in oral or written form, without giving proper credit to the authors.

ETHICS IN PUBLICATION

Prevention and Rejection of Articles with Misconduct

The Editorial Board and chief editors of Interações is dedicated to preventing and not publishing articles involving misconduct, as improper research conduct is not encouraged.

Editorial Board and Chief Editors' Role

The responsible editor makes the final decision on submitted articles, in line with policies set by the Editorial Board, the Scientific Committee, and the journal's Editorial team. These policies comply with existing legal requirements concerning defamation, copyright violation, and plagiarism.

Editors and reviewers are expected to prioritize impartiality, integrity, and confidentiality in their evaluations, focusing on constructive criticism and adhering to agreed-upon deadlines with the journal (Scielo, 2018, p. 3).

Any claims of improper research conduct will be promptly investigated. Interações is always available to publish corrections, clarifications, rights of reply, retractions, and apologies when necessary.

Privacy Statement

The names and addresses provided in this journal will be used exclusively for the services provided by this publication and will not be shared for other purposes or with third parties.

ANTI-PLAGIARISM POLICY

Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible not only for the content of their articles but also for the copyright of images, videos, and any textual or complementary elements in their respective articles.

Authors are obligated to offer retractions or corrections for any errors in Interações. Authors must ensure that their text is an original work and should not submit the same text to more than one journal. The journal expressly states that any form of plagiarism detected through anti-plagiarism review tools is unacceptable.

Upon article submission, authors should include only researchers who made direct and substantial contributions to the research's conception, execution, or text drafting and who have given their express permission to be included.

Authors are responsible for recording data, information, procedures, and results in a clear, complete, and accurate manner. These data should be responsibly stored for a substantial period after publication, accessible to other researchers wishing to continue the study or replicate it. Accessibility to the studies may be restricted due to ethical or legal reasons.

The ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) recommends that authorship be based on the following four criteria:

  1. substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
  2. drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
  3. final approval of the version to be published;
  4. agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the article, ensuring that issues related to accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved (Icmje, 2019, p. 2).

Citation Process

All types of document citations (articles, books, etc.), as well as data, codes, and research materials, must be properly cited in the article and listed in the references, acknowledging the original intellectual contributions of the respective authors of the cited content (Scielo, 2019, p. 3).

JOURNAL EVALUATION PROCESS

Reviewer Conduct

Reviewers must declare in writing within the journal's system the absence of conflicts of interest when performing an evaluation. This means disclosing any relationships or activities that could bias their opinions about the manuscript. They should decline reviewing specific manuscripts if there is potential for bias (Icmje, 2019, p. 2).

Evaluated articles should be treated confidentially. The final decision on whether to publish a text rests with the Editorial Board and chief editors.

All participants in the peer review and publication process – not only authors but also reviewers, editors, and Editorial Board members – should consider and disclose their relationships and activities while fulfilling their roles in the article review and publication process (Icmje, 2019, p. 2).

Reviewers should not use knowledge of the work they are reviewing for promoting their own interests prior to publication.

Evaluation of Received Articles

Whenever a text meets academic quality and the criteria established by the journal, it is forwarded for double-blind peer review by at least two reviewers.

Interações employs two evaluation criteria: the textual and scientific quality of the article, and the enhancement, quality, and expansion of knowledge.

The Editorial Board is not allowed to use information from articles under review without explicit consent from the authors.

Regarding open peer review, the journal recommends publishing partial or full reviews without the reviewer's name or the associated editor's name who approved the article.