Ethics Policy and Handling of Misconduct

LADEE declares its commitment to maintaining the highest ethical standards in editorial matters to guide both the Editor, Authors, and Peer Reviewers in the performance of their duties. The Editor is responsible for ensuring that no inappropriate conduct that violates the ethical policies stated in the journal and avoids any misconduct in the publication is promoted at any stage of the editorial process. In the case of any inappropriate behavior, the Editor may consult the Editorial Committee if deemed necessary.

LADEE bases its ethical policies on the principles established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), to which we are affiliated: Publication Ethics and Ethical Violations, as well as ELSEVIER's Publishing Ethics Resource Kit for Editors (PERK) and the Singapore Statement on Research Integrity. Additionally, when relevant to the article, the authors should explain the procedures followed in the research to ensure compliance with the ethical principles and standards of the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki.

In addition, LADEE agrees to and signs the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).

LADEE verifies the originality of all manuscripts through CrossCheck.

Likewise, all articles published in LADEE comply with the principles contained in various declarations and legislation on intellectual property and copyright, both at the national and international levels. LADEE aims to minimize the omission of relevant data, plagiarism, and cases of falsification. The above are understood as follows: (i) omission of relevant data occurs when authors deliberately conceal data obtained in research that influences the results; (ii) plagiarism occurs when authors present their data and information obtained by other authors in other research without proper acknowledgment, and (iii) falsification is the result of fraudulent manipulation of data by the authors.

All individuals involved in LADEE's editorial processes are aware of their ethical duties through the recognition of each of their ethical responsibilities. Therefore, LADEE ensures that all the content it publishes is ethically sound.

If, after an article is published in its final version, it is found to violate any ethical policies, the Editor will take necessary actions following the guidelines provided by both COPE and PERK; if necessary, the Editor may consult the Editorial Committee.

 

Journal Policies on Authorship and Contribution

LADEE is a serial, scientific, electronic, and peer-reviewed publication with continuous publication in biannual volumes that publishes research articles, reviews, reflections, and case studies proposed by researchers on the topics covered by the journal.

LADEE does not accept previously published material, material simultaneously submitted for evaluation in other journals, or material containing redundant information such as unreferenced texts, data, or other results. All authors must give their consent for the publication of the manuscript through the copyright transfer agreement, in addition to ensuring that the data has been obtained ethically and obtaining the necessary permissions to reproduce material from other publications and cite its source properly. This should be signed through the Article Originality Certification Form by the author.

In line with the open science policy, LADEE reserves the right to request research data as part of the evaluation process and also request author permissions for data dissemination.

LADEE may review the data provided through the Ethics Committee of the University of the Coast, Colombia if deemed pertinent due to the nature of the data. The opinions provided will be for internal management of the journal.

The author(s) of LADEE must specify the contribution of each of them, following the fourteen authorship guidelines established by CRediT.

LADEE does not publish translations of articles previously published in another language.

LADEE is not responsible for the opinions expressed by the authors. Authors must strictly adhere to the ethical policies and editorial standards for the publication of their work.

LADEE reserves the rights to print, reproduce, in whole or in part, the material, as well as to accept or reject the corresponding article. It also reserves the right to make any editorial modifications it deems appropriate to achieve the highest editorial quality.

Authors only transfer their economic rights to LADEE for the published material, while their moral rights are fully respected by the journal.

LADEE follows international standards on intellectual property and copyright, particularly Article 58 of the Colombian Constitution, Law 23 of 1982, and Law 1915 of 2018.

Duties of Authors

The duties of authors include:

Recognition and citation of sources: If data and/or words of third parties have been used in the manuscript's preparation, they must be properly referenced.

Originality: The manuscript must be original and unpublished, derived from the authors' research.

Plagiarism: The manuscript must be presented with clear evidence that no plagiarism has occurred in its preparation.

Multiple or concurrent publication: Authors should not submit the same manuscript for possible publication in more than one journal simultaneously.

Funding: Authors must specify the sources of research funding for the manuscript.

Fragmentation: Given that the fragmentation of larger works by the same author can lead to confusion among readers, authors should properly cite other previously published works by themselves, not exceeding 20% of the total self-citation (i.e., the final sum of self-citations from all authors). Likewise, relevant information from other articles should not be repeated, as this could violate the criteria of originality.

Access and retention: If necessary, authors must make the sources and other data on which the research is based available to the journal and possibly keep this information for a reasonable period after publication and make it accessible to readers upon request.

Duties of the Editor

The duties of the Editor include

Honesty: The Editor must ensure that manuscripts align with the purpose and scope of the journal and evaluate articles that start the editorial process based on their content without discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or political philosophy of the authors.

Publication decisions: The Editor is responsible for supervising the entire double-blind peer review process and deciding in which journal volume the article approved by the peer reviewers will be published.

Indexing: The Editor must ensure that the journal complies with all the editorial standards of high-impact journals in terms of indexing. Publication decisions should be guided by the journal's ethical policies and editorial standards and should be based solely on the academic merit of the article.

Confidentiality: The Editor must promote the confidentiality of all manuscript information when it is sent to someone other than the corresponding author, such as potential reviewers, peer reviewers, and databases, as appropriate.

Duties of the Editorial Committee

The Editorial Committee of the LADEE journal is a specialized technical advisory body in the topics of the journal, composed of national and international researchers with recognized research experience through participation in projects, high-impact articles, and other products of generating new knowledge in the state of the art of science.

Their functions include:

Reviewing submitted manuscripts.

Providing advice on the journal's policies and scope.

Identifying topics for special issues that they may edit as guest editors.

Attracting new authors and submissions.

Promoting the journal to their colleagues and peers.

Assisting the editors in making decisions on issues such as plagiarism claims and submissions where reviewers cannot reach a decision.

Source: Elsevier Editorial Tips

The current composition of the LADEE journal's Editorial Committee can be found in the editorial team section.

Duties of Peer Reviewers

The duties of peer reviewers include:

Confidentiality: Every manuscript received for review must be treated as a confidential document and must not be disseminated or discussed with individuals not involved in the review process.

Punctuality: Any review process accepted by the Peer Reviewer must be completed within the timeframe established by the journal within its policies. If the selected peer reviewer is aware that they cannot meet the established deadline, they must notify the Editor and excuse themselves from the review process. If necessary, peer reviewers may request an extension to the review period from the Editor after providing due justification.

Standards of Objectivity: The entire double-blind peer review process must be carried out objectively. Therefore, peer reviewers must rely on arguments and justified reasons for recommending to the Editor whether the manuscript should be published or not.

Source Recognition and Plagiarism Detection: Peer reviewers are responsible for verifying that any third-party argument presented in the manuscript is properly referenced according to the journal's editorial standards. They must also identify relevant published works or research that have been used by the authors without proper referencing. Peer reviewers should be alert to any significant similarity or overlap between the reviewed article and any other published document with which they have personal knowledge and should draw attention to the Editor.

Contribution to Editorial Decision: The double-blind peer review process must assist the Editor in making editorial decisions on which articles to publish in the journal.

Retraction Policy

LADEE's policy is that articles should remain unchanged to the extent possible, without altering or deleting the published scientific record. Additionally, LADEE receives and responds to all suggestions of scientific and ethical misconduct, and/or evidence demonstrating that the published data is incorrect or false. Based on this, if necessary, LADEE will make the respective retraction or formal correction.

 

LADEE does not publish retractions for spelling errors, improper citations, or issues that do not significantly affect the reader's understanding of the article. Small errors will be corrected within the first fifteen days of the article's publication. If a retraction is necessary, it will be free of charge and published separately at the end of each volume of the journal.

Each of the corrections requested by LADEE can be categorized into corrections, corrigenda, and retractions:

Corrections

If any of the authors detect errors that compromise both the validity and the scientific content and its reproducibility, they may request the necessary corrections from the Editor. The Editor will assess the relevance of the requested corrections to the readers and their significance to the published record. Corrections will be evaluated on the premise that the article's main conclusion is no longer maintained or is seriously affected as a result of subsequent information that the authors were unaware of at the time of publication.

If a reader detects a significant error, they can submit their comments and opinions as a "Letter to the Editor," which will be reviewed by two external peer reviewers and sent to the original authors of the article for their comments. Both the "Letter to the Editor" and the authors' comments will be published in the same volume of the journal.

Faith of errata

LADEE only applies corrigenda in cases where errors have been introduced without the authors' knowledge during the editorial process. In this regard, errors such as the author's name, email, keywords, title, significant typographical errors, errors in figure or table numbers or their captions, or proofreading corrections requested by the authors and not included, must be corrected.

Retractions

LADEE only publishes retractions if the Editor and the Editorial Committee have compelling evidence in the following two cases: (i) the published data is not reliable as a result of an honest error (e.g., tabulation or typing error), and (ii) ethical misconduct is established (e.g., plagiarism or omission of relevant research data). Therefore, if a retraction is necessary, the article will have a digital watermark with the word 'Retracted.'

Journal Policies on Conflicts of Interest

Conflict of Interest

All potential authors of LADEE must declare any potential conflicts of interest. LADEE also ensures that all published articles are written to the highest academic standards without any commercial interest. LADEE asks its potential authors to distinguish between a real conflict of interest and a perceived conflict of interest.

Similarly, all potential authors of LADEE must certify that they do not have financial, proprietary, personal, or professional relationships that could affect the research from which the article derives or the publishing institution. Therefore, they must also specify the source of funding for the research from which the article derives.

Peer reviewers, when accepting the manuscript review process and after verifying its academic content, must declare that they do not have any conflicts of interest. They also commit to comply with the journal's ethical policies, confidentiality, plagiarism handling, and editorial standards.

The LADEE journal also ensures that peer reviewers do not present a conflict of interest, that members of the editorial committee do not interfere with article decisions if they present any type of conflict that could compromise objectivity in their judgment, and that the editor must declare a potential conflict of interest.

Likewise, the journal must ensure that the articles published here are the responsibility of their authors, do not represent the Editor's or the publishing institution's thoughts, and that any case susceptible to misconduct in research management will be made available to the Ethics Committee of the University of the Coast, Colombia, as responsible for the publication.

Journal Policies on Data Sharing and Reproducibility

The journal promotes the proper use of data provided by authors. Therefore, it guarantees throughout the entire editorial process that the data remains unchanged, so as not to alter the meaning of the research results intended for publication.

LADEE encourages authors to present a complete data repository, which may be requested by reviewers or editors for result verification and considerations in scientific articles.

The LADEE journal does not accept any type of data and information that have been constructed, manipulated, or altered by authors to generate conclusions that jeopardize the work in the generation of scientific knowledge.

If the journal detects any type of misconduct related to data, the protocols established by COPE will be deployed. Similarly, if an article has been published, it will be retracted.

LADEE seeks to ensure in its policies that all submitted works are original and unpublished and have not been previously published in other scientific dissemination sources.

LADEE requests that authors declare complete information on the origin of the research that gives rise to the article and the sources of funding for them. Likewise, authors should have the necessary permissions for the use and reproducibility of information, images, and other derivatives susceptible to copyright protection.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered into LADEE will be used exclusively for the purposes established by the journal and will not be available for any other purpose, person, or organization.

By Statutory Law 1581 of 2012 on Data Protection and Related Regulations in Colombia, it is informed to the Data Subject that, by providing and voluntarily registering their data through the channels enabled on the Website, they are authorizing their incorporation into a database under the responsibility of EDUCOSTA and the University of the Coast, Colombia, and they will be processed for mission-related purposes.

Journal Ethical Oversight Policy

The journal will be overseen by the Ethics Committee of the University of the Coast, Colombia, and may include the Editor-in-Chief, the Director of EDUCOSTA, and up to two members of the Editorial Committee as guests in the event of a case that needs to be studied by them. This committee and its functions are described in Agreement No. 1012 of the Board of Directors of the University of the Coast.

Plagiarism Policy

LADEE's primary plagiarism policy is as follows: the manuscript should not contain falsifications, unauthorized and inappropriate copies, or derivations from other publications.

In this sense, all authors must demonstrate the originality, and accuracy of the presented data, results, and conclusions, and that the manuscript has not distorted or copied previously published works on the subject of research.

LADEE strongly rejects any violation of third-party intellectual property rights through the practice of plagiarism; likewise, redundant and multiple publication is also considered a violation of ethical conduct in scientific research.

LADEE uses plagiarism detection software iThenticate, through similarity reports that properly assess the work's originality.

Articles that violate the declared originality of the work will be rejected by the journal. In case of concurrent misconduct by the authors, the case may be referred to the authorities of the authors' affiliating institutions.

Additionally, the journal employs a peer review process where reviewers may also report any indications of plagiarism during the evaluation process. Once the article is published, any reader may report cases of plagiarism or malpractice, and in this regard, the journal will adopt COPE parameters to handle such cases in coordination with the Ethics Committee of the University of the Coast, Colombia, and the Intellectual Property Office.

Articles that are found to have plagiarism or malpractice will be retracted.