Ethics policy and malpractice treatment

Económicas CUC declares its commitment to maintain the highest ethical standards in editorial matters with the purpose of guiding the Editor, Authors and Peer Reviewers in the performance of their duties. The Editor will be the guarantor of ensuring that at no time during the editorial process inappropriate conduct that violates the ethical policies declared in the journal is promoted and that any malpractice is avoided for the publication. In the event of any inappropriate conduct, the Editor may consult the Editorial Committee if deemed necessary. 

Económicas CUC bases its ethical policies on the principles established by the Committee on Publication Ethics Ethics of COPE to which we are attached: Publication Ethics and Ethical Violations, also ELSEVIER: Publishing Ethics Resource Kit for editors (PERK) and the Singapore Declaration on Integrity in Research. In addition, and when relevant to the article, authors should explain the procedures followed in the research to ensure compliance with the principles and ethical standards of the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki. 

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

CUC Economics verifies the originality of all manuscripts through CrossCheck. 

Likewise, all articles published in Económicas CUC comply with the principles contained in the different declarations and legislations on intellectual property and copyright, both national and international regulations. With this, Económicas CUC intends to limit as much as possible the omission of relevant data, plagiarism and cases of falsification. These are understood as follows: (i) the omission of relevant data occurs when the authors deliberately hide data obtained in the research and that influence the results; (ii) plagiarism occurs when the authors present as their own data and information obtained by other authors in other research, without due acknowledgment and (iii) falsification is the result of fraudulent manipulation of data by the authors. 

All persons involved in the editorial processes of Económicas CUC are aware of their duties through the recognition of each of their ethical responsibilities. Therefore, Económicas CUC guarantees that all content published is ethically correct. 

If after publication of an article in its final version it becomes evident that it does not comply with any of the ethical policies, the Editor will take the necessary measures according to the guidelines established by both COPE and PERK; if necessary, the Editor may consult the Editorial Committee. 

Journal policies on authorship and contribution 

Económicas CUC is a serial, scientific, electronic and refereed publication, of continuous publication with packaging in biannual issues that publishes articles of scientific and technological research, review, reflection and case studies proposed by researchers in the topics of the journal. 

Económicas CUC does not accept previously published material, nor material that has been submitted for evaluation at the same time in other journals, nor material that contains redundant information such as unreferenced text, data or other types of results. All authors must give their consent for the publication of the manuscript through the AUTHOR’S COPYRIGHTS AGREEMENT, in addition to guaranteeing that the data have been obtained in an ethical manner and thus have the necessary permissions to reproduce the material from other publications and to cite its origin correctly, this must be subscribed through the Format of certification of originality of the article by the author. 

Económicas CUC, in line with the open science policy, reserves the right to request the data of the research submitted as part of the evaluation process, and also to ask the authors for permission to disclose the data. 

Económicas CUC may review the data provided through the Ethics Committee of the Universidad de la Costa, Colombia, if deemed appropriate given the nature of the same, the concepts issued will be handled internally by the journal. 

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

Likewise, Económicas CUC does not publish translations of articles previously published in another language. 

Económicas CUC is not responsible for the opinions expressed by the authors. In turn, authors must strictly comply with the ethical policies and editorial standards for the publication of their work. 

Económicas CUC reserves the rights of printing, total or partial reproduction of the material, as well as the right of acceptance or rejection of the corresponding article. It also reserves the right to make any editorial modification it deems convenient to obtain a publication with the highest possible editorial quality. 

The authors only cede their economic rights of the published material to Económicas CUC, while their moral rights are fully respected by the journal. 

Económicas CUC is guided by international standards on intellectual property and copyright, and in particular by Article 58 of the Political Constitution of Colombia, Law 23 of 1982 and Law 1915 of 2018. 

Duties of authors 

The duties of the authors are the following: 

1. Acknowledgement and citation of sources: if data and/or words from third parties have been used in the preparation of the manuscript, these must be properly referenced. 
2. Originality: the manuscript must be original and unpublished derived from the authors' research. 
3. Plagiarism: the manuscript must be submitted with full evidence that no plagiarism was committed in its preparation. 
4. Multiple or concurrent publication: authors should not submit the same manuscript for possible publication to more than one journal simultaneously. 
5. Funding: authors should specify the sources of funding for the research from which the manuscript is derived. 
6. Fragmentation: since the fragmentation of larger works by the same author may lead to confusion among readers, authors should duly cite other research already published by themselves without exceeding 20% of total self-citation (i.e., the final sum of self-citations by all authors); likewise, relevant information from other articles should not be repeated, as this could violate the established originality criteria. 
7. Access and retention: if the journal deems it necessary, authors should make available the sources and other data on which the research is based and which are not included in the article; this information can be retained for a reasonable period of time after publication and possibly made accessible to readers upon request. 

Duties of the Editor 

The duties of the Editor are as follows: 

1. Honesty: the Editor must supervise that the manuscripts comply with the purpose and scope of the journal; likewise, the Editor must evaluate the articles that initiate the editorial process based on their content without distinction of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs or political philosophy of the authors. 
2. Publication decisions: the Editor is responsible for supervising the entire double-blind peer review process; he/she is also responsible for deciding in which volume of the journal the article approved by the peer reviewers will be published. 
3. Indexing: the Editor must ensure that the journal meets all the editorial standards of high impact journals in terms of indexing. The publication decision should be guided by the ethical policies and editorial standards of the journal and should be based exclusively on the academic merit of the article. 
4. Confidentiality: the Editor must promote the confidentiality of all information about the manuscript when sending it to someone other than the corresponding author, such as potential reviewers, peer reviewers, databases, as appropriate. 

Duties of the editorial committee 

The Editorial Committee of the journal Económicas CUC is a technical advisory body specialized in the topics of the journal, made up of national and international researchers who have a recognized track record in research, through participation in projects, high impact articles and other products that generate new knowledge in the state of the art of science. 

Its functions are: 

1. Review submitted manuscripts. 
2. Advise on the policy and scope of the journal. 
3. Identify topics for special issues, which they can edit as guests. 
4. Attract new authors and presentations. 
5. Promote the journal to colleagues and peers. 
6. Assist editors in making decisions on issues such as plagiarism claims and submissions where reviewers cannot agree on a decision. 

Source: Editorial boards (elsevier.com) 

The current composition of the Editorial Committee of the journal Económicas CUC can be consulted in the editorial team section. 

Duties of peer reviewers 

The duties of the peer evaluators are the following: 

1. Confidentiality: any manuscript received for review should be treated as a confidential document and should not be disseminated or discussed with persons outside the review process. 
2. Punctuality: any review process accepted by the peer reviewer must be carried out within the time limit established by the journal within its policies; if the peer reviewer selected to carry out the review is aware that he/she will not be able to comply with the established time limit, he/she must notify the Editor and exempt him/herself from the review process. Likewise, if necessary, peer reviewers may request an extension of the evaluation period to the Editor after presenting due justification. 
3. Standards of objectivity: the entire double-blind peer review process must be carried out in an objective manner; thus, the peer reviewer must use arguments and justified reasons to recommend to the Editor whether or not to publish the manuscript. 
4. Acknowledgement of sources and detection of plagiarism: peer reviewers have the duty to verify that any third party argument presented in the manuscript is accompanied by the due reference to the original source in accordance with the journal's editorial standards; they must also identify relevant published works or research that have been used by the authors without being correctly referenced. Peer reviewers should be attentive to any significant similarity or overlap between the article under review and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge and make the corresponding warning to the Editor. 
5. Contribution to the editorial decision: any double-blind peer review process should assist the Editor in making editorial decisions on articles to be published in the journal.   

3.2.2. Retraction policy 

Económicas CUC has as a policy that articles should remain unaltered as far as possible, without altering or deleting the published scientific record. Likewise, Económicas CUC receives and responds to all suggestions of scientific and ethical malpractice and/or evidence showing that the published data are erroneous or false. Based on the above, if necessary, Económicas CUC will make the respective publication of the retraction or formal correction. 

Económicas CUC does not publish retractions of spelling errors, misquotations or problems that do not significantly affect the reader's understanding of the article; therefore, those small errors will be corrected within the first fifteen days of publication of the article. In turn, the retraction, if made, will be free of charge and published separately at the end of each volume of the journal. 

Each of the rectifications requested to CUC Economics are divided into corrections, errata and retractions: 

Corrections 

If one of the authors detects errors that compromise both the validity and the scientific content and their respective reproducibility, he/she may request the appropriate corrections to the Editor. The Editor will analyze the relevance of the requested corrections for the readers and their importance for the published record. In this sense, corrections will be evaluated under the premise that the main conclusion of the article no longer holds 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, he/she may send his/her comments and appreciations as a "Letter to the Editor", which will be reviewed by two external peer reviewers and will also be sent to the original authors of the article for their comments; hence, both the "Letter to the Editor" and the authors' comments will be published in the same volume of the journal. 

Errata 

Económicas CUC only applies the erratum in cases where errors have been introduced without the knowledge of the authors in the editorial process; in this sense, if errors are made in cases such as the author's name, e-mail, keywords, title, significant typographical errors, errors in numbers of figures or tables or their legends or proof corrections requested by the authors and not included, these must be corrected. 

Retractions 

Económicas CUC only publishes retractions if the Editor and the Editorial Committee have convincing evidence in the following two cases: (i) the published data are not reliable as a result of an honest mistake (for example, a tabulation or typing error) and (ii) ethical misconduct is proven (for example, plagiarism or omission of relevant research data). Therefore, in the event that it is necessary to publish a retraction, the article will be digitally watermarked with the word 'Retracted'. 

Journal policies on conflicts of interest 

Conflict of interest 

All potential authors of CUC Economics must declare any potential conflict of interest. In turn, Económicas CUC guarantees that all articles published are written under the highest academic standards without any commercial interest whatsoever. Económicas CUC requests its potential authors to distinguish between a real conflict of interest and a perceived conflict of interest. 

Likewise, all potential authors of Económicas CUC must certify that they have no financial or property interests or personal or professional relationships that could affect the research from which the article is derived or the publishing institution. For this reason, they must also specify the source of funding of the research from which the article is derived. 

Peer reviewers, upon accepting to review the manuscript and after verifying its academic content, must declare that they do not incur in any conflict of interest; they also agree to comply with the ethical policies, confidentiality, plagiarism management and editorial standards of the journal. 

The journal Económicas CUC also guarantees that peer reviewers do not present a conflict of interest, that the members of the editorial committee do not intervene in the decisions on an article in case of any type of conflict that may obviate the objectivity of their criteria, and that the editor himself declares that he will not be involved in a potential conflict of interest. 

Likewise, the journal must guarantee that the articles published here are the responsibility of their authors, that they in no way represent the thinking of the Editor or the publishing institution and that any case susceptible to malpractice in the handling of research will be placed at the disposal of the Ethics Committee of the Universidad de la Costa, Colombia, as responsible for the publication. 

Journal policies on data exchange and reproducibility 

The journal promotes the correct use of the data provided by the authors, therefore, it guarantees throughout the editorial process that they do not suffer alterations that could change the meaning of the research results to be published. 

Económicas CUC, encourages authors to submit a complete repository of data, which may be requested by reviewers or editors to verify the results and approaches in scientific articles. 

The journal Económicas CUC does not accept any type of data and information that has been constructed, manipulated or altered by the authors to generate conclusions that place at risk the work in the generation of scientific knowledge. 

In the event that the journal detects any type of malpractice based on the data, the protocols established in the COPE will be deployed, and in the event that an article has been published, it will be retracted. 

Económicas CUC, seeks to guarantee in its policies that all papers presented are original and unpublished and have not been previously published in other sources of scientific dissemination. 

Económicas CUC, requests that the authors declare the complete information on the origin of the research that gave rise to the article and the sources of financing of the same, as well as the permissions for the use and reproducibility of information, images and other derivatives susceptible to copyright protection. 

Privacy Statement 

The names and e-mail addresses entered in Económicas CUC will be used exclusively for the purposes established by the journal and will not be available for any other purpose, person or organization. 

In accordance with the Statutory Law 1581 of 2012 on Data Protection and Concordant Norms of Colombia, the Holder is informed that, by voluntarily providing and registering his/her data in the channels enabled on the Website, he/she is authorizing that they be incorporated into a database under the responsibility of EDUCOSTA and Universidad de la Costa, Colombia, being treated for missionary purposes and purposes. 

Journal Ethics Oversight Policy 

The journal will be supervised by the Ethics Committee of the Universidad de la Costa, Colombia, and may have as guests the Editor in Chief, the Director of EDUCOSTA and up to two members of the Editorial Committee in case of a case that should be studied by it. This committee and its functions are described in the agreement ACUERDO No. 1012 of the Board of Trustees of the Universidad de la Costa. 

Plagiarism policy 

CUC Economics has the following as its main plagiarism policy: that the manuscript does not contain forgeries, copies or unauthorized and inadequate derivations of fragments from other publications. 

In this sense, all authors must demonstrate originality, the veracity of the data presented and the results and conclusions obtained, as well as that the manuscript has not distorted or copied previously published works on the subject under investigation. 

Económicas CUC strongly rejects any violation of intellectual property rights of third parties through the practice of plagiarism; likewise, redundant and multiple publications are also considered a violation of the ethical conduct of scientific research. 

Económicas CUC Sociedad makes use of the iThenticate plagiarism verification software through the similarity report that allows to properly assess the originality of the work. 

Articles that violate the declared originality of the work will be rejected by the journal; in case of concurrent behavior by the authors, the case may be sent to the authorities of the authors' institutions of affiliation. 

Likewise, the journal manages a peer review process, who may also denounce any indication of plagiarism within the evaluation process. Once the article is published, any reader may report any cases of plagiarism or bad practices, in this sense, the journal will adopt the COPE parameters to deal with such cases in conjunction with the Ethics Committee of the Universidad de la Costa, Colombia and the Intellectual Property Office. 

Published articles detected as plagiarism or malpractice will be retracted.