RIVAR PUBLISHING ETHICS POLICY AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

RIVAR ensures that editors, reviewers, and authors rigorously follow international ethical standards throughout the review and publication processes. We declare that this journal procedures follow the guidelines published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Manuscripts received by RIVAR will be subjected to a plagiarism verification process, double-blind peer review, control of falsification of used data (obtained data, tables, graphs, images), and verification of respect and secrecy guarantee to the individuals participating in the research. In this sense, manuscripts where there is evidence of improper use of animals, including humans, in the research will be rejected.

Every manuscript sent to RIVAR must meet the following requirements:

CONSENT: All authors give their consent for the submission and publication of the article submitted for evaluation.

AUTHORS' CONTRIBUTION: All authors made significant contributions to the manuscript, without omission of any author. The order of the authors is placed according to their participation in the investigation, from highest to lowest participation.

WORK ORIGINALITY: The submitted work is original, it has not been previously published and has not been submitted simultaneously for evaluation to another journal. The manuscript does not include original material copied from other authors without their consent. In case the article contains material from other publications, the consent for its reproduction must be attached.

CITATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY: All the information of previous studies included in the source manuscript has been cited and referenced correctly, and in line with the Instructions for Authors of the journal.

SUGGESTED REVIEWERS: The professionals suggested to review the manuscript have no work, academic, or personal relationship with the authors.

PUBLISHING ETHICAL PRINCIPLES: Authors must have read the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and declare that its principles are met. Any work that does not conform to these guidelines and in which malpractice is proven will be removed or retracted, depending on the state of the manuscript at the time of detecting ethical misconduct.

If the manuscript does not meet the indicated criteria, any author of the work can notify RIVAR to withdraw the publication.

RIVAR ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

1. Mandatory institutional authorization

The approval of the Ethics Committee of the sponsoring institution is required for articles of any of the following modalities: (a) Researches carried out in human beings; (b) Researches that directly use human biological material or identifiable human data.

2. Informed consent

In investigations carried out with human beings (including experiments and interviews) the authors must have the informed consent signed by the study interviewees and participants (patients). Should the Editor or a reviewer requests it, the author must provide the informed consent.

3. Incentives for participation in the investigation

Researchers must make every possible effort to avoid offering excessive or inappropriate incentives to those participating in their research. However, financial incentives can be given to participants for the time spent.

4. Deception in the investigation

Researchers shall avoid any misleading techniques or information aiming to deliberately mislead participants.

5. Research completion

Once the study is finished, the researcher must offer the participant the results and conclusions of the investigation, taking the necessary measures to prevent misunderstandings.

6. Ethical principles

a) Culture and heritage: Researchers must always keep the utmost respect for objects that have cultural significance and are part of the heritage of a country. If within that country the prohibition of publishing images of these objects is established, that rule must be strictly respected by the researchers. In that case, manuscripts approved for publication in RIVAR shall not include images of objects that have cultural significance or are part of the heritage of a country. On the contrary, in those countries where the visibility of heritage is supported and encouraged, images are allowed to be published.

b) Research with animals: Experiments with animals are carried out basically in three fields: teaching, industry, and research. The use of research animals is a privilege that must be carefully reserved to ensure relief to humans (and animals) from disease and pain; ignoring the suffering of each of them would be irresponsible and unethical. Anyone who uses laboratory animals in her/his research must keep the following premise: respect for life, for the pain or suffering to which they may be subjected in the studies he/she conducts. Animal research must respect the 4 Rs (Replacement: seeking alternative methods to the involvement of animals as much as possible; Reduction: trying to reduce the number of animals to be used; Refinement: establishing means that seek the comprehensive welfare of the animals; Recycling: aiming to use experimental animals more than once for as many purposes). The authors must have the ethical and legal approval obtained by the sponsoring institution that endorses the research, when requested.

7. Report of the investigation results

Researchers may not, under any circumstance, fabricate data, or adulterate figures. This type of behaviour is considered a serious professional misconduct and represents a reprehensible practice and against all intellectual and academic ethics. Furthermore, publishing a report based on manipulated data constitutes a flagrant act of falsification of a public document. If errors are discovered, they must be publicly corrected.

8. Investigation integrity

Within the ethical guidelines of RIVAR, the following criteria are established:

a-Misconduct: It is understood as such actions or omissions related to devising, organizing, carrying out, evaluating, or requesting research projects that, deliberately or carelessly, distort the investigation results, provide misleading information about the personal contribution, or violate other standards of the investigators' professional work. If misconduct is suspected, an inquiry shall be conducted.

b-Whistleblowing: All members of the RIVAR Editorial Board can receive allegations of misconduct related to an investigation that have been observed and informed by identified or anonymous persons. When these complaints are accompanied by the respective evidence, a subsequent inquiry will be initiated.

c-Correct use of images: It is recommended that articles present the results through an optimal mix of text, tables, images, and graphics in order to facilitate understanding of the information. Nevertheless, inappropriate manipulation of images is not acceptable because it leads to wrong interpretations. RIVAR does not accept fabrication, counterfeiting or image manipulation practices.

d-Plagiarism: Plagiarism is a practice contrary to professional ethics and is not accepted in any way in the scientific community. RIVAR has the Turnitin platform, provided by the University of Santiago, to verify possible plagiarism. When an author submits a plagiarized text to RIVAR, she/he will be severely reprimanded.

Plagiarism is not just the complete copy of an article. Plagiarism can also be incurred through clumsy or careless handling of information. For this reason, it is advisable to pay special attention in the preparation of the final wording of the article. For example, when a text is a direct quotation, it must be clearly differentiated, in quotation marks, citing the author. It is also possible to paraphrase the information brought from the scientific literature, but always giving the corresponding credit to the authors of the cited publication. Another form of plagiarism is to use tables or data, without giving credit to the author of the original publication. The person who publishes images or figures without the proper authorization also incurs this misconduct.

e-Data redundancy: Researchers must not publish previously published data as original. Likewise, authors shall not submit a manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously. If the RIVAR Editorial Board notices this kind of situation, the manuscript will be retracted. Translations of manuscripts already published must not be submitted as original articles. In the case of an article of high interest, it may be published as a translation, with due clarification.

9. Editorial standards and processes

a) Authorship: The position of author or co-author of an article is also adjusted to ethical and professional guidelines. To hold the category of author or co-author of an article, it is necessary to participate in at least two of the four phases of the project: planning, data collection, interpretation of the results and preparation of the manuscript. All authors of a scientific article must contribute significantly to the development of the research.

b) Authorship disputes: If the Editorial Board suspects or receives allegations of authorship problems, the Board will ask the author for the background of the case to decide.

c) Financing: The sources of financing must be mentioned and must be included in the acknowledgments section. It is particularly important to indicate the research project within which the article has been written.

d) Peer Review: Original manuscripts, complete or short, and reviews are initially evaluated according to the RIVAR criteria, indicated in the Instructions for Authors. This first evaluation is carried out by the Director, the Chief Editors, and the Section Editors. Once approved in the first instance, the manuscripts are evaluated by two or more reviewers who are chosen according to their expertise on the manuscript subject.

e) Publication time frame: From the time the article is submitted to RIVAR, until a first decision is made (acceptance, rejection, or acceptance with modifications), the RIVAR Editorial Board has an average time of two-to-four months. Should the article be accepted with modifications, the term may be extended for another two-to-four months, considering the time required by the author to prepare the final version and the Editorial Board to review it again.

f) Norms for articles of the Editorial Board: The Editorial Board (Director, Editorial Committee, Chief Editors and Section Editors) are not involved in any decision regarding their own manuscripts submitted to this journal. RIVAR has a large editorial staff (approximately 50 people), which allows it to have sufficient human resources to evaluate, manage and edit the articles received without incurring inbreeding or conflicts of interest. Likewise, to further reinforce this criterion, as of March 2021 the editorial procedure management system has been implemented through the OJS platform, which facilitates the transparency of these procedures.

g) Conflict of interest: Editors, authors and reviewers must disclose any conflict of interest that could affect their ability to objectively present or review a manuscript. Conflicts of interest include financial, family, personal, political, or religious interests.

h) Corrections: When errors are detected in an article published in RIVAR, which affect the interpretation of the results, it will be the duty of readers, authors, and editors to notify the RIVAR Editorial Board by means of a Letter to the Editor. The Editorial Board will have the obligation to verify the information and contrast it with the author and the corresponding evidence. Should the veracity of the complaint be confirmed, the corrections will be published. If the errors detected are relevant enough to invalidate the work, the possibility of retracting the published manuscript will be considered.

i) Retraction of a manuscript: Retraction of an article is one of the most serious sanctions that RIVAR Editorial Board can take in relation to an article published in the journal. This extreme measure is taken when the reported errors can affect the interpretation of the data. This measure becomes more serious when the information presented in the work is fraudulent or falsified, when the data is fictitious, when the study cannot be reproduced, or in cases of serious ethical misconduct.

j) Withdrawal of a manuscript: The removal, suppression or concealment of an article is only allowed when there is a case that involves legal infractions, defamation, or other limitations of a legal nature, as well as when there is false or inaccurate data. In such cases, a withdrawal statement shall be published. Another case of withdrawal occurs when there have been demonstrated ethical faults, but the article has not been published yet, in this case, only the authors are notified of the withdrawal of their manuscript from the review processes.

10. Copyright and intellectual property

The author must sign a document assigning the economic rights to RIVAR and send it together with the submission of her/his manuscript. If the manuscript is not accepted for publication, this assignment is without effect and the manuscript released for publication, if the author so decides, in another publication medium. The author always retains the moral rights without restrictions. Once published in RIVAR, the article can be republished, totally or partially, indicating that it was originally published in RIVAR.

11. Peer Reviewers

Original manuscripts, complete or short, and revisions, are initially evaluated according to the RIVAR criteria, indicated in the Instructions for Authors. After this compliance, the manuscripts are evaluated by two or more reviewers who are chosen according to their expertise on the manuscript subject. The participation of the reviewers is anonymous and ad honorem in all cases. Editorials and Letters to the Editor are evaluated only by an Editor, except in cases where an evaluation by an external reviewer is required.

The reviewers carry out the evaluation objectively, in a constructive and consistent manner, using criticism to contribute to the improvement of the manuscript. Their recommendation could be: (a) publication without modifications; (b) publication, but after corrections and improvements; (c) rejection, duly arguing the reasons. Based on the observations made by the reviewers, the Editor will decide whether to publish the article, reject it or send suggestions to the author.

Reviewers can: (a) Notify the Editor of possible fabrications or manipulations of the results, as well as incursion into misconduct; (b) promptly notify the Editor if substantial parts of the work have already been published or, if known, if they are subject to revision for another publication, to avoid any similarity of the manuscript with other published works.

The reviewers must: (a) Comply with the agreed and requested time for the evaluations; (b) avoid accepting manuscripts that are not within their competence, when they consider that will not be able to do the evaluation in the established time, or when there is a relationship with the authors; (c) respect the manuscript confidentiality and copyright, avoiding commenting or discussing the manuscript content with other people.