Ethics policies

Ethics Policies

Opuntia Brava adheres to the good practice initiatives of scientific publishing established internationally by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Therefore, the algorithm followed by this Committee guides its conduct regarding ethical issues of all kinds.

Users of the magazine may submit complaints and appeals to the director in the event of conflicts of interest via email to the following addresses: revistaopuntiabrava@gmail.com, miriamvm@ult.edu.cu.

When unethical behavior is identified by any user or a member of the Editorial Board, the Academic Director and their team seek all sufficient information and evidence to initiate an investigation process and proceed according to the complexity of the case. The guiding principle of their procedure is a sense of justice, while the ethical integrity principles of Opuntia Brava are governed by respect for the ethical values of scientific responsibility and honesty throughout the editorial management process. Additionally, they are based on the reliability and declared truthfulness of each scientific investigation by its authors, the transparency in its editorial processing by reviewers and editors, and the guarantee of a successful and ethically sound publication, which includes protecting authors' metadata, respecting the original authorship, and among editors, authors, and reviewers involved in the editorial management.The Director of the Journal, with prior consensus from its Editorial Committee, will respond within no more than 30 days and will maintain communication with the applicants to ensure they are informed.

In accordance, the journal establishes the following commitments or obligations for authors, editors, and reviewers.

Section A: Commitments or obligations for authors

Originality and plagiarism: The authors of manuscripts submitted to the Journal must ensure their originality, based on the fact that they have not been previously published in another editorial medium or process that has made the content of the submission public. Additionally, if parts of previously published articles by the authors themselves or fragments of works by other authors are used, these must be properly cited or referenced to avoid plagiarism. Likewise, the authors must confirm the accuracy of the data provided without altering the empirical data offered to test the hypotheses of their contribution.

Those articles that are limited to presenting a compilation of quotes, lacking argumentation and critical positioning by the authors, and are submitted as original and unpublished work, will be rejected by the Editorial Board.

Multiple and/or repetitive publications: the author must commit to not submitting a manuscript to more than one scientific journal at a time, where the same content of the article or the same results are presented. The simultaneous submission of the same contribution to other scientific journals is considered a bad practice and is ethically regarded as incorrect and reprehensible behavior by the editorial team of Opuntia Brava.

Authorship: the authors will ensure in the manuscript the authorship statement, which consists of specifying the contribution of each author to the proposal. The authors must explicitly acknowledge in their authorship statement the contribution of authors and co-authors in previous publications, in case the article is part of research products, also sponsored by any institution, program, or project.

List of sources: authors will be obliged to correctly indicate, in accordance with the Journal's standards, all sources and contributions of their own or others related to the article, which will be recorded both in the in-text citations and in the references. Authors will not include non-existent data or documents, nor deliberately distorted evidence or information. They will avoid including confidential or classified information within the text of their articles.

Access and retention: if editors deem it appropriate, authors should also have the sources or data that support the research, which may be retained for a reasonable period of time after publication and made accessible.

Conflict of interest and disclosure: it must be evident in the manuscript submitted to the journal, the declaration of conflicts of interest to understand their compliance status in relation to the content of your submission (including research results, data, and evidence provided in the article) and with the submission of the proposal to our journal. This declaration constitutes a mandatory section within the scientific article.

Errors in published articles: authors must immediately inform the Academic Director or journal editor of any inconsistency, error, or inaccuracy that appears in their published article; consequently, they must provide all necessary information to list the appropriate corrections at the bottom of the same article as an erratum.

Responsibility: All authors must accept responsibility for the submitted manuscript based on a thorough and comprehensive review of the scientific literature that is essential for the topic in question. Likewise, the consultation of representative authors from the most current streams of knowledge related to the research must be evident. Furthermore, they must undertake the process of submitting their article to the journal with a strong sense of responsibility, in order to meet the deadlines established by the journal at each stage of its editorial process and respond promptly to any communication sent to them.

Section B: Commitments or Obligations for Reviewers or Referees

Contribution to the Editorial Decision: Peer review is a procedure that assists journal editors in making fair decisions about submitted articles, as well as helping the author to improve the manuscript submitted for publication. In this regard, reviewers undertake the commitment to conduct a critical, honest, constructive, and unbiased scientific review, both of the contributions and evidence supporting the results of the presented research, as well as of the quality of its scientific writing in the area of knowledge and skills related to the reviewer selected accordingly.

Time management: reviewers should consider whether they have the competence or expertise to review and evaluate the assigned article within the timeframe established for submission to the editor before accepting the assigned review, in order to respect the article's processing and delivery deadlines. If they feel unqualified or encounter any difficulties, they should immediately inform the editors so as not to affect the evaluation and publication within the scheduled timeframe.

Conflict of interest and disclosure: every referee must be fair and impartial. The Journal protects reviewers from evaluating articles by authors who have close ties with their reviewers. For these purposes, information obtained during the peer review process must be considered confidential and cannot be used for personal purposes. Reviewers will commit to reviewing a manuscript only if there are no conflicts of interest.

Confidentiality: the journal employs a double-blind peer review process; consequently, each article assigned to reviewers must be considered strictly confidential. This means that manuscripts submitted for evaluation should not be shared with other individuals without the express consent of the editors. Reviewers must refrain from using any information acquired during the review process for personal benefit or to the advantage or disadvantage of third parties. The outcome of the review process can only be communicated through the channels established by the Journal to the editor in charge of publication.

Objectivity: peer review will be conducted objectively. Reviewers will be required to provide solid reasons and arguments to support their assessments. In this way, they will deliver a complete critical report with appropriate references according to the review protocol established by the journal Opuntia Brava, taking into account the indicators and regulations established in this regard. They commit to informing the editors if there are doubts regarding previous publications of the article or if they are aware that it is under review for another publication. For the preservation of their scientific ethics and that of the journal, they must not issue any negative personal judgment about the authors or their contributions.

Text visualization: reviewers undertake the obligation to accurately indicate the bibliographic references of works and authors that must be consulted on the subject, in accordance with the current relevance and novelty of the scientifically supported results by the authors. Likewise, they must inform the editors of any similarity or overlap of the manuscript with other published works.

Responsibility: every referee has the obligation to send the result of their verdict to the editor, where they explain in a precise manner the reasons for their decision, whether in favor or against; taking into account the defined criteria to ensure the scientific quality of the contributions.

Section C: Commitments and Obligations for Publishers

Publication decision: Editors will ensure the selection of reviewers specialized in the subject addressed by the manuscript to be evaluated, under the assumption that they are scientifically prepared to carry out a thorough assessment and, consequently, provide a fair critical appraisal of the submitted article, with the least possible bias. They must select between 2 and 3 reviewers for each manuscript to guarantee greater objectivity and transparency in the review and evaluation process, even if only 2 are used in the case of positive reports. They also assume the responsibility and authority to accept or reject the submitted texts for publication, taking as a reference the full compliance with the journal's editorial and style guidelines.

Honesty: Editors evaluate submitted articles for publication solely based on the scientific merit of the content, without discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, nationality, or political opinions of the authors, among other discriminatory factors. Editors will be impartial, honest, and confidential in their decisions regarding the evaluation of submitted articles, selection of reviewers, disregarding any prejudice of any kind concerning the authors and reviewers.

Confidentiality: editors will commit to not disclosing information related to submitted articles to individuals not involved in the editorial process and to safeguarding the confidentiality of the manuscripts, their authors, and reviewers, in such a way that anonymity preserves the scientific integrity of the entire editorial process.

Conflict of interest and disclosure: editors commit not to use content from articles submitted for publication in their own research without the written consent of the author or authors of the text, once the favorable decision for the authors is communicated.

Respect for timelines: Editors are ultimately responsible for ensuring that time limits for reviews, amendments, and publications of accepted papers are met, in order to ensure a rapid dissemination of their results. They will commit to adhering to publication timelines: a maximum of 30 days for acceptance/rejection from the receipt of the manuscript on the review platform. Up to 45 days for the start of the scientific review process by reviewers. Up to 90 days to receive reviewers' reports. Authors will have up to 30 days to make corrections. Editors will have up to 30 days for the final editing and 30 days for style correction, layout, and publication of the article. Additionally, accepted papers will not remain unpublished in infinite waiting lists beyond the necessary time for their editing in the next issue. The Journal will avoid accumulating papers in the waiting list.

Privacy Policy

The content published in the Opuntia Brava Journal is recorded and protected according to intellectual property protection laws. In this way, the personal data of all its collaborators is safeguarded, regardless of whether their manuscripts are accepted or not. The names and email addresses provided by authors, reviewers, and the Committee will not be shared during the peer review process and will be used exclusively for the necessary exchanges during this process. The authors' data provided will only become public knowledge when the articles are published.

During the review process, manuscripts will not be used for any other purpose and will be made public at the time of their publication. Rejected manuscripts will be archived in the journal's data system historical record and cannot be used for any purpose other than that which motivated their submission.

Anti-plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism, understood as the use of information acquired from other original sources, whether in ideas, quotes, data, or parts of material created by another author used arbitrarily without their consent and without citation, can manifest in various forms (total or partial use of texts, illustrations, computer code, material downloaded from websites, manuscripts or digital media, unpublished or unpublished material).

Opuntia Brava magazine only accepts, processes, and publishes original works resulting from novel and relevant research, scientifically supported by their authors. Therefore, it does not accept plagiarism percentages in manuscripts exceeding 30% (properly justified) and rigorously reviews submissions sent through the OJS platform using professional anti-plagiarism tools, especially Plagiarism Checker and Smallseotools.

All articles received by the journal are reviewed by its Academic Director and the editors, both before and during their evaluation, editing, and layout process prior to publication, using the Turnitin and Smallseotools tools to detect text matches. The Editorial Committee examines each specific case regarding ethical violations and applies the appropriate measures according to the guidelines established in the Code of Conduct and the Best Practices Guidelines for Journal Editors by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In the event of a plagiarism report or detection, the Editorial Committee will form a commission of experts to investigate and determine the violation, and if confirmed, a note will be recorded in the published article and communicated to the institution that supports the work, the employer, sponsor, or the competent authority.

Works that present high plagiarism rates, either in whole or in part, will be immediately rejected, without the right to resubmit the manuscript, as it is considered a bad practice, unacceptable and unworthy, by the Editorial Committee of the journal. Articles with a similarity level above 30% will be rejected. The decision is communicated to the author by attaching a plagiarism report with evidence that justifies it. In the event of any plagiarism complaint from the scientific community regarding unpublished materials, proceedings will follow the flow and ethical rules established by COPE, following the guidelines for correction and retraction after analysis conducted by the Editorial Committee and interaction with the complainant and the authors.

Likewise, duplicate, redundant publications or self-plagiarism of works that reproduce a large part of the content of a previously published manuscript by any of the authors, without self-citing or referencing the original work from which the information is taken, will also be rejected.