Ethical principles

RIVAR'S ETHICAL STANDARDS AND DECLARATION OF MALPRACTICE

RIVAR ensures that editors, reviewers and authors strictly follow international ethical standards during the review and publication process. We declare that our procedures follow the recommendations published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The manuscripts received by RIVAR will be subjected to a plagiarism verification process (through the Turnitin platform), double-blind peer review, falsification control of the data used (obtained data, tables, graphs, images) and respect and guarantee of secrecy to the individuals used in the research, rejecting in this sense, manuscripts where there is evidence of improper use of animals, including man, in the research. Each manuscript submitted 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 contributed significantly to the manuscript, without omission of any author. The order of the authors is placed according to their participation in the study, from most to least collaboration.

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

CITATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY: all the information included in the manuscript from previous studies has been cited and referenced correctly and according to RIVAR's Instructions for Authors.

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

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF PUBLICATION: authors must have read the recommendations of the Ethics Committee in the Publications COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and declare that these principles are complied with. Any work that does not comply with these recommendations and that is found to be malpractice will be deleted or retracted, depending on the state in which the manuscript is at the time of detecting ethical lapses. If the manuscript does not meet the indicated criteria, any author of the same can notify RIVAR to withdraw the publication.

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF RIVAR

1. Mandatory institutional authorization

Approval of the Ethics Committee of the sponsoring institution is required for articles that belong to any of the following modalities: (a) Research conducted on human subjects or (b) Research that directly uses human biological material or human data susceptible to identification.

2. Informed Consent

In the investigations carried out with human beings (including experiments and interviews) the authors must have the Informed Consent signed by the interviewees and participants (patients) of the study. In case the editor or any reviewer requests it, the author must provide it.

3. Incentives for participation in the study

Researchers should make the necessary efforts to avoid offering excessive or inappropriate incentives to people involved in their research. However, financial incentives can be made to participants for the time spent, depending on the case.

4. Deception in the investigation

Researchers should avoid all types of techniques or misleading information in order to deliberately mislead the participants.

5.Closure of investigation

Once the study is completed, the researcher must offer the participant the results and conclusions of the study, taking the necessary measures to avoid misunderstandings.

6. Ethical principles

1. Culture and heritage: researchers have to maintain, at all times, the utmost respect for objects that have cultural significance and are part of a country's heritage. If the publication of images of these objects is prohibited within that country, this rule must be strictly respected by researchers. In such a case, manuscripts approved for publication in RIVAR should not include images of objects that have a cultural significance or are part of a country's heritage. On the contrary, in those countries where the visibility of heritage is supported and promoted, such images may be published.
2. Animal research: Animal experiments are carried out basically in three fields: teaching, industry and research. The use of animals in research is a privilege that must be carefully reserved in order to ensure the relief of humans (and animals) from disease and pain; ignoring the suffering of one and the other would be irresponsible and unethical. Anyone who uses laboratory animals in their research must keep one premise: respect for life, for the pain or suffering to which they may be subjected in the corresponding studies. Animal research should consider respecting the 4Rs (Replacement: to seek as far as possible alternative methods to the involvement of animals; Reduction: to try to reduce the number of animals to be used; Refinement: to establish means that seeks the integral welfare of animals, and Recycling: 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 in the case requested.

7. Report of the results of the investigations

Researchers may not, for any reason, invent data or falsify figures. This type of conduct is considered a serious breach of professional practice and represents a reprehensible practice and contrary to all intellectual and academic ethics. In addition, if a report is published based on manipulated data, a flagrant act of falsification of a public document is incurred. If errors are discovered, they should be corrected publicly.

8. Integrity of the research

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

1. Misconduct: it is understood as such the actions or omissions related to devising, organizing, carrying out, evaluating or requesting research projects that, deliberately or carelessly, distort the results of the research, provide misleading information about the personal contribution or violate other norms of the professional task of researchers. If misconduct is suspected, an investigation will be conducted in this regard.
2. Reports of irregularities: all members of RIVAR's editorial staff can receive reports of irregularities in the investigation that have been observed and reported by identified people or anonymously. When these complaints are accompanied by the respective evidence, the subsequent investigation will be opened.
3. Correct use of images: it is recommended that the articles present the results through an optimal mixture of text, tables, images and graphics to facilitate the understanding of the information. But the inappropriate manipulation of images is not acceptable, because it induces to generate equivocal interpretations. RIVAR does not accept manufacturing practices, falsification or manipulation of images.
4. Plagiarism: Plagiarism is a practice at odds with professional ethics and is not accepted in any way in the scientific community. RIVAR has the Turnitin platform, provided by the University of Santiago de Chile, to verify possible plagiarisms. When an author submits to a plagiarized text, he or she 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, special attention should be paid to the final edition of the article, considering the citation regulations requested by RIVAR.
5. Data redundancy: researchers should not publish previously published data as original. Likewise, authors may not submit a manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously. If the RIVAR Editorial Board notices such a situation, the manuscript will be retracted. Translations of already published manuscripts should not be submitted as original article. If it is an article of high interest, it can be published as a translation, with due clarification.

9. Editorial rules and processes

1. 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 the authors of a scientific article must contribute significantly to the development of the research.
2. Authorship disputes: if the Editorial Board suspects or receives complaints of authorship problems, it will ask the author or author for the background of the case to make a decision.
3. Financing: the sources of financing must be mentioned, indicating

   - project title

   - responsible entity

   - duration (beginning and end year)

   - corresponding code.

   - city and country.

4. Peer review: the 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 Editors-in-Chief 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 in the subject of the manuscript.
5. Publication times: From the moment 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 between two and four months. If the article is accepted with modifications, the deadline can be extended from two to four more months, considering the time required by the author to prepare the final version and the Editorial Board to review it again.
6. Rules for articles of the editorial board: the Editorial Board (Director, Editorial Board, Editors-in-Chief and Section Editors) are not involved in any decision about the 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. Also, to further strengthen this criterion, as of March 2021, the editorial procedure management system has been adopted through the OJS platform, which facilitates the transparency of these procedures.
7. Conflict of Interest: Editors, authors and reviewers must disclose any conflict of interest that could affect their ability to submit or review a manuscript objectively. Conflicts of interest include financial, family, personal, political or religious interests.
8. Corrections: when errors are detected in an article published in RIVAR, affecting the interpretation of the results, it will be the duty of readers, authors and editors to notify the RIVAR editorial board through 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. If the veracity of the complaint is confirmed, the corrections will be published. If the detected errors have sufficient relevance to invalidate the work, the possibility of retracting the published manuscript will be considered.
9. Retraction of a manuscript: the retraction of an article is one of the most serious sanctions that the RIVAR Editorial Board can take in relation to an article published in the journal. This extreme measure is reached when the reported errors may 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 are fictitious; when the study cannot be reproduced, or in cases of serious ethical lapses.
10. Withdrawal of a manuscript: the deletion, suppression or concealment of an article is only allowed when there is a case involving legal violations, defamation or other legal limitations, as well as when there are false or inaccurate data. In such cases, a withdrawal statement will be published. Another particular case of withdrawal occurs when proven ethical lapses have been committed but the article has not yet been published; 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 granting the patrimonial rights to RIVAR and send it along with the submission of her manuscript. If the manuscript is not accepted for publication, this assignment is null and void and the manuscript is released for publication, if the author so decides, in another publication medium. Moral rights always remain with the author, 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

The original manuscripts, complete or short, and revisions, are initially evaluated according to the RIVAR criteria, indicated in the Instructions for Authors. The manuscripts are evaluated by two or more reviewers, chosen according to their expertise in the subject. The participation of the reviewers in all cases is anonymous and ad honorem. 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 examination of articles in an objective way, with constructive and consistent criticism that contributes to the improvement of the manuscript. Your recommendation could be: (a) publication without modifications; (b) publication, but after certain corrections and improvements, or (c) rejection, duly arguing the reasons. Based on the observations made by the reviewers, the editor will decide the publication of the article, its rejection or the sending of suggestions to the author.

The reviewers may: (a) notify the editor about the existence of possible falsifications or manipulations of results, as well as the incursion into malpractice; (b) warn the editor in a timely manner if substantial parts of the work have already been published or, if they have the knowledge, if they are submitted for review for another publication, in order to avoid any similarity of the manuscript with other published works.

The reviewers must: (a) comply with the agreed and requested times for the revisions; (b) not accept manuscripts that were not of their competence, when they consider that they will not be able to make the revision in the established time or when there is some link with the authors, and (c) respect the confidentiality of the manuscript and the authorship right.