ETHICAL POLICIES

Ethics, transparency and good practices for publication

RCI follows strict procedures aimed at ensuring ethical behavior in scientific communication, according to the guidelines of the Code of Conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Editorial decisions should be based on the scientific merit of the manuscripts.

The principles and practices of diversity, equity, inclusivity and accessibility are commitments of the entire RCI editorial team, in accordance with guidelines from the Brazilian Association of Scientific Editors (ABEC).

Editor and Assistant Editors

The editor of RCI, supported by the assistant editors, acts in all decisions regarding the journal and manuscripts, aiming to ensure their quality and compliance with editorial and ethical policies. It guarantees an evaluation based solely on scientific merit, free of personal judgments. Master and execute all stages of the editorial flow (submission, peer review, text editing, layout and publication).

The editors have the function of maintaining and improving the quality of the works submitted to RCI, being responsible for the preliminary analysis of the manuscripts, in relation to their scientific content, originality and compliance with the editorial policies of the journal.

In addition, they are responsible for ensuring the integrity of the double-blind peer review process, ensuring that authors and reviewers submit their manuscripts or opinions without identifying authorship. They are also responsible for the indication/choice of scientific evaluators and the analysis and forwarding of technical opinions/recommendations to the authors.

The choice of evaluators should be based on expertise related to the content of the manuscripts. Preference should be given to professionals who are not from the same institution as the authors, avoiding those who have published together in the last five years.

The manuscripts are accompanied by the editor-in-chief and/or another member of the team throughout the editorial process, who is responsible for the editorial decision.

The organization of publications and editions, the choice of the editorial board and the indexing in databases and directories of scientific journals are other attributions of the editor-in-chief, who works together with the other members of the editorial board, to which he/she goes to legitimize his/her decisions.

The editor-in-chief and the other members of the editorial team must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript, except to the authors, reviewers or other editorial consultants.

Publishers must protect intellectual property.

Manuscripts submitted to and not published in the RCI are archived and may not be used for other purposes without the consent of the authors.

In case of errors found in manuscripts published in the journal, the editors must take the appropriate measures for correction and retraction.

Editorial practice and editors' relationship with authors and reviewers are supported by the Editor's Guide 
of the Committee on Publication Ethics (Cope). 

Editorial Board 

The members of the Editorial Board have an advisory function and may be consulted by the editor-in-chief or assistant editors for decision-making regarding editorial policies, ethics and/or any conflict of interest. They may also be called upon to issue opinions on manuscripts.

The recommendations of the Editorial Board are supported by the ethical guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Brazilian Association of Scientific Editors (ABEC).

Editorial support

The editorial support team is responsible for the analysis of similarity and technical standards, portal management, grammar revisions, layout and editorial design, among other technical support functions.

Responsibility and roles of assessors

In its editorial process, RCI adopts the double-blind review.

The evaluation and the opinion issued by the evaluators must be based on scientific merit, objectivity, impartiality and confidentiality of the information.

Evaluators should reject the review request if there is a conflict of interest of any nature.

Evaluators should certify and inform editors of any irregularity or misconduct in relation to the evaluated manuscript.

RCI will not accept opinions that are not sufficiently justified.

Reviewers must respect the deadlines established for the evaluation.

The recommendations for evaluators and double-blind evaluation follow the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Authors' responsibilities

Authors must agree to RCI's ethical and editorial policies and be responsible for their compliance.

Authors are responsible for the content and originality of the ideas in their manuscripts.

Ethically, it is not permitted for authors to publish the same work simultaneously in more than one journal.

Authors must accept and correct possible errors and/or suggestions proposed by the evaluators.

During the submission process, to ensure transparency, authors need to declare the existence of any conflict of interest, if any.

Sources of financial support and employees should be mentioned in acknowledgments.

Ethical precepts involving humans or animals

If the manuscript involves animals, the authors must submit a statement that all ethical procedures have been complied with, according to Law No. 11.794, of October 8, 2008 and other regulations of the National Council for the Control of Animal Experimentation (Concea).

Research involving human beings must be in accordance with CNS Resolutions 466/2012 and 580/2018, requiring the formal declaration of approval by the Research Ethics Committee (CEP), from the registration in the Brazil Platform. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be preserved.

Retraction and expression of concern

In case of confirmation of misconduct, whether due to error, data production or plagiarism, the journal will issue a retraction notice to correct the record.

RCI uses COPE flowcharts to ascertain facts and determine the actions necessary to resolve cases, in addition to SciELO's "Guide for registration and publication of retraction".

Papers presented at scientific events

RCI does not accept papers presented in full at scientific events.

Abstracts and expanded abstracts presented in preliminary versions are accepted, provided that they have been reformulated and contain unpublished content. Authors must inform the event in which part of the result of the article was presented.

Conflict of Interest Policy

Conflict of interest is configured when authors, reviewers or editors have interests that may influence the preparation or evaluation of manuscripts. The conflict of interest may be of a personal, commercial, political, academic and/or financial nature. In this respect, it should be noted that:

- During the manuscript submission process, authors must declare the existence of any conflict of interest in the “comments to the editor” field.

- Editors are responsible for verifying and resolving personal and institutional involvement between authors and reviewers.

- It is the responsibility of authors and reviewers to contact the editor-in-chief in the event of a possible undeclared conflict of interest and/or that may impair the reliability of the editorial process.

Peer Review

RCI adopts, in its editorial process, the anonymous double-blind peer review.

The original manuscripts are pre-assessed by the editors for originality, contribution to the area of knowledge, structuring and alignment with editorial and ethical policies. In case of rejection, the authors are notified, and the manuscript is archived.

Upon obtaining a positive evaluation, the paper is sent to at least two external reviewers, who must carefully analyze it and prepare an opinion, which will be sent to the editors, together with the recommendation to accept the manuscript, request modifications or reject the submission.

If there is a need for adjustments, the editors forward the manuscript, accompanied by the opinions, to the authors. They will have a deadline to forward the reformulated work, along with comments on the changes made and/or justifications for not complying with the suggestions.

After analysis by the editors, the manuscript may: be accepted for publication; be accepted for publication, provided that additional adjustments are made; or be rejected. In the first case, the manuscript will be reviewed and sent for text editing, revision of standards, layout and, finally, publication. If the manuscript does not meet the criteria to be accepted, the author will receive a notification with the justification for the refusal, and the article will be archived.

Similarity analysis

RCI considers plagiarism an unacceptable behavior. Thus, it is important to note that:

- Editors may decide to reject a manuscript at any stage of the editorial flow, if this conduct is evidenced.

- The RCI technical team uses the “iThenticate” software to examine the presence of similar content (plagiarism) in all submissions, at any stage of the editorial flow.

- If plagiarism is detected, the editors reserve the right to reject the manuscript(s), and the authors are notified, with the justification of the editorial decision.

- It is suggested that all references to other works be duly cited.

Privacy Statement

The names and addresses informed to RCI will be used exclusively for the services provided by the publication, not being made available for other purposes or to third parties (in accordance with articles 3 and 23 of Law No. 13.709, of August 14, 2018, “General Data Protection Law”).