Code Of Ethics

Introduction

The Coimbra University Press takes great care and pride in the integrity of its publications. We strive to meet the ends and needs of our editors, authors and readers and to constantly improve our journals. Also, as an academic publisher, we champion open access policies for all our publications.
The aim of this code is to ensure that the various journals published by our Press adhere and respect a set of fundamental rules and guidelines that help guarantee their integrity and quality.
All of our collaborators (authors, peer reviewers, editors, etc.) are strongly encouraged to read and adhere to the following guidelines. In addition, COPE flowcharts and guidelines should also be consulted when necessary or relevant.

 

Editorial and Peer Review processes

As a publisher we do our utmost best to provide the best possible academic content to our readers. In order to do this, we require our journal editors to judge any submissions to their journals according to their relevance, originality and importance.
Besides their academic quality, submissions should also be judged according to ethical parameters, such as making sure that authorship and contributorship is properly attributed, that there are no conflict of interests and any reference to the work of others is properly made.
A critical part of the editorial process — and of the ultimate decision of publishing or not a submission — is the peer review process. In the Coimbra University Press we support the “double-blind” peer review process (the author doesn’t know who the reviewer is and vice-versa). We believe that this method ensures the most impartiality in the review process, decreasing drastically the chances of a conflict of interests or manipulation. That being said we expect that journal editors responsible for overseeing the review process are capable of identifying signs of tampering or ill-intent. For this method to work and to safeguard the privacy of all the participants, any personal information should be handled with the utmost care and confidentiality.
We also recommend that editors and reviewers familiarize themselves with COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

 

Authorship and contributorship

Authorship is defined as the state or fact of being the writer of a book, article, or document, or the creator of a work of art.
If no other criteria is pre-estabilished, authorship can be based on the following:
Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; and
Drafting the work or engaging in critical revising for important intellectual content; and
Final approval of the work, intended for publishing; and
Accountability regarding all aspects of the work, including investigating and resolving any issues that may arise concerning the accuracy and/or integrity of the work, be it in its totality or partially.

Unless previously stated otherwise, the corresponding author acts as the main author and has the authority to act on behalf of the other authors. This individual is primary responsible for any necessary communication with the journal during all phases of the publishing process (submission, peer review, copy editing, production) and should be available to answer/solve any inquiries that may rise during this process.
It is also of vital importance that authors are aware that they should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for which parts of the work and should be confident in the integrity of these parts.
While these four criteria serve as a basis to confer authorship, all contributors to the work that don’t fulfil these (like proofreaders, language editors, advisors, etc...) should still be properly acknowledged, be it individually or as group and their roles specified.

Complaints and appeals

Retractions, Corrections and Expressions of Concern

Academic works are (and should) always be subjected to scrutiny by the academic community. It is not uncommon for a published work to require some sort of correction, particularly when they fall upon established facts. This interchange is healthy for academic advancement and should be encouraged.
In these cases, matters should handled as letters to the editor, either in print or electronically. The editor should be available to respond in a timely manner but also gather evidence to make an informed decision to either accept or reject the proposed correction.
If the author finds that a correction is needed, he should issue a corrigendum. If the journal itself makes an error, it should issue an erratum. In cases where an article is considered to be extensively and irreparably flawed, a retraction should be made.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism can be defined as using someone else’s work as your own without due acknowledgement and constitutes a serious breach of ethics and academic integrity. Any reference to another’s work should be properly referenced.
Plagiarism can occur in many ways, including by quoting or paraphrasing another’s work without proper acknowledgement, copying and pasting from online resources without proper referencing, using someone else’s research and/or concepts on your own work without referencing or outright submitting another’s work as your own or not giving co-authors proper recognition.
Other media are also susceptible to plagiarism. Any images, tables, code, drawings, (to name the most usualy found in academic content) must have their original authors properly identified.
If any sort of submission, in its entirety or partially, is suspected to be plagiarised, it is up to the editor to make the necessary inquiries. In cases of proved plagiarism we reserve the right to reject the submission or retract it if it is already published.

“Self-Plagiarism”

Redundant publication or “Self-Plagiarism” as is more commonly referred to, happens when an author publishes the same work or significant portion of the work more than once. This can happen even if the media or language are not the same
These duplicate publications should only be allowed if it improves the scientific research in any way. Even in these cases, authors should take care to obtain consent from the editors and publisher and to reference the original work.
Like with plagiarism, we expect that any suspect cases of “self-plagiarism” to be reported so that the journal editors can make their due diligences.

Falsification or Fraud

If any submission is proven to include any sort of false or fraudulent content, the author must explain how and/or why that happened. If there is clear ill-intent, the editor should contact the author’s institution’s ethics committee. The submission should also be removed and any future submissions from the author may be refused immediately.

Conflicts of interest / competing interests

The Coimbra University Press does its best to ensure that its journals and/or authors are free of any undue influence. Any person involved in the publication process is required to declare beforehand any potential conflict of interest that could, in any way, compromise the objectivity and/or integrity of the work. Conflicts of interest may vary in nature, ranging from financial, personal, professional, contractual, etc....
It is also encouraged that anyone who suspects a clear undisclosed conflict of interest please inform the appropriate editor

Data sharing and reproducibility

As strong supporters of open access in academia, we encourage all our authors to promote transparency and availability to the data associated with their research. Access to this kind of data allows other researchers to understand, test and reproduce results, giving credence to the original research.
When possible, we also encourage our authors to make their data available in appropriate repositories in order to promote interchange and cooperation between academics.

Ethical oversight

Consent for publication

Our publisher will never publish any content without consent from its authors nor will do so if there are any doubts about the integrity of the work, authorship or any unresolved conflict of interests. Any issues that may come up about this topic should be reported immediately to the appropriate journal editor.

Open access to all

The Coimbra University Press strives to offer academic content for free and accessible to all parts of the world. We believe that knowledge and research should be interchangeable and available to all to boost and promote academic research and to allow developing countries to easily access research content. We also encourage researchers from these countries to submit their research to our journals.

Research with Humans or Animals

Editors should endeavour to ensure that the research they publish was carried out according to the relevant internationally accepted guidelines (e.g. the Declaration of Helsinki for clinical research, the AERA and BERA guidelines for educational research).
Journal editors should seek assurances that all research has been approved by an appropriate body (e.g. research ethics committee, institutional review board) where one exists. However, editors should recognize that such approval does not guarantee that the research is ethical.

Confidentiality

Journals must obey laws on confidentiality in their own jurisdiction. Regardless of local statutes, however, they should always protect the confidentiality of individual information obtained in the course of research or professional interactions.
Any names, addresses, e-mails and other personal information provided will be used exclusively for the purposes of publication. No information is provided to third parties or for any other use other than the one mentioned.
It may be possible to publish individual information without explicit consent if public interest considerations outweigh possible harms, it is impossible to obtain consent and a reasonable individual would be unlikely to object to publication.
In any case, the journals policy about handling personal data should be clearly stated.

Marketing and Communication

In order to promote their academic research, we encourage authors and journals to announce new publications via digital means, like e-mail and through social media, for example. However, caution should be taken that the integrity of the contents, authors, data or any part of the publication and publication process isn’t compromised in any way.

Intellectual property

Journal editors should be alert to intellectual property issues and work with their publisher to handle potential breaches of intellectual property laws and conventions. Intellectual property laws of the local jurisdiction are sovereign.
It should also be noticed that all of our content is published under a Creative Commons licence, more specifically an Open Access CC BY licence.
This licence lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.

Post-publication discussions and corrections

Journal editors should encourage and be willing to consider cogent criticisms of works published in their journal. With this in mind, authors of criticised material should be given the opportunity to respond.
If this criticism or the article itself culminates in some sort of negative result, the article should not be excluded. Instead, there should be either a new version or a reported correction, always maintaining the previous version. Only in severe scientific inaccuracy cases should an article be retracted.
Open discussion and debate are fundamental to advance academic research. We encourage journal editors to promote this possibly through proper scientific forums or e-mail.

Notes

This code is based and inspired on:

COPE’s guidelines - https://publicationethics.org/
ICMJE’s publishing recommendations - http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/
Cambridge University Press’ Publishing Ethics - https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-file-manager/file/5b44807ace5b3fca0954531e/CUP-Research-Publishing-Ethics-Guidelines-2019.pdf
Oxford Academic’s Publication Ethics - https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/authors/preparing_your_manuscript/ethics#research