Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The present statement of Publication Ethics and Malpractices involves all those who participate in Lilloa: Director, Editorial Committee, author/s, reviewers and production team.

This journal follows the guidelines of good practices suggested by the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics): https://publicationethics.org/files/Spanish%20%281%29.pdf.

Members’ full names, affiliations and contact information are provided in the journal’s website.

 

Lilloa Editorial Board

In Lilloa, the Director, in the first instance and then, the members of the editorial committee are responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published, and which not. The decision to publish is made exclusively on the basis of author’s academic merit and reviewers’ decisions. Peer review helps the editor in making decisions and it may also assist the author in improving the paper. Members of the editorial committee should follow these ethical guidelines, reflecting the current editorial policies of the journal.

 

Ethical guidelines for the Director and Editorial Committee Members

Editors will evaluate the scientific content and merits of the manuscripts based solely on the intellectual rigor of the content regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnicity, citizenship or political philosophy of the authors. Furthermore, they will ensure that the peer review process is fair and impartial by selecting suitable reviewers.

 

Conflicts of Interest and Confidentiality/Non-Disclosure Agreement

Upon receiving the manuscripts to be considered for publication, the members of the editorial team are committed to maintaining confidentiality, as well as not to disclose information on the content of the manuscripts, which will be discussed with the author, reviewers and other editorial members, as appropriate.

Manuscripts that present a conflict of interest will not be accepted, either due to problems resulting from competitive and collaborative relationships, or connections with any of the authors or institutions related to the documents. If this situation arises, the director must declare a conflict of interest.

The director takes ethical misconduct seriously, especially when there are complaints of breach of confidentiality, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, failure to declare interests, inappropriate use of confidential material, or in the event of a delay in peer-review process to achieve a competitive advantage.

The director and the entire team involved in the editorial process guarantee the confidentiality of the data of the authors and reviewers, as well as any information about the manuscripts submitted to Lilloa. The editor will inform and apologize to the authors for the existence of a conflict of interest. To avoid conflicts of interest, funding sources and affiliations of the authors must be taken into account, to select reviewers who do not belong to the same academic and/or scientific affiliations that the authors.

The director and editors should not use unpublished information for his/her own benefit without the authors’ consent or approval.

 

For Authors

• Authorship Criteria: Authorship should be limited to those who participate by making a substantial contribution to the manuscript either in the design, data acquisition, analysis, writing or interpretation of the reported information. All authors agree to be responsible for the content, its accuracy and integrity, even in those parts of the study in which the author has not personally participated. When appropriate, the participation of other people in certain substantive aspects of the research project should be included in the acknowledgements section. The authorship order must be based on the contribution made to the study and the preparation of the manuscript, which cannot be modified without the written consent of all the collaborators. In addition, authors should provide the list of contributors, information about their access to the data, conflicts of interest, including financial interests and relationships, sources of financing and support.

  The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all parts of the work are accurate and that all authors agree to the submission for consideration for publication. He/she is also responsible for sharing the suggestions of reviewers and editors with all authors.

• Originality: the authors must submitted original and unpublished articles, written by those who declare their authorship, and prepared according to the instructions for authors of Lilloa, The submitted articles must not have been published in the same or another language in any printed or electronic medium and must not be found in any other editorial process. It should be noted that it is forbidden to publish the same research in more than one journal, if a situation like that is detected, the director will decide to withdraw the manuscript and its future publication will not be considered. It will not be taken into account the publication of abstracts of congresses or doctoral theses. A research paper should have sufficient details, references and citations to allow the reproducibility of the study. The taxa involved in the study must be deposited in a Herbarium and their data mentioned in the Materials and Methods section.

  The Editorial Committee will check the manuscript with anti-plagiarism software to verify content similarity, the originality of the manuscript, and the presence of serious infringements of intellectual property (inadequate and altered citation, or self-plagiarism).

• Plagiarism: Authors should avoid extensive verbatim copying of others’ works or books, if strictly necessary; it is advisable the use of quotation marks and italics along with the corresponding citation. Self-plagiarism is considered as the use of phrases from works previously published by the same author, which could even constitute a violation of copyright laws. If copyrighted material (texts, images, photographs), or unpublished data belonging to other authors is reproduced, the text must be indicated in the text and the corresponding proof of permission must be sent to the Editorial Committee, before the acceptance of the work, being the sole responsibility of the authors.

• Conflicts of interest and funding: authors are obliged to recognize and indicate conflicts of interest that could be perceived as bias in their work, which must be explicitly stated at the end of the manuscript before publication. Authors should include the financial support obtained in the acknowledgements section.

 

Fundamental errors in works that have already been published: In the event that an author finds any error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is his/her obligation to immediately notify the editor of the journal and cooperate with him/her to publish a retraction or correction (errata).

 

Publication Ethics
Authors should only submit documents if the work was done ethically and responsibly.

 

Ethics for Reviewers

Reviewers collaborate with the editor on editorial decisions and undertake to evaluate the manuscript honestly, objectively, and critically in order to help and/or empower the author to improve the article.

Reviewers should carefully evaluate the intellectual content of the manuscript received, including the research methodology and procedures, taking into account the same ethical and confidentiality recommendations stated in the section "for editors". Reviewers should notify the editor of any conflict of interest, about their difficulty in providing a quick review, and even indicate their lack of suitability or experience to review the manuscript. Reviewers will avoid suggesting citations of their own articles in order to expand citations beyond themselves and their research group. Reviewers should report suspected plagiarism or ethical breach.