Editorial policies

Open access policy

The RACE is an Open Access journal, which means that all content is freely available at no charge to the user or their institution. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full text of articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without prior permission from the publisher or author. This is in accordance with the BOAI (Budapest Open Access Initiative) definition of open access.

Creative Commons License (CC)

RACE is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0); this means:

You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercially.

Under the following terms:

Attribution — You must give proper credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes have been made. You may do so in any reasonable way, but not in any way that suggests that you or your use is supported by the license.

Digital preservation policy

The RACE uses different methods of digital preservation for all articles, from the unabridged version proposed by the authors to the version published on the OJS platform. For this purpose, the following are available:

1. Storage in the journal's own computer and in the Editor-in-Chief's computer, in folders, both in Word and PDF format.

The files of the works are kept in the journal's mailbox due to the communication with the authors since the first editorial review, the revised version and the version with the author's approval to be published.

3. A copy of the folders of the journal's computer is saved in a removable storage unit and in Google Drive from the Gmail account.

4. Institutional servers are constantly backed up as a backup of the OJS platform.

Self-archiving policy

We allow you to publish a manuscript (pre-print) sent for publication in the journal prior to its evaluation and acceptance. Once the publication of a manuscript has been accepted, we urge the author to electronically disseminate the evaluated and accepted version (post-print) on their personal website or in an institutional repository with the reference to its "acceptance in the journal" indicating the volume and number in which we will publish. When we publish the article, the author must replace the text with the final version available in PDF format on the journal page. There is no embargo period, the author is free to publicly release the PDF file by any means immediately after we publish the article.

Plagiarism policy

The RACE uses the specialized application Turnitin for plagiarism detection. The texts received will be subject to review before sending them for editorial and academic opinion. Articles must be at least 80% original. That is, that at least 80% of the information is original in the field of knowledge, regardless of what is cited and duly referred to.

If we detect or identify a possible plagiarism of a previously published text, the consequences range from a warning if the case is an error or misunderstanding, to the rejection of the article and the complaint before the institutions to which the author or authors belong.

Authorship policy

Number of authors

We prefer collaborations with a maximum of four authors, and only with a larger number, when the complexity of the document justifies the collaboration of more participants. In this case, we will need to verify with relevant documentation that the article is the product of a group research project.

Criteria for being considered an author

The author or co-author of an article is a researcher who has contributed substantially to the conception or design of the study; in acquiring, analyzing, and interpreting data for the manuscript; in writing or critically revising important intellectual content; and in the final approval of the version that will be published.

Those who do not meet these authorship criteria are considered contributors who may have performed technical editing, language editing, proofreading, or statistical analysis. The RACE encourages the recognition and mention of collaborators in the Acknowledgments section.

The RACE categorically rejects honorary authorship (inclusion of authors in the publication of the research, without meeting the author criteria) and ghost authorship (when an author mentioned in the abstract of a conference or other similar event was excluded in the publication of an investigation).

Authorship contribution

The RACE adopts the CRediT Taxonomy (Contributor Roles Taxonomy), which distributes participation roles into 14 typologies with which an author can have recognition in the publication. Authors must complete the authorship contribution in the RACE submission template.

Changes in authorship

Once the work has been sent, it will not be possible to make changes to the order or the number of authors. Therefore, all issues related to authorship must be resolved before submitting the manuscript for the first time. In accordance with COPE guidelines (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines), the editorial team cannot assume responsibility for resolving any disputes over authorship. The authors’ institution must resolve any disagreements between authors.

Changes in the names of the authors

The RACE understands that authors may wish to change their names for many reasons. Following a name change request, the editorial team will require confirmation of the individual's identification. To avoid any distress this process may cause, the RACE is keen to work with investigators to enable them to provide identification on their own terms. Legal or official proof of a name change will be required.

Correction and retraction policy

Correspondence with the authors

If an author requires a change to the article, the editorial team will require confirmation of the individual's identification. Generally, this will be by sending an email to the following address: fondoeditorial@unsm.edu.pe. The RACE Editorial Committee, who will validate whether the changes are pertinent, will evaluate the required changes.

Retraction

Articles may be retracted for several reasons, including:

  • Honest errors reported by the authors (for example, errors due to sample mixing or the use of a scientific tool or equipment that is later found to be defective)
  • Research misconduct (data fabrication)
  • Duplicate or overlapping post
  • Fraudulent use of data
  • Plagiarism
  • Unethical research

For any retracted article, the RACE will clearly state in the retraction notice the reason for the retraction and who is instigating the retraction. The retraction notice will be linked to the retracted article (which generally remains on the site) and the article will be clearly marked as retracted (including the PDF) in all versions.

Generally, an article is retracted only at the request of the authors or by the editor in response to institutional investigation.

The content of a retracted article will only be removed when legal limitations are imposed on the editor, copyright holder, or author(s). For example, if the article is clearly defamatory or infringes on the legal rights of others, or if the article is subject to a court order. In such cases, the bibliographic information of the article will be retained on the site along with information about the circumstances that led to the removal of the content.

In exceptional circumstances, for example, if false or inaccurate data have been published that, if not addressed, pose a serious risk to health, the original incorrect version(s) may be removed, and a corrected version will be published.

Allegations of misconduct

If we are informed of suspected research or publication misconduct, we will follow the guidance and workflows recommended by COPE (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts?classification=277). In the first instance, this will usually involve contacting the person(s) about whom the allegations have been made to request an explanation. It is also possible for the editorial team to contact the research institution of the involved party, an ethics committee or others.

If you suspect possible misconduct in an article published in the RACE, please contact our editorial team at (fondoeditorial@unsm.edu.pe). A member of the team will contact you within a maximum of 7 days to confirm the details you have provided and ask any additional questions necessary for us to investigate. Please note that it may not be possible to keep you updated throughout the process; however, we will do our best to inform you of the result when applicable.

Appeals and complaints

The RACE follows COPE guidelines (http://publicationethics.org/appeals) regarding complaints and appeals. If you wish to appeal an editorial decision or file a complaint, you must contact the editorial team (fondoeditorial@unsm.edu.pe).

Financial disclosure and conflict of interest policy

Authors must communicate any commercial ties, material or financial aid received during the research, at the time of writing the article or its publication, or any potential financial interest in relation to the topic of their article that could give rise to a conflict of interests.

If there is no source of funding, the writing must include the section that states: “The authors did not receive any sponsorship to carry out this study-article.” Authors who do not have any conflict of interest related to the subject of the work must also declare: “There is no any type of conflict of interest related to the subject of the work.” This information will be announced at the end of each collaboration, in a visible place.

In the event that there are Conflicts of Interest, the authors of the article must declare it in the corresponding section (Conflicts of Interest), and attach the declaration of Conflicts of Interest according to the model proposed by the ICMJE (https://www.icmje.org/downloads/coi_disclosure.docx). The information in the declaration must match that of the submitted manuscript..

Research policy on humans and animals

All articles involving human participation must have been conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the World Medical Association and the principles established in the Declaration of Helsinki.

In the case of studies involving animal experimentation or clinical trials (patients, patient material or medical data), we will require the approval of an Ethics Committee at the national, regional or institutional level with responsibility for animal/human research. If they have not received ethical approval, the authors must explain the reason, including an explanation of the study's adherence to the criteria proposed in the Declaration of Helsinki. In addition, they must include a statement that the experiments have been carried out with the prior informed consent of each of the participants.

Both the committee's authorization and the consents will be mentioned in the 'Methods' section of the document.

Research data deposit policy

The RACE recommends that authors deposit the data obtained from the research carried out for the preparation of their article in repositories of recognized prestige, both specific to the discipline and general. The objective of this policy is to promote scientific development and guarantee that research can be validated, replicated, and analyzed for other studies. To achieve this, it is necessary that all the data used is available and without access restrictions.

The repository chosen must be a FAIR repository (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and open access. There are various repositories designed to preserve and disseminate specific data such as results of surveys, observations, interviews, simulations, automatically collected data, samples, models, among others. You can consult the re3data research data repository registry, taking into account that each repository has its own deposit rules.

Note in the article

In the article, the authors must mention that they have deposited the data in a repository, providing a description of the type of data, the name and URL of the repository, the identifying code and the data on the use and distribution license. This information must appear at the end of the article, before the bibliographic references, under the heading 'Availability of deposited data'.

Policy on the use of Large Language Models (LLM)

The RACE does not prohibit the use of large language models (LLM), such as Chat GPT; and, it is aligned with the recommendations proposed by WAME in this regard (WAME Recommendations on ChatGPT and Chatbots in Relation to Scholarly Publications; https://wame.org/page3.php?id=106).

It must be taken into account that LLMs do not meet the authorship criteria proposed by the ICMJE; and, if the authors use any LLM tool, they must declare it in the methods.

Finally, it must be taken into account that the use of LLM does not exempt the author from responsibility for the veracity of the content.

Advertising policy

The RACE is funded solely by the Research Institute of the National University of San Martín. Since it does not receive support from public or private companies, the web portal and online versions of the journal are kept free of advertising unrelated to the investigative work.