Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y de Zootecnia

Author Guidelines

GUIDE FOR AUTHORS AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y de Zootecnia

The Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y de Zootecnia publishes research articles, review and case reports in all areas of veterinary medicine and animal science.

The topic addressed by the journal is included within the four (4) area Agricultural Sciences, (4B) Animal sciences and dairy area , 4B01 Animal sciences and dairy (animal
biotechnology in 4.D), 4B02 Pups and pets, 4C01 Veterinary Sciences, according to the classification of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Publication frequency: 3 issues per year in continuous publication.

For manuscript submission to the editorial committee of the journal it is necessary to comply with the following requirements:

1. Contributions must be original and must not have been published or submitted for consideration in other journals or technical-scientific publications (except when they have been published as thesis or as abstracts in a congress).
2. The authors transfer all publication rights to the journal, in electronic version. Electronic versions include all databases where the journal has been indexed.
3. The article publication must have been approved by all coauthors (if applicable) and by the authorities where the research took place. It is a requirement to fill out and send together with the manuscript the forms: "Author information form" and "Publication agreement form". The corresponding author is responsible for all the information requested by the journal and must ensure that the article has all the necessary institutional approvals.
4. The submission must comply with all requirements described in the "Guide for authors" which can also be downloaded from the journal web site: http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/remevez/index. Submissions that do not comply with these requirements will be returned to the authors without consideration for evaluation.
5. Manuscripts must be submitted through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) Editorial Portal, which serves as the central platform for the comprehensive management of the editorial process of articles. The corresponding author or process manager must enter the complete information for all authors as requested by the application form.
6. After the manuscript is accepted for publication, authors must respond promptly to all comments from the editorial team during the peer review process, style editing, and layout of the manuscript within the deadlines stipulated by the Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y de Zootecnia, as a condition for continuous publication. All inquiries regarding the editorial processing of manuscripts should be directed through the OJS application (the use of the email rev_fmvzbog@unal.edu.co is permitted when there are access issues with the application).
7. Authors should carefully review the list and the order of the authors before submitting their manuscript and before submitting the "Publication agreement form". The addition or deletion of authors will not be accepted except in cases in which an applicable legal or ethical justification is demonstrated and only if approved by the Journal Editor.

TYPES OF CONTRIBUTIONS

The journal accepts the following types of original contributions:

Scientific article: original scientific paper reporting the results of a research conducted under the scientific method. It typically contains the following sections: Abstract, introduction, methodology (materials and methods), results, discussion, conclusions and editorial statements (on research ethics, conflict of interest, funding, acknowledgments, and use of Artificial Intelligence).

Case Report: A report of a clinically relevant case, either because it is the first in its specific context or due to its particular characteristics that make it of interest to the scientific community and therefore publishable. It must contain at least the following sections: Abstract, introduction, description of the case (which involves the discussion) and conclusion or perspectives and editorial statements (on research ethics, conflict of interest, funding, acknowledgments, and the use of Artificial Intelligence). The general format of the text, illustrations and references should follow the same standards required for research articles.

Review article: critical review of a specific topic from an analytical, interpretative and critical perspective of the author, who always uses original sources. For this type of manuscripts, within the list of authors at least one author must have proven research experience in the subject or area that concerns the article. Ideally, a review should present a critical summary of the research carried out so far and propose new topics to be investigated. It must contain at least the following sections: summary, introduction, methodology, development of the topic, conclusions and editorial statements (on conflict of interest, funding, acknowledgments, and the use of Artificial Intelligence).The development of the topic must to contain subsections to present the ideas in order. The text must be correctly cited and must contain the authors opinions, reflections or contributions from authors with expertise on the topic. In addition to undergoing the same rigorous level of academic peer review as research articles, review articles will be critiqued based on the overall impact of the topic being reviewed, the relevance, timeliness, pre-existing reviews of the topic and the recognition of at least one of the authors as a significant figure in the field. The general format of the text, illustrations and references should follow the same standards required for research articles. Peer-reviewed review articles will be published once the layout and style editing processes are completed, keeping in mind that a maximum of two review articles will be published per issue. This implies that the journal will publish maximum six review articles per year.

ARTICLE SUBMISSION

Contributions must be submitted by the journal's platform on the page: https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/remevez/index. The corresponding author must register with a username and password to be able to enter and upload the manuscript files and the information of the rest of the authors. All authors must have an ORCID identifier at the time of entering their data on the platform. This registration has no associated economic value. To create the ORCID you can enter the following link: https://orcid.org/register

Along with the manuscript, the forms of "Author Information form” (one per author) and of "Publication agreement form" must be attached, which must be signed by all authors. The forms can be downloaded at the jorunal home page:

https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/remevez/index

Format

The article text must be submitted in MS-Word®, including tables and figures in their respective places, and a second separate file containing the original high-quality visual tables and figures (minimum resolution of 600 dpi). Pages must be numbered consecutively at the bottom right, with margins of 2.5 cm on each side, double-spaced, in Times New Roman font, size 12 points, and each line of the document must be numbered consecutively (in MS-Word®: Page Layout/Line Numbers/Continuous). Tables and figures (photographs, graphs, drawings, schematics, flowcharts, frequency diagrams, etc.) must be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. In addition to being submitted separately in an MS-Word® file, the original files of the graphic material (e.g., jpg, MS-Excel®, vectors) must also be included, according to the program in which they were created. All tables and figures must be cited in the text and must include their sources where applicable (if created by the authors, state “Source: own elaboration”). 

The text, depending on the type of contribution, must have a maximum of 25 pages for scientific articles, 20 pages for literature reviews, and 14 pages for case reports in letter size, including the bibliography, figures, and tables.

For articles translated into English, the editor reserves the right to require authors to revise the translation or cancel the processing of the manuscript if it contains spelling, punctuation, grammar, terminology, jargon, or semantic errors that may compromise proper understanding or not follow the journal's standards.

Title page with the manuscript title, names, and affiliations of the authors.

The manuscript title must be concise and descriptive, not exceeding a maximum of 17 words, using relevant keywords related to the article's topic.

It must be presented on a separate page from the rest of the manuscript, with the title in Spanish (or Portuguese) and in English (mandatory), in bold and centered. If scientific names are used, they must be written using the binomial system. When applicable, the title should inform the animal species to which the manuscript refers. Below the title, the first and last names of the authors should be written as they are recognized in other publications. The recommendations of IraLis (International Registry of Authors-Links to Identify Scientists) are suggested, without academic titles or job positions, and separating each author with a comma. The corresponding author will be identified with an asterisk. As a footnote, the institutional affiliation of each author must be indicated (University, Faculty, department, research group, or, alternatively, as an independent researcher), including the address, city and country, and the email address of the corresponding author.

Manuscript 

It must contain the manuscript title in Spanish (or Portuguese) and in English (mandatory), in bold and centered, without the names of the authors or affiliations. Additionally, the manuscript must contain the following sections in order:

Abstract and key words

Articles must include an abstract in Spanish (or Portuguese) and one in English, with a maximum of 250 words each. The abstract shall include a brief description of all parts of the article including the objectives, materials and methods (selection of study subjects or laboratory animals, observation methods, and analysis techniques), results and discussion (including specific information or data and their statistical significance whenever possible), and the main conclusions. The most important findings of the study should be highlighted in the abstract.

Key words (up to four) are terms for indexation of the article on databases and Internet search engines. It is recommended that these terms do not repeat words already present in the manuscript title. These should be placed after the abstract in their corresponding language. To select the key words it is recommended to consult the descriptors of the agricultural thesaurus Agrovoc of the Fao which covers terminology related to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, the environment, and related topics. http://www.fao.org/agrovoc/es or the Health Sciences Descriptors. https://decs.bvsalud.org/E/homepagee.htm and  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh. These tools help select appropriate key words so that the article is more visible on the Internet.

Introduction

This section shall present a brief review of previous studies related to the topic of research and shall finish with a brief justification of the study and its objectives. The introduction shall not include data or conclusions of the study being described.

Materials and methods

In this section, the materials (animals, laboratory equipment) used in the development of the work must be described clearly, concisely, and sequentially, in addition to the procedures or protocols followed and the experimental design chosen for the statistical treatment of the data.The information provided here must allow other researchers to reproduce the experiment in detail. This section may include subheadings and must not contain any results or discussion of the findings.

In the materials and methods section, the bioethics approval must be declared, regardless of the type of contribution (Regardless of whether or not animals are used for experimentation in the study), issued by the Ethics Committee for Animal Experimentation, to which the research project must have been submitted prior to its execution. Indicate the name of the ethics committee, date, and approval act number.

Results and discussion

This section shall describe the results in a logical order and in an objective and sequential fashion with the help of tables and figures, which must be cited previously in the text. This section might include subheadings. The discussion shall be a synthesis of the comparison of the observed data against published relevant literature (citing only the main studies conducted on the topic) with an interpretation of the similarities and differences found.  It will focus on the interpretation of the experimental findings and shall not repeat information presented in the introduction or the results sections. The results and discussion must be presented in the same session in an orderly manner, discussing each result after it is presented. 

Conclusions

This section describes the most relevant findings of the research conducted, that is, those that make a significant contribution to the advancement of the specific topic investigated. It shall also point out towards future research needed.

Editorial Statements

In this section, the authors must make the following statements:

• Approval by the Ethics Committee for Animal Experimentation (regardless of whether animals are used for experimentation in the study or not), which the research project must have obtained prior to its execution. Specify the name of the ethics committee, date, and approval record number.
• Conflict of interests. When it can be reasonably perceived that issues outside the investigation affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its evaluation. Authors must declare that they have no relationships of commercial or personal interest within the framework of the research that led to the production of the submitted manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible for the co-authors to review and declare that they have no conflict of interest.
• Funding. The types of support or grant received should be described, such as financing, sponsorships, scholarships or equipment supply, among others. For example: “This work was supported by the Natural Sciences Research Council [project number].
• Declaration of Artificial Intelligence Use: In all cases, regardless of the type of contribution, authors must declare whether or not artificial intelligence (AI) tools were used in the development of the research or manuscript. If AI tools were used, specify the name of the tool, the purpose of its use in the development of the manuscript, and state whether the authors edited the content as necessary and assume full responsibility for the content of the publication.
• Acknowledgements. In this section, acknowledgments are made for significant contributions to the conception or execution of the research: specialists, commercial firms, official or private entities, professional associations, and field and laboratory assistants.

References

The citation of bibliographic references that support statements within the text must adhere to the APA (American Psychological Association) style guidelines, seventh edition. For this purpose, the use of reference management tools such as Mendeley is recommended. The complete bibliographic references are listed at the end of the article in alphabetical order by author. If multiple publications by the same author or authors are cited in the reference list, they should be listed in chronological order from the oldest to the most recent. All references of scientific articles must include the "Digital Object Identifier" (DOI) at the end, if the article has been assigned one by a journal, or ISBN or ISSN in the case of a book or monographic work. It is not advisable to use other sources of information such as theses, dissertations, or conference proceedings. Authors are encouraged to use as reference sources documents available in indexed databases and preferably those with assigned bibliographic identifiers (ISBN, ISSN, DOI, URI).

For more examples on the citation system of the APA (American Psychological Association) style guidelines, seventh edition, we recommend referring to the following link: Guia-Normas-APA-7ma-edicion and using a reference manager such as Mendeley.

Books

Smith, J. B. (2018). Fundamentos de la medicina veterinaria (2da ed.). Editorial VetBooks. ISBN 978-123-456-789-0.

Book chapters

Rodríguez, L. & Martínez, P. (2020). Avances en la nutrición de pequeños animales. En S. Herrera & M. Gómez (Eds.), Nuevas perspectivas en la salud animal (3ra ed., pp. 203-220). Editorial Salud Animal. ISBN 978-123-456-789-0.

E-Book

Martínez, A. F. (2021). Enfermedades infecciosas en animales domésticos [Versión electrónica]. Editorial VetEbooks. https://doi.org/10.1234/abcd

Journal article

Hernández, R., & Gutiérrez, P. (2022). Efectos de la dieta en la salud dental de los felinos domésticos. Revista de Investigación Veterinaria, 33(4), 567-575. https://doi.org/10.5678/dietafelinos2022

Tables

-  The tables must be submitted in the body of the manuscript and in separate files in the original format in which they were created.

-   Too large tables shall be avoided. If there is too much information in a table, it is recommended to split it in two or more.

-   Each table shall have a short but explicative title on the top without abbreviations.

-  Vertical lines should not be used to separate columns; therefore, there must be sufficient space between them.

-  Any essential explanation needed to understand the table must be presented as a note at the bottom of the table.

-  Column headers must be brief but sufficiently explanatory.

-   Each table must be referenced in the text.

-  All tables must indicate the source of the information at the bottom. If no source is declared, it is assumed that they are the result of the work being published.

Figures

-   Figures must be submitted in the body of the manuscript and in separate files in the original format in which they were created.

-   Graphs must be in a single color using black percentages for variations in columns. Curve lines should be black, either dotted or solid, following these conventions: 

-   Photographs or maps (either originals or scanned) must be sent as individual files, in tiff or jpg format and a minimum of 600 dpi of resolution. And additionally, they must be included in their respective place within the manuscript, along with the description.

-   Like tables, they must be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals, and each figure must be referenced in the text.

- Each figure within the manuscript must have a short and explanatory title at the top, without abbreviations.

- All figures must indicate the source of the information at the bottom. If no source is declared, it is assumed that they are the result of the work being published.

Nomenclature

-   Units must be expressed in the International System of Units (SI).

-  The authors shall adhere to Colombian regulations as well as the guidelines set by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria, and the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.

-  All biota (crops, plants, insects, birds, mammals, fish, etc.) must be identified using binomial nomenclature (scientific name), except for common domestic animals.

-   Drugs, biocides and all substances of commercial use shall be named by the active chemical ingredient or generic name.

-   For chemical notation authors must follow the rules of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature.

Supplementary Material
If the authors have additional material relevant to the presentation of the manuscript, it may be published as supplementary material. The material must be submitted in an organized manner, properly referenced, and described in a Word file, as well as in its original format with the quality required by the journal.

STYLE GUIDELINES

•  
• Regarding verb tenses, the common usage is: past tense for the introduction, procedures, and results, and present tense for the discussion.
• In general, it is recommended to avoid the use of the gerund. Use this verb form only to indicate two simultaneous actions; in other cases, rephrase the sentence (replace: "a protocol was established, minimizing the negative effect..." with: "a protocol was established, which minimized the negative effect...").
• Italic letters are used for scientific names (binomial system) and foreign words or expressions.
• The meaning of acronyms and abbreviations must be explained when they are first mentioned in the text. Subsequently, only the acronym or abbreviation should be used.
• Abbreviations do not have a plural form: one NGO, two ELISA.
• SI abbreviations shall not have a period at the end or be written in plural or upper case letters: 1 kg, 25 g, 10 cm, 30 m, etc. Please see: https://bit.ly/3n5W8Qp
• Always insert a space between the numeric value and the symbol: 35 g (not 35g), p > 12 (not p>12); except for the signs %, +, - (these last two when meaning positive and negative). For example: 99%, +45, -37.
• In a series of measurements, the symbol is placed at the end: rows at 3, 6, and 9 m, or 14, 16, and 18%.
• The slash (/) is a linguistic symbol that, in some of its uses, means "per": three dogs/shelter, 4 tablets/day, 2 L/pot, 10 fruits/branch. One of its non-linguistic uses is to express ratios of magnitudes and measurement units: 80 km/h, 10 ml/min, 10°C/h.
• The sign period can be used in a no linguistic context to indicate multiplication. In this case it is used separated and in the middle: 6 · 3 = 18; 2 · (x + y) = 30.
• The period (.) is used to separate thousands, and the comma (,) is used to separate decimals.
• Name-based units must be written in lower case (for example: one siemens), except when they are derived from a proper name: °C, degrees Celsius.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 

Authorship.

An author is considered anyone who has made a direct and substantial contribution to the content of the manuscript.

 Every author shall be able to explain his direct involvement with the manuscript and be able to defend its contents if the Editorial Committee so requires. The inclusion of honorary authors (improper authorship contribution) is considered unethical behavior. Contribution of each author in the manuscript must be declared in the "Personal Information Format for Authors". The addition or deletion of authors will not be accepted except in cases in which an applicable legal or ethical justification is demonstrated and only if approved by the Editor of the journal.

Approval of the bioethics committee.

All research that uses animals in their experimentation, must declare in the materials and methods section, the Ethics Committee for experimentation with animal’s approval (name of the ethics committee, act and date of approval).

Manuscript submission. Documents submitted for evaluation and possible publication must not be submitted to other journal(s) simultaneously. This voids its originality and compromises the publication rights.

Manuscript integrity. Fabrication or making up results through instrument, materials or research processes manipulation, changing or omitting results or data, plagiarism (citation of his/her own or other’s results without clarification according to citation rules), or fragmented publication (submitting parts of a research study as separate independent articles) are unethical and unacceptable behaviors.

Manuscript evaluation. Reviewers will only accept to review manuscripts that are within their area of expertise. Their opinions shall be objective and based only on academic and scientific grounds, without any personal consideration. During the evaluation process the reviewer must keep the contents of the manuscript confidential and shall not assign the reviewing task to any other person (co-researcher, graduate student, etc.). If during the reviewing process the referee finds any conflict of interest or any ethical conflict, he/she shall stop the evaluation process and let the Editorial Committee know about this.

Ethics in the Publication Process. 

The editors reserve the right to withdraw any manuscript they deem does not meet the standards set by the journal, regardless of its stage in the editorial process. Additionally, they are committed to identifying and preventing the publication of articles in which research misconduct has occurred. It would be considered a serious ethical violation if the publisher allows the publication of articles in which research misconduct has been identified. Therefore, editors will use available tools to detect such situations, including plagiarism detection software or software designed to identify similarities with other studies in each submitted manuscript.The Editorial Committee will immediately reject any manuscript identified as involved in any form of scientific misconduct, providing the corresponding evidence to the authors. In any case, the author must have the opportunity to respond to any allegation.

The Editors of the journal will ensure that the good editorial practices described in this statement are followed. This is an institutional commitment that involves not only the journal itself but also the name and prestige of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia as the publisher.

When necessary, the editors will publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies.

PEER REWIEW 

All manuscripts submitted to the journal must comply with the presentation, style and citation standards of the journal described in this document ("Instructions for Authors"). Otherwise, the documents will be returned and the peer review process will be postponed until the authors have made the pertinent correction.

In the first instance, the submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by the journal editor to determine if the manuscript is into the interest area, if so, the assignment and sending to academic peers will be approved through the double-blind modality with at least two evaluators by manuscript; otherwise, an email will be sent to the authors indicating that the article is not accepted to continue with the academic peer review process.

The evaluation by academic peers will try to identify the contributions to the scientific, technological or pedagogical innovation of the proposals, compared to the current state of knowledge in a discipline; the academic reviewers must give a concept of approval, modification or disapproval. In case of a divided concept by the evaluators, the manuscript will be sent to a third expert reviewer in the area to define if the manuscript is accepted or rejected. The Editorial Committee or the editor-in-chief may recommend or deny the publication of the manuscript, or request corrections to its form or content.

The criteria considered during the evaluation will be:

• Compliance with the style rules of the journal
• Relevance of content: the texts should address the issues that are relevant, directly or indirectly, for the understanding of any of the disciplines of health and animal production.
• Originality, novelty, relevance of the topic.
• Scientific quality: Appropriate methodologies must be used to the subject studied, be understandable and possible to reproduce.
• Rigor of argumentation: the works must have a coherent and logical formal thought.
• Methodological coherence: agreement between the problem statement, the objectives, results and interpretations.
• Conceptual clarity: correspondence between scientific or technical terms used in the thematic purpose.

If the articles are accepted for publication, the authors must correct them according to the observations of the peers and / or the editorial committee within the time allotted for it. The observations that are not accepted by the authors must have an appropriate support and sent in a document attached to the corrected manuscript indicating the page and the line number to which it refers, these changes and clarifications will be evaluated by the corresponding editor. The editor and editorial committee reserve the right to reject or accept materials submitted for publication.

The forms to complete the academic review of articles can be downloaded at the following links:

Personal data reviewer format

Research article evaluation format

Review article evaluation format

Case report evaluation format