Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The Editorial Board of the “Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y de Zootecnia” is committed to good practices throughout the editorial process, including the application of international standards regarding ethics and malpractice in scientific publishing. In order to fulfill this purpose, we have adopted the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing recommended by COPE, as well as its Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers as guides in scientific ethics and malpractices in publishing. The Editorial Board encourages authors submitting articles to the journal to avoid any form of scientific misconduct and advises them to consult the article by Wager and Kleinert (2011), entitled Responsible research publication: international standards for authors.

The following is a more detailed description of what is expected from authors, reviewers, and editors, regarding ethics in scientific publishing, applied to the journal:

Editorial Responsibilities

To act without discrimination on grounds of geographical origin, institutional affiliation, political, ethnic, or religious membership of the authors, reviewers, or members of the editorial and scientific committees.
To adopt the best editorial practices with the submitted contents. That includes the designation of the best reviewers possible for each manuscript according to its specific topic.
To work for achieving the best international standards in scientific publishing for the journal. For this purpose, the submission of the published articles to the main world databases is of prime importance.
Additional responsibilities of the Editorial Board are shown later under “Publication ethics”.
The information about the Editorial Board can be found in the Editorial Team section.

Authors

Authorship and Contributorship: Only a person who has made a significant and substantial contribution to the manuscript shall be included as an author. This contribution shall include his/her participation in tasks such as the conception of the experiment and the experimental design, raw data collection, data reduction analysis and interpretation of results, application of the appropriate statistical model, elaboration of the manuscript and bibliographical search. Every author shall be able to explain his direct involvement with the manuscript and be able to defend its contents if the Editorial Board so requires. Including honorary authors (improper author contribution) is considered unethical and unacceptable. The journal shall not have the responsibility to solve complaints about authorships with third parties, such responsibility falls directly over the authors that submit the manuscript.
Manuscript submission. Documents submitted for evaluation and possible publication must not have been submitted to other journals previously or simultaneously. Such practices compromise the originality of the manuscript and its publication rights. This is also considered unethical. The authors should adjust the manuscript format and presentation according to the author guidelines of the journal. Otherwise, the manuscript shall be immediately returned. All the authors should apply the citation standard of the journal described in the author guidelines, both in the body of the work, as well as in the list of references.

With the submission, every author declares to be aware of the peer review process to which the manuscript will be submitted; therefore, the authors are committed to making the corrections suggested by the reviewers. Likewise, the authors declare to be aware that the process of evaluation and following edition could take several months and that the Editor and Editorial Board reserve the right to accept or reject any of the contributions submitted based only on technical and/or scientific reasons, that are explained to the authors.

All authors approve the publication of the document in its print and digital versions, including its publication in the different databases in which the journal has been included.

The submission of manuscripts to the journal does not have any cost for the authors and the entire production cost of each number is covered by the journal.

Manuscript integrity. Fabrication or making up results through instrument, materials or research processes manipulation, changing or omitting results or data, plagiarism (the use of results of the author or of other researchers without proper attribution in accordance with citation rules), fragmented submission (submission of fragments as independent articles, also known as "salami science") are all considered unethical practices and are unacceptable.
Ethics Committee Approval: Research involving animals must indicate in the manuscript approval by an Ethics Committee (including the committee name, approval act, and date), and comply with international standards for animal welfare and ethical use.

Peer-review process

The journal operates a double-blind peer review process, in which the identities of both authors and reviewers are concealed throughout the evaluation. Submissions accepted for evaluation will be sent to a minimum of two external reviewers. In the case of lack of consensus among the reviewers, the Editor or Editorial Board decides whether the contribution is accepted or rejected. When articles are accepted for publication, authors must revise them in accordance with the observations of the peer reviewers within the specified timeframe. Observations not taken into consideration shall be appropriately supported and will be evaluated by the corresponding editor. After this process is complete, the Editor and Editorial Board reserve the right to accept or reject the contributions submitted.
Reviewers will only accept manuscripts for review that are within their area of expertise. Their opinions shall be objective and based only on academic and scientific grounds, without any personal consideration, and will attempt to improve the quality of the document. 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 inform the Editorial Board about this.
The reviewer shall alert the editors in case he/she realizes that the manuscript under review has been previously published (partially or completely). This situation will be considered a serious ethical scientific misconduct and will lead to the immediate rejection of the submission.

Publication ethics

The Editors are committed to identify and avoid the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred. It would be considered a serious lack of ethics if the publisher allows the publication of articles in which any situation of misconduct has been identified. For this reason, the Editors will make use of the tools available to identify this kind of situations, including the application of software intended to identify plagiarism in every manuscript received. The Editorial Board will immediately reject any manuscript that has been identified to be engaged in any kind of scientific misconduct, reporting the corresponding evidence to the authors. In any event, the author should be given the opportunity to respond to any allegations.
The Editors of the journal shall ensure that the good editorial practices described in this statement are accomplished. This is an institutional commitment involving not only the journal itself but also the name and prestige of the “Universidad Nacional de Colombia” as publisher.
When needed, the Editors shall publish any corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies.

Copyright and access: Those authors who have publications with this journal, accept the following terms:

Authors will retain their copyright and publication rights and will guarantee the journal the right of first publication of their work, which will be simultaneously subject to the Creative Commons license (CC attribution non commercial no derivatives 4.0 international). Please see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Authors may adopt other non-exclusive license agreements for the distribution of the published version of the study published (eg: deposit it in an institutional telematic archive or publish it in a monographic volume) as long as the initial publication in this journal is indicated.
Authors are allowed and recommended to disseminate their work through the Internet (eg: in institutional telematic files or on their website), which can lead to interesting exchanges and increase the citations of the published work. (See The effect of open access).
Tables and figures that do not indicate the source of the information are considered results of the study that is being published, it means that are prepared by the authors of the manuscript based on the information obtained and processed in the research, case report, etc.
Copying and citation of materials that appear in the Journal are authorized provided that the journal title, author(s) name(s), year of publication, volume, and the article page numbers are cited.
All documents hosted on this website are protected by the license Creative Commons license (CC attribution non commercial no derivatives 4.0 international).
This is an open access journal, whereby the entire content of the journal could be consulted freely in the 'Archives' section.

Publication authorization and editorial agreement: Once the manuscripts have been submitted, the authors confer on the editorial management of the “Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y de Zootecnia” in its printed version (ISSN 0120-2952) and in its online version (ISSN 2357-3813) the authorization for its publication according to the criteria established in the “Publication Agreement form” that all authors must sign.
Privacy Statement and Personal Data Protection Policy: The information and personal data requested during the editorial process will be used exclusively for the purposes of the journal (such as the indexing processes in Publindex de Minciencias- Colombia) and will not be available for any other purpose or other person. Personal data will be treated in accordance with the Data Processing Policy of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. More information on the following link: https://unal.edu.co/tratamiento-de-datos-personales.html
Conflict of Interest: All authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest that could influence the interpretation, evaluation, or publication of the manuscript. Conflicts of interest may be financial, personal, institutional, or academic in nature. Authors are required to include a conflict of interest statement within the manuscript at the time of submission. If no conflicts exist, authors must explicitly state: “The authors declare no conflict of interest.” The existence of a conflict of interest does not necessarily preclude publication; however, full disclosure is required to ensure transparency and integrity in the scientific record.
Complaints and Appeals: The journal has a formal procedure for handling complaints and appeals. Authors may appeal editorial decisions by submitting a justified request to the Editorial Board. Complaints regarding editorial processes, ethical concerns, or reviewer conduct will be handled following COPE guidelines. All cases will be treated confidentially and resolved in a timely manner.
Data Sharing and Reproducibility: Authors are encouraged to make the data supporting the results of their research available in public repositories or as supplementary material. When applicable, manuscripts must include a Data Availability Statement indicating where and how the data can be accessed. Authors should ensure that the data are accurate, complete, and reproducible.
Post-publication Discussion: Readers may submit comments, critiques, or discussions regarding published articles through correspondence to the Editor.