Code of ethics and editorial policies

To ensure a harmonious relationship between the parties involved and guarantee the quality of the content, Tesla encourages authors, reviewers, and editors to maintain the highest standards of intellectual and scientific integrity. Our code of ethics is based on what is ruled by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Obligations of the publisher:

  • Consult with the Editorial Committee on resolving problems related to the journal's editorial policy.
  • Call the Editorial Committee to ordinary meetings with a minimum frequency of once a month.
  • Provide official proof to the reviewers for each opinion issued.
  • Take care of the validity of the journal's legal records.
  • Ensure that the publishing process complies with copyright regulations.
  • Manage material and human resources with the corresponding institutions for the proper functioning of the journal.

Obligations of the Editorial Committee:

  • Select and assign reviewers of the works received by the journal, based on their experience as researchers on the corresponding topic.
  • Communicate to the authors the results of the evaluation process to which the work received by the journal has been subjected.
  • Keep the identity of the reviewers confidential.
  • Reject those contribution proposals published in other printed or electronic journals and those that constitute total or partial plagiarism.
  • Evaluate the works received before sending them for external opinion and notify the authors of this decision.
  • Resolve conflicts arising in the evaluation and editing process, relying on COPE recommendations.
  • Propose initiatives that improve the journal in its different aspects: quality, visibility, and presentation.
  • Assist in the editing process.

Reviewer Obligations:

  • Declare and explain, if any, a conflict of interest when preparing peer evaluation reports.
  • Under confidentiality terms, treat the text whose review you have been assigned.
  • Maintain the secret of your participation as a reviewer even after the work has been published.
  • Do not transfer your role as a reviewer to other researchers.
  • Issue your verdict according to the assigned text's merits and/or weaknesses, relying on the opinion format at your disposal.
  • Send the results of your evaluation within the period established by the journal.
  • Do not quote or copy the text that has been entrusted to you.

Authors' obligations:

  • Send unpublished collaboration proposals, which are not found in other editorial processes.
  • Follow the publication standards that the journal establishes.
  • Correct, expand, or improve your texts considering the reviewers' observations.
  • Send corrections to your texts within the period requested by the journal.
  • Report the financing received.
  • Report the authorship contribution according to the CrediT Taxonomy.
  • Inform if there is a conflict of interest.
  • Avoid excessive and unfounded self-citation.

The following behaviors are considered unacceptable:

  • Plagiarism is the partial or total reproduction of work other than the researcher who proposes it, whether published or not, without credit to the author. Any text that commits plagiarism will be rejected (The journal has the license to the iThenticate platform to evaluate the similarity of articles).
  • Simultaneous application of the same article for different publications: the identification of this will disqualify the article as a candidate for publication or in the automatic withdrawal of the opinion process, as the case may be.
  • Corruption or manipulation of ruling processes. If a conflict of interest is detected in an opinion, said result will be annulled, and the reviewer involved will be reassigned. After this, it will be assigned to another reviewer.
  • Indication or suggestion in the reviewer's opinion that own publications be considered to enrich or improve some aspect of the reviewed work.

Ethical aspects regarding the scientific research-publication process:

  • Investigations must follow the regulations related to the ethics of instigation of each country and/or region. To do this, the authors must request the relevant authorizations.
  • If images of patients are used, it must be guaranteed that their identity and privacy are protected. In this regard, the journal adheres to the Recommendations for the production, information, editing, and publication of academic works in biomedical journals prepared by the International Committee of Directors of Biomedical Journals (ICMJE), which can be consulted at the following link: https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/translations/spanish2021.pdf

Research on experimental animals and/or humans:

  • Suppose the research is submitted involving experimental animals or people. In that case, the authors must ensure it is aligned with the ethical code proposed in the Declaration of Helsinki (the Spanish version is here).
  • The authors must request informed consent from all study participants and declare it explicitly in the manuscript.
  • In this aspect, the journal follows the recommendations for the production, information, editing, and publication of academic works in biomedical journals prepared by the International Committee of Directors of Biomedical Journals (ICMJE), which can be consulted at the following link: https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/translations/spanish2021.pdf
  • In the case of randomized clinical trials, the authors must have the endorsement of the Clinical Research Ethics Committee (or similar according to the regulations of the country of origin), declare the financing for their execution, and be registered in and endorsed by a public registry of clinical trials (e.g., clinicaltrials.gov).

Conflict of interests:

All authors must disclose any personal or financial relationships with people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work.

In this regard, the journal follows the recommendations for the production, information, editing, and publication of academic works in biomedical journals prepared by the International Committee of Directors of Biomedical Journals (ICMJE), which can be consulted in section II- B-2 in the following link: https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/translations/spanish2021.pdf

If there is no conflict of interest, the authors will declare in the corresponding section: “Conflicts of interest: none.”

If there are conflicts of interest, the authors of the articles must declare it in the corresponding section (Conflicts of interest) and attach the declaration 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.

Funding:

The authors must declare the data of the institution(s) that have provided financial financing for carrying out the research and/or preparing the article. Briefly describe the role that the funders played in the study's design, the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, the writing of the article, or the decision to submit the article for publication. If there was no type of participation, please indicate that as well.

Peer Review Policy:

  • All work will be submitted to specialized and anonymous arbitration before publication.
  • In coordination with the Editorial Committee, the Editor-in-Chief carries out the prior selection of the articles that will be submitted for peer review. They may reject those works that do not meet the minimum publication requirements. They can also suggest improvements to the authors so that they can resubmit their proposal.
  • The arbitration method is double-blind; the reviewers are people outside the publishing entity and the editorial committee. Reviewers are selected according to their expertise in the topic of the article in question.
  • Reviewers can access the full text once they accept the review. The reviewer evaluation model can be found here.

Regarding the review process, we define the following:

  • If two reviewers present criteria that differ, the intervention of a third reviewer will be requested. The latter, without knowing the decisive nature of its opinion, will decide whether the article will be published.
  • An article will be considered “accepted” once the Editor-in-Chief approves the author's corrected version.
  • The Editor-in-Chief, or the member of the Editorial Committee designated to handle the article, may not send more than one work to the same reviewer.

Description of the editorial process:

1 SUBMISSION

  • Responsible: Author(s).
  • Requirement: Comply with the “Author Guidelines”.
  • Answer: The acknowledgment email was automatically generated by OJS.
  • Clarification: The receipt of manuscripts does not imply a commitment to publication.

2 FORMAT REVIEW

  • Responsible: Members of the Editorial Committee.
  • Review: Focus and scope.
  • Compliance with guidelines: Compliance with minimum quality criteria in terms of writing and content.
  • Level of originality: no more than 20% similarity with other texts is accepted, according to the iThenticate report. The similarity found in that 20% must be justified with citations and references.
  • Answer: Through OJS.
  • Initial decision: “Rejected” or “Sent for peer review”
  • Time: up to 7 days

3 PEER REVIEW

  • Responsible: Researchers of recognized prestige, national and international (minimum two for each manuscript).
  • Review: Criteria of relevance, topicality and relevance, quality, clarity of expression and organization, and originality of the information.
  • Recommendation: Through OJS to the Editorial Team. The decision can be: Not publishable, Publication with major revisions, Publication with minor revisions, and Publication without revision.
  • Time: Each reviewer has up to 30 days per round to provide recommendations.

4 EDITORIAL REVIEW PROCESS

  • Responsible: Editor-in-Chief or member of the Editorial Committee
  • Opinion: Not publishable, Publication with revisions, Publication without revision,
  • Evaluation of peer recommendations: Opinion taken by the Editorial Team based on peer evaluations.
  • Answer: Through OJS (Sending the evaluations anonymously and the opinion of the Editorial Committee).
  • Submission of corrections by authors: Manuscript that includes the corrections and changes requested.
  • Sending to peer reviewers (if applicable).
  • Review rounds: A manuscript will be subjected to one or several rounds of review until an opinion is obtained. At this stage, it is ruled as not publishable or publication without review.

5 APC AND SUBMISSION OF THE CORRECTED VERSION:

  • Once the article is accepted, the authors must pay the APC.
  • Time: Each reviewer has up to 30 days per round to provide recommendations. The APC must be paid within 10 days.
  • When minor revisions are recommended, the author has up to 15 days to make the requested corrections.
  • The author has up to 25 days to make the requested corrections when major revisions are recommended.

5 EDITORIAL PROCESS

  • Responsible: Editorial team
  • Tasks: layout, style correction, bibliographic adjustments, layout, generation of PDF and HTML formats, galley proof sent to author(s), and final publication on the website.
  • Time: It will be published up to 10 days after the manuscript's acceptance date.
  • The editorial process times are as follows:
  • 4 to 7 days for the first response from the section editor or move to peer review.
  • 20 to 30 days responses from the editor on the observations of the peer reviewers.
  • 10 to 25 days of corrections on the observations of the peer reviewers (Authors).
  • 5 to 7 days for review of corrections made by the authors.
  • 5 to 10 days after approval/publication of the article on the journal site.
  • The average time is 39 days for acceptance (the time can be reduced if the authors make corrections in less time) and 49 days for publication.
  • Times may vary depending on the number of review rounds. A manuscript will be submitted to one or several rounds of review until a ruling is obtained (not publishable or publication without review). Each round of review, including corrections, can take up to 55 days.

Errata and retractions:

When authors identify errors after publishing an article, they should contact our editorial office. Each case is considered individually. When the errors are related to the metadata of authors, data, tables, figures, or general content, we publish a Correction. The correction exposes the identified error and refers to the original article where the error was.

After an article has been published, if poor editorial practices, plagiarism, data manipulation, or any other aspect that threatens the integrity of the research is identified, we proceed to retract the article. The retraction note explains the reasons and refers to the original article where the problem was identified.

For correction and retraction cases, we proceed following COPE rules. The report of problems related to the correction/retraction must be made to the following email: info@puertomaderoeditorial.com.ar.