Ethics and Good Practices Policy

Revista de Teología adheres to the Core Practices of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and is committed to addressing all suspected malpractices and following fair and transparent procedures to maintain the confidence of the academic community in the integrity of the publication.

Definition of Malpractice

Malpractices by authors include, but are not limited to:

Plagiarism: presenting the work of others as one's own without proper accreditation.

Falsification: manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes to obtain desired results.

Fabrication: inventing data or results and recording them as if they were real.

Redundant publication: submitting or publishing the same manuscript in more than one journal without notifying the editors.

Manipulation of authorship: including authors who have not contributed significantly to the work or excluding those who have.

Failure to declare conflicts of interest: failure to disclose conflicts of interest that may influence the results or interpretation of the research.

Lack of ethical approval: conducting research involving human or animal subjects without proper ethical approval.

Procedures for identifying and handling malpractice

Anti-plagiarism tools: all manuscripts submitted to Revista Teología will be reviewed using Turnitin Similarity software. 

Peer review: peer reviewers and editors are trained to recognize indications of malpractice.

Receipt of complaints: authors, readers, reviewers or members of the editorial board may alert the journal in case they suspect or have indications of malpractice in articles under review or already published. Complaints should be sent to the editor of the journal.

If a complaint of malpractice is suspected or received, the following procedure should be followed:

Initial assessment: the journal editor will conduct a preliminary review to assess the validity of the concerns raised.

Notification to authors: authors will be notified of the suspicion and will be given the opportunity to provide an explanation.

Ethics committee: if the explanation is not satisfactory, the case will be referred to an independent ethics committee for further investigation.

Corrective Actions

Revista Teología will take the following actions in case it is proven that an author or group of authors incurred in bad practices:

Manuscript rejection: if malpractices are confirmed prior to publication, the manuscript will be rejected.

Retraction: if malpractice is confirmed after publication, an official retraction of the article will be issued and the authors' institutions will be notified [See Article Retraction Policy].

Expressions of Concern: in cases where a definitive conclusion cannot be reached, an expression of concern will be issued to.

Prohibition of future submissions: authors involved in malpractice will not be allowed to submit future manuscripts to Revista Teología.

Communication and transparency

 Public reporting: decisions to retract an article or issue an expression of concern will be clearly communicated on the journal's website and linked to the original article.

Notification to institutions: in cases of confirmed malpractice, the authors' affiliated institutions will be notified to take appropriate action.

Notifications to the complainants: the complainant will be notified of the final decision on the case regardless of whether it has been published on the journal's website. 

 Notifications to authors: authors will be notified of the final decision and the actions to be taken.