Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Revista CoPaLa. Construyendo Paz Latinoamericana assumes editorial ethics as the guiding principle of its scientific and humanistic activity. The journal is committed to publishing original, rigorous and relevant works for the fields of social sciences, education, peace studies, human rights, interculturality, coexistence, conflict transformation and related areas.

The journal guides its editorial processes by principles of academic integrity, transparency, impartiality, confidentiality, authorial responsibility, peer review, non-commercial open access, respect for copyright, personal data protection, equity, inclusion and non-discrimination.

Revista CoPaLa takes as a reference the good practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE, and promotes ethical conduct among authors, reviewers, editors, members of the editorial bodies and technical team.

---

1. General Principles

The editorial decisions of Revista CoPaLa are based on the academic merit of the manuscripts, their thematic relevance, originality, theoretical soundness, methodological coherence, argumentative clarity, contribution to the field of knowledge and adherence to the journal’s editorial guidelines.

Editorial decisions will not be determined by nationality, gender, age, institutional affiliation, ethnic origin, social condition, religion, political orientation, disability, sexual orientation, theoretical perspective or any other circumstance unrelated to the academic quality of the manuscript.

The journal promotes accessibility, diversity, equity and inclusion in its editorial processes, as well as respect for the dignity of persons and communities involved in scientific and humanistic research.

2. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors must submit original, unpublished manuscripts that are not simultaneously submitted to another journal, book, editorial repository or academic publication outlet.

By submitting a manuscript, authors declare that the work complies with the publication guidelines of Revista CoPaLa, that the sources used have been correctly cited and that the data, arguments, results, interpretations and conclusions are the responsibility of those who sign the text.

Authors must avoid any form of plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, manipulation of results, alteration of citations, use of nonexistent references, appropriation of others’ ideas, improper authorship, honorary authorship, ghost authorship or omission of persons who have made substantive intellectual contributions.

When the manuscript derives from research involving people, communities, institutions, social groups or sensitive information, authors must observe principles of informed consent, confidentiality, anonymity, personal data protection, respect for human dignity, non-discrimination and care for the integrity of participating persons.

When applicable, authors must declare whether the research was reviewed or approved by an ethics committee, academic council, institutional authority or equivalent body.

3. Authorship and Contributions

Authorship must be limited to those who have made substantive intellectual contributions to the design, development, analysis, interpretation, writing or academic review of the manuscript.

All persons included as authors must have approved the final version submitted to the journal and assume responsibility for the integrity of the work. Contributions of technical support, information collection, administrative assistance, style correction or minor collaboration may be acknowledged in an acknowledgments section, provided that the persons mentioned have given their consent.

Authors are responsible for agreeing on the order of authorship before submitting the manuscript. The journal may request clarifications when there are indications of conflict, improper authorship or omission of relevant contributions.

4. Originality, Plagiarism and Malpractice

Revista CoPaLa applies textual similarity review mechanisms and editorial analysis to prevent plagiarism, self-plagiarism, redundant publication, citation manipulation, data fabrication or use of nonexistent references.

Plagiarism is understood as the total or partial reproduction of texts, ideas, arguments, data, images, tables, results or materials belonging to other persons without the corresponding citation and reference. Insufficient paraphrasing, the use of external fragments without quotation marks when they are direct quotations and the presentation as one’s own of content produced by third parties are also considered plagiarism.

Self-plagiarism or redundant publication is understood as the substantive reuse of one’s own previously published works without clearly indicating it, without providing a new contribution or without academically justifying the reuse of the material.

Editorial and research malpractice includes, among others, the following:

• Plagiarism or self-plagiarism.
• Duplicate or redundant publication.
• Fabrication, falsification or manipulation of data.
• Manipulation of citations or references.
• Use of nonexistent sources.
• Honorary, ghost or improper authorship.
• Omission of legitimate authorship.
• Undeclared conflict of interest.
• Manipulation of the peer review process.
• Non-transparent use of generative artificial intelligence.
• Simultaneous submission of the manuscript to another publication.
• Failure to comply with ethical principles in research involving people, communities or sensitive information.

When any irregularity is detected before publication, the manuscript may be returned, rejected or withdrawn from the editorial process. When the irregularity is detected after publication, the journal may issue corrections, retractions, editorial notices or exceptionally withdraw the content, in accordance with its corrections and retractions policies.

5. Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence

Revista CoPaLa recognizes that generative artificial intelligence tools may be used as technical support in tasks such as style correction, translation, organization of ideas, preliminary synthesis, grammar review or assistance in structuring academic texts.

When these tools have intervened in the preparation of the manuscript, authors must declare this explicitly, indicating the tool used, the purpose of use, the scope of the intervention and the phase of the work in which it was used.

Generative artificial intelligence tools may not be listed as authors or co-authors, since they cannot assume intellectual, ethical or legal responsibility for the published content.

Authors retain full responsibility for the originality, truthfulness of data, accuracy of citations, existence and relevance of references, argumentative coherence, results, interpretations and conclusions of the manuscript.

The use of generative artificial intelligence to fabricate data, create nonexistent references, alter results, simulate empirical evidence, replace academic analysis or conceal plagiarism will not be accepted.

6. Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers must evaluate assigned manuscripts with objectivity, confidentiality, impartiality, thematic competence, academic respect and sufficient argumentation.

Manuscripts received for evaluation are unpublished and confidential documents. They may not be shared, reproduced, cited, disseminated or used for personal, academic, teaching, institutional or research purposes before publication.

Reviewers must not enter, upload, copy, transcribe or process, totally or partially, manuscripts, tables, images, data, appendices or text fragments into external generative artificial intelligence platforms, automatic translation services, online proofreaders, summarization programs, textual analysis tools or any other system that involves storage, processing, training, reuse or transfer of information outside the editorial environment authorized by the journal.

Reviewers must excuse themselves from evaluating a manuscript when they identify a conflict of interest, lack of thematic competence or inability to carry out the review within the established deadline.

Reviews must be formulated with clear, respectful and constructive arguments, aimed at the academic strengthening of the manuscript and editorial decision-making.

7. Responsibilities of the Editorial Team

The editorial team of Revista CoPaLa is responsible for coordinating the process of reception, initial editorial review, assignment of reviews, communication with authors and reviewers, follow-up of corrections, editorial decision, editing, publication and preservation of contents.

Editorial decisions must be based on academic criteria, specialized reviews, compliance with editorial guidelines, academic integrity and thematic relevance.

The editorial team will preserve the confidentiality of manuscripts under evaluation, the identity of authors and reviewers during the double-blind process, and sensitive information related to editorial processes.

Editors must refrain from intervening in editorial decisions when there is a conflict of interest with the manuscript, its authors, institutions, projects or results.

8. Conflicts of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when personal, academic, institutional, labor-related, financial, professional, political or any other factors may influence, or be perceived as influencing, the objectivity of the manuscript, the review, the editorial decision or the interpretation of the results.

Authors must declare any conflict of interest related to the manuscript. When there is no conflict of interest, they must expressly declare it.

Reviewers and editors must communicate any conflict of interest before participating in the evaluation or editorial decision process.

Failure to disclose a conflict of interest may result in editorial review, rejection of the manuscript, annulment of the review, correction, retraction or subsequent editorial measures.

9. Peer Review and Confidentiality

Manuscripts that comply with the initial editorial review will be submitted to peer review under a double-blind modality. In this process, authors do not know the identity of those who review their works and reviewers do not know the identity of the authors.

The evaluation will be carried out by specialists in the thematic area of the manuscript, based on criteria of relevance, originality, theoretical soundness, methodological coherence, argumentative quality, currency of sources, clarity of results, contribution to the field and adherence to editorial guidelines.

The possible decisions will be: publish without changes, publish with minor modifications, publish with major modifications or do not publish.

In the event of a substantive discrepancy between reviews, the manuscript may be sent to a third academic evaluation. The final editorial decision will correspond to the editorial team, considering the reviews received, the quality of the corrections and the relevance of the manuscript to the journal.

10. Open Access, Free-of-Charge Publication and Copyright

Revista CoPaLa is a non-commercial open access publication. The journal does not charge fees for submission, processing, review, editing, publication or consultation of articles.

Published contents are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, which allows reading, downloading, copying, distributing and sharing the published works, provided that authorship is properly cited, the first publication in Revista CoPaLa is acknowledged, the work is not used for commercial purposes and it is shared under the same license.

Authors retain their moral rights over the work and authorize the journal to carry out the first publication, editing, dissemination, preservation and distribution of the accepted manuscript, in accordance with the corresponding copyright transfer letter.

11. Complaints, Appeals and Attention to Irregularities

Revista CoPaLa will address complaints and appeals related to the editorial process, assessment results, alleged malpractice, conflicts of interest, plagiarism, published errors, editorial conduct or failure to comply with the journal’s policies.

Requests must be submitted in writing to the journal’s official email, with full name, contact information, clear description of the case, arguments and available evidence.

The Editorial Committee will review the request, verify its admissibility and may request additional information, consult external reviewers or refer the matter to the corresponding editorial body.

Appeals against reviews do not imply a commitment to publication and must refer to procedural errors, conflict of interest, lack of impartiality, verifiable omissions or irregularities in the editorial process.

12. Corrections, Retractions and Exceptional Withdrawal

When errors, omissions or irregularities are detected in published content, Revista CoPaLa may issue errata, corrections, retractions or, in exceptional cases, withdraw the published content.

A correction will be published when the error does not compromise the academic integrity of the work. A retraction will be published when there is evidence that the results are not reliable, misconduct is identified, plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, information manipulation, fraudulent authorship, compromised peer review, use of nonexistent references or unethical research.

In case of retraction, the article will be identified as retracted and a statement linked to the affected content will be published, preserving the metadata to guarantee the traceability of the academic record.

13. Final Commitment

Revista CoPaLa. Construyendo Paz Latinoamericana will maintain editorial processes oriented toward scientific and humanistic integrity, transparency, academic responsibility, peer review, non-commercial open access, preservation of knowledge and democratization of academic production.

Authors, reviewers, editors and members of the editorial bodies accept these provisions as part of the ethical commitment that supports the journal’s scientific publication.