Ethics and Best Practices

The RBDC adopts the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the guidelines of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and the scientific best practices of the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), and is anchored in the following rules and procedures:

 

REGARDING AUTHORSHIP

The RBDC adopts the ICMJE recommendations related to authorship, and considers an author to be someone who simultaneously fulfills 4 criteria: (1) made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; (2) drafted the work or reviewed it for important intellectual content; (3) approved the version to be published; and (4) is responsible for all aspects of the work, ensuring that issues related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are properly investigated and resolved.

Authors should use the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) classification to identify what each author did in the context of the work. According to this classification, 14 roles are to be identified: (1) Conceptualization; (2) Data curation; (3) Formal analysis; (4) Funding acquisition; (5) Investigation; (6) Methodology; (7) Project management; (8) Resources; (9) Software; (10) Supervision; (11) Validation; (12) Visualization; (13) Writing – original draft; (14) Writing – revision and editing.

The inclusion or exclusion of authors in published works should only occur in exceptional and justifiable cases, with the consent of all authors of the article. The editor may remove the article from the editorial process if they believe that the inclusion/exclusion request reveals an ethical problem (for example, adding an author who did not contribute to the work; excluding an author who was not aware of the submission of the work; excluding an author who did not contribute to the work).

 

REGARDING PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism involves the unauthorized use of excerpts from previously published texts (short or long, (Identical or similar) as if they were originals of the text in which they are presented, without acknowledging the original author or the original publication. Plagiarism generally involves the use of third-party materials, but it also applies to cases where researchers use parts of their work or the entire previously published work (self-plagiarism or duplicate publication).

RBDC declares its repudiation of plagiarism and uses resources to detect plagiarism before sending the document to reviewers.

If significant plagiarism or self-plagiarism is identified, RBDC will contact the corresponding author to obtain explanations. If there is justification that disproves the plagiarism, the work will proceed to the next phase, the peer review phase. If the justification is not presented or is considered insufficient, the work will be rejected. Identifying plagiarism or self-plagiarism after publication will allow RBDC to remove the publication from the air.

 

REGARDING MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS OR PUBLICATIONS DUPLICATE SUBMISSIONS

Submitting the same work to more than one journal simultaneously (multiple submissions) or submitting work that has already been published and that contains exactly or essentially the same report of results and discussions (duplicate or redundant publication) is considered by RBDC to be unethical behavior on the part of the authors.

It is not considered a duplicate publication if the previous text is an abstract or full text published in another language or in conference proceedings, if the work submitted to RBDC is derived from theses or dissertations, or if the previous work was published on preprint servers.

If multiple submissions are identified, RBDC will contact the corresponding author to verify the withdrawal of submissions from other publications, otherwise RBDC may summarily reject the submission.

If duplicate or redundant publication is identified, RBDC will contact the corresponding author to request explanations. If there is justification for the new publication, the work will proceed to the next phase, the peer review phase. If the justification is not presented or is considered insufficient, the work will be rejected.

The identification of duplicate or redundant publications after publication by RBDC will allow RBDC to request the removal of subsequent publications, as well as remove its redundant publication from the air if its publication was published later.

 

REGARDING THE FABRICATION OR FALSIFICATION OF DATA

Fabrication means inventing data or results and recording or reporting them. Falsification means manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, altering or omitting data or results in such a way that the research is not accurately represented in the work submitted for evaluation.

Data fabrication or falsification is verified by the RBDC at two points: during the evaluation carried out by the reviewers and during the evaluation carried out by the technical and editorial committee.

To ensure this evaluation, the RBDC requests that authors, when possible, make their research data openly available. That is, that authors place their research data in an open research data repository—a database infrastructure that is configured to store and preserve researchers' datasets and make them publicly available for access and use. Such repositories can be consulted using the Registry of Research Data Repositories tool.

When the research did not involve original data or any reanalysis of data, the author should state, for example, "No new data were generated or analyzed in this work." When the research did not use data, "This work does not report data." When the research analyzes data, but all of it is in the text itself, "All the data analyzed are contained in the article itself." Or, in general, "Data sharing does not apply to this text."

If data fabrication or falsification is identified, RBDC will contact the corresponding author to obtain explanations. If there is justification that disproves the fabrication or falsification of data, the work will proceed to the next stages of editing or publication. If the justification is not presented or is considered insufficient, the work will be rejected.

 

REGARDING CITATION MANIPULATION

Citation manipulation occurs when the references used in the work do not "effectively" contribute to the content of the text and are included "only" to increase citations of authors or specific publications.

If citation manipulation is identified, RBDC will contact the corresponding author to request explanations. If justification is provided that disproves the citation manipulation, the work will proceed to the next stages of evaluation, editing, or publication. If no justification is provided or is considered insufficient, the work will be rejected.

 

REGARDING CONFLICT OF INTEREST

A conflict of interest is a confrontation between an individual's private interests and their responsibilities in scientific and publishing activities, in such a way that it may impair their judgment, objectivity, and integrity.

It applies to authors, reviewers, and editors and can arise for various reasons: financial ties, commitments undertaken, personal relationships, political or religious beliefs, institutional affiliation, etc.

RBDC requests that authors, reviewers, and editors disclose any conflicts of interest that may bias their work.
If an undisclosed conflict of interest is identified, RBDC will contact the corresponding author to request explanations. If justification is provided that negates the conflict of interest, the work will proceed to the next stages of evaluation, editing, or publication. If no justification is presented or is considered insufficient, the work will be rejected.

 

REGARDING CONFIDENTIALITY

RBDC editors protect the confidentiality of materials submitted to the journal, as well as the identity of those evaluated and reviewers (since the evaluation carried out by RBDC follows a double-blind system).

Editors and reviewers commit to not sharing information from submitted materials, nor to appropriating ideas from the works for any personal gain.

If any suspicion of a breach of confidentiality is identified, RBDC will open a verification procedure and immediately notify the person involved in the suspected breach, so that they may present prompt justifications. If justification is provided that negates the breach of confidentiality, the verification procedure will be archived. If no justification is presented or is considered insufficient, RBDC will remove the person involved from its roster of editors or reviewers.

 

REGARDING CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS

Editors are responsible for maintaining the integrity of the works they publish, adding any errata, corrections, and retractions as quickly as possible, when necessary.

 

REGARDING RESEARCH INVOLVING HUMAN SUBJECTS

Research involving interaction with human subjects must include – in the manuscript itself – the name of the ethics committee that approved the study (or confirmation that such approval was not necessary), the committee's case number, a detailed technical explanation of the instruments used for the interactive investigation, as well as information on the procedure for obtaining and the content of the consent of the individuals who participated in the study.

Clinical trials must be prospectively registered in publicly accessible databases (following the ICMJE trial registration recommendations); manuscripts must include registration numbers and the link to access the database; reports must follow CONSORT guidelines.

RBDC only publishes research involving people that is aligned with the Declaration of Helsinki and the standards of the National Health Council (CNS).

RBDC will give special attention to the right to privacy of the people involved in this type of research, ensuring that this right is not infringed without prior consent.

 

REGARDING RESEARCH INVOLVING ANIMALS

Research involving animals must have been conducted after obtaining approval from an ethics committee. Research procedures must be carried out in accordance with applicable national or international guidelines. Authors must include a statement in the manuscript providing details of the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and its registration number. When the study received a waiver of the ethical approval requirement, this must be stated along with the name of the ethics committee that granted the waiver and its reasons.