Policies regarding ethics and scientific integrity

The Editorial Team of Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science undertakes to comply with the highest ethical standards and good practices in editing and authorship, and subscribes to the principles of COPE: Publication ethics and violations, the  Singapore Statement on Research Integrity, and the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), as expressed below:

a) Policies on authorship and contribution:Authors are considered to be those persons who have made a significant contribution to the investigation, drafting, presentation and adjustment of the manuscript, according to the criteria of the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT). Authors are requested to indicate the contribution or role in the manuscript of each author in the Letter of originality.

The authors must be named in the order previously established between them, giving the following information:

  • Pen name (used to sign all their scientific productions).
  • E-mail address.
  • Academic degrees.
  • Institution to which they are affiliated.
  • ORCID code.

The Journal guarantees protection of the author’s copyright. Consequently, the contributor has the right to be identified as author of each and every work that he or she publishes in Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science. It is understood that the author who submits the manuscript or uploads it to the Journal’s platform assumes the role of corresponding author and will be responsible for contact throughout the whole editorial process.

Transferred rights The author transfers to Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science the rights of reproduction of his/her article once it has been accepted for publication. Consequently, the author authorises Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science to publish, distribute, sell, license, and reproduce the work all over the world and in all media and formats. Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science is authorised to publish the work in graphic, magnetic, electronic and all other known or subsequently developed media, and is free to decide in which media to publish. This authorisation also permits Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science to make derived works in general, such as abridgements, abstracts or translations, for publication, and to distribute the work both in Chile and abroad.

Other transferred rights The author moreover grants the following attributions to Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science: a) Make whatever editorial changes to the article may be necessary to adapt it to the Journal’s publication rules, without modifying its substance, or to the rules established by the bibliographic and indexation databases in which Universidad Católica de Temuco may participate now or in the future; b) Create or modify abstracts or extracts of the article, in Spanish or any other language, and to edit and publish them as described in the preceding letter; c) Determine the typeface, format, class of paper, binding and other physical characteristics of the manuscript, on any physical or electronic or digital supports that exist now or may be developed in future; d) Carry out activities to promote and publicise the manuscript; e) Use the author’s name to promote the manuscript.

b) Policies on plagiarism:Articles submitted to Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science must be original and unpublished, and all the authors must have consented to the submission. Authors are therefore requested to use the submission letter format in which they undertake to comply with these criteria. The journal will not publish articles that have previously been published in another language.

The fragmentation of large works may cause confusion among readers; authors are therefore requested, if their work mentions previous publications, to include the text cited, as it may be detected as plagiarism or fail to comply with the originality criteria established. Likewise, the author must be available to answer any questions by the Editorial Team and the peer reviewers about previously published work on the same subject. All articles received will follow a strict peer review process and be checked by the DOCODE plagiarism detection software. If the article does not comply with the originality criteria specified, it will be declared inadmissible for publication. If plagiarism is detected after the article has been published in the Journal, it will be withdrawn from the volume in which it appears. Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science undertakes to the scientific community that it will generate the necessary retractations or errata to guarantee the transparency of the Journal and due process in the event of any plagiarism being detected or reported. The authors are responsible for the material included in their work such as tables, graphs, photographs, figures, and any other content necessary for publication, and declare that these do not infringe any copyright.

Guarantee of originality The author guarantees the originality of the article, and that he/she enjoys freely the copyright ceded; and that if any text or graphic work or other material belonging to a third party is included in the work, permission has been granted for them to be reproduced in the manuscript. If the manuscript has been prepared jointly with other authors, the author guarantees, by the submission of an express declaration by the co-authors, that he/she is authorised by them to sign the present agreement in representation of the co-authors, and that they authorise the order in which their names appear in the article. The author also guarantees that the article contains no defamatory or illegal statements, does not infringe the rights of third parties, and does not contain material or instructions that might cause harm or injury. When submitting the article to the journal for publication, the author expressly declares that it is not being submitted simultaneously for review by any other journal, under his/her own responsibility.

c) Policy on falsification, data manipulation and plagiarism:

The Editorial Team, including the Editor, the authors and the reviewers, must comply with the international rules of ethics defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), especially those related with the fabrication and falsification of data, in order to avoid cases of:

  1. Fabrication, falsification or omission of data.
  2. Plagiarism.
  3. Redundant, duplicated or fragmented publication.
  4. Omission of references to the sources consulted.
  5. Use of contents without permission or without justification.
  6. Appropriation by one individual of collective authorship.
  7. Changes of authorship.
  8. Unrevealed or undeclared conflicts of interest (COI).
  9. Others which may arise in the process of investigation and publication.

Fabrication of results occurs when the author invents ideas or data.  

Falsification occurs when the results are manipulated by the authors or at their behest.  Omission occurs when the authors deliberately conceal a fact or datum to alter their research results. Plagiarism occurs when an author presents data created by others as his/her own work. The following are cases of plagiarism: copying directly from a text without using inverted commas or citing the source, modifying words in the text, paraphrasing and not acknowledging; self-plagiarism occurs when the author re-uses his/her own previously published material, without indicating the reference of the previous work.  Redundant or duplicated publication refers to when the author copies, in whole, in part or with alterations, his/her own previously published work.

If any malpractice is suspected, the flowcharts drafted by COPE will be followed to determine what action is appropriate.

d) Authors’ obligations:

The Journal condemns plagiarism as unethical and will fight it in all its manifestations.

The author declares under oath that:

  • The article is an own original work;
  • All the permissions required from any other person or entity, necessary for publication of the article, have been or will be provided to Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science by the author, at the author’s expense, before publication;
  • The article is not subject to any existing copyright, in whole or in part;
  • The article is not subject to any other publication agreement or other understanding;
  • Neither the article nor any substantial part thereof has been published previously;
  • The article does not contain any false or defamatory information, invasion of privacy, infraction of any property or property right (including, among others, copyright, publicity rights or trade secret), illegality or prejudice.

Works submitted to the Journal must be unpublished and the result of original investigation. Other persons’ work or ideas must be acknowledged as such through the rules applying to citations or records.

Authorship is limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work. All the authors must have agreed to its submission for publication.

The bibliographic sources used by the author must be identified to allow others to access them.

Works submitted to Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science may not be submitted simultaneously to any other publication. No work that has previously been rejected may be resubmitted.

If the work has received funding from any source, the author must inform the editors of the Journal of this fact at the time of submission. The author must also report any conflict of interest that might call into question the impartiality of the investigation, for example if the work is a report on a legal question funded by a third party.

The author agrees to cooperate with the editorial process and comply with all the deadlines and other requirements established by the editor(s). The editors reserve the right to decide whether and when to publish any article; however, no article will be published without the final approval of the author. All the citations in the published article will comply with the Style Rules of Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science. On request, the author will immediately provide copies of all the materials cited in the article that cannot be traced by the Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science Editorial Team.

e) Scientific Committee’s obligations:

The Journal’s Scientific Committee is responsible for the content published in accordance with the institutional and particular policies of Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science, and must safeguard both the authors’ rights and good editorial practice.

The Editor must inform the Scientific Committee of any kind of plagiarism or other conduct contrary to good practice that may be detected.

It will be made up of professionals with a recognised career in the areas of the Law and Political Science, who will offer their expertise in each of the structural areas of the Journal.

The Committee will be made up of nationally and internationally recognised investigators, either belonging to or external to the University. Composition of the Committee will always be balanced such that both the sections of the Journal are represented.

The work of the Committee members will be recompensed on a fee-paying basis only, and will not generate any kind of employment or contractual relation with Universidad Católica de Temuco.

The functions of the Editorial Team are as follows:

  1. Establish the editorial policy of Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science, in accordance with the editorial policy of Universidad Católica de Temuco.
  2. Maintain the scientific and technical quality of the Journal according to the requirements of the Indexing and Abstracting System (IAS).
  3. Propose appropriate reviewers for the articles submitted.
  4. Safeguard the international rules of ethics applicable to scientific publications.
  5. Safeguard the impartiality and confidentiality of the review process.
  1. f) Reviewers’ obligations:

The reviewers must assess whether the work submitted complies with the requirements of form and substance defined by the Journal. Their assessments must be justified so as to make it clear why they recommend the publication or rejection of the work and any modifications that they suggest.

The reviewer must carry out his/her work confidentially, objectively and respectfully. He/she must inform the Scientific Committee of any conflict of interest that could affect his/her assessment.

In particular, the reviewer must cooperate with the Scientific Committee to prevent plagiarism, and consequently must inform the Committee of any sign of the same detected in the review process.

g) Complaints and appeals:

The Complaints and Appeals process begins with a communication to the Editor of the Journal by e-mail at (derechoycienciapolitica@uct.cl). The Editor acknowledges receipt of the communication, and assesses the merits of the complaint or appeal. The Editor informs the Editorial Team, who have two weeks to announce a decision on the case. The Team may respond by closing the complaint or appeal, or by opening an investigation. The parties will be informed formally of the course taken. If an investigation is opened, the parties will be asked to provide further information and/or a deposition, on which basis a decision will be taken: Case rejected; Insufficient information; Case confirmed. In all cases, the decision will be communicated formally in writing by the Team. If the information leads to confirmation of the complaint or appeal, the decision will be communicated to the parties, and to the institution to which the offender is affiliated. If the nature of the complaint or appeal so warrants, a correction or erratum of the publication in question will be published in a retraction document in the following number.

h) Policies on conflicts of interest:

Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science establishes strict criteria to prevent conflicts of interest arising during the review of articles. It is established that the authors must submit a completely anonymized version of the manuscript, in which it is impossible to identify authors, institutions, persons, or sources of funding. It is further established that the peer reviewers must be persons with experience in investigation and who have authored scientific publications. Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science uses a double-blind review process; this ensures objectivity, as neither the authors nor the reviewers know one another's identity. Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science will ensure that the anonymized communication of comments on and assessments of manuscripts between authors and reviewers complies with the relevant academic criteria. The criteria for establishing the results of the assessment of a manuscript will be established in the Peer Review Process section.

i) Policies on data exchange and reproducibility:

Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science recommends authors to facilitate the exchange and reproducibility of data, so long as this does not imply infringement of previous agreements on confidentiality and on safeguarding the identity of human subjects of the investigation. In any case, they must bear in mind that the data used may be required by editors or reviewers as part of the review process. Authors may associate a dataset to the corresponding article by cross-referencing. It is recommended that the cross-referencing is applied in both directions: from the dataset to the article, and from the article to the dataset. Authors may upload the dataset to the platform of their choice. Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science recommends the use of Mendeley Data.

j) Policies on ethical supervision:

The Editorial Team of Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science will request authors for information on the ethical standards of the investigation, which must follow the principles of the Singapore Statement on Research Integrity. If appropriate, the authors must indicate the ethics procedures applied in their research; at the request of the editors or reviewers they must supply relevant information on the ethics safeguards applied, especially in all investigations that require consent or assent, or permission to make use of databases. The use of photographs in which people appear must be accompanied by the relevant permissions, and must not involve any harm or discredit to the individuals shown.

k) Policy on intellectual property:

All the manuscripts published in Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science are published under the exclusive responsibility of their authors, and do not reflect the opinion of the Editorial Team of Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science. It is the authors’ responsibility to guarantee that the work is unpublished and original. Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science is published under Creative Commons Licence Atribución 4.0 Internacional (CC BY 4.0). This safeguards the rights of authors who cede their property rights in the work to Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science for the purposes of publication. As property of the manuscript is fully reserved to the author, the responsibility arising from any infringement of intellectual or industrial property laws related with the content or authorship of the manuscript remain exclusively with the contributor. Consequently, if for any cause or reason, directly or indirectly, Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science, its Director or Universidad Católica de Temuco are obliged to pay an indemnity arising from the author’s work, Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science, its Director or Universidad Católica de Temuco, may always seek redress against the author for the total amount of the indemnities and costs, plus readjustments and interest as appropriate.

l) Policies and options for discussion and correction:

Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science promotes discussion and debate with respect to the manuscripts that it publishes, therefore answers or Letters to the Editor may be published at the discretion of the Editorial Team. These should be sent to the following e-mail address: derechoycienciapolitica@uct.cl. Corrections post publication or requests to withdraw articles must be addressed to the Editorial Team at the above e-mail address, and will be considered under the terms established in letter c) of this rule.

m) Policy on privacy and use of information:

The names and e-mail addresses submitted to the Journal will be used exclusively for the purposes of the editorial process, including advice of new publications or calls, and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other person or organisation. Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science does not permit any advertising or marketing on its website.

n) Right of withdrawal from publication:

Chilean Journal of Law and Political Science reserves the right to withdraw from publication those articles that, subsequent to publication, prove to contain errors in good faith, or the commission of scientific fraud or malpractice. This decision is based on “Retraction Guidelines” (COPE, 2019). If the error is minor, it may be rectified by an editorial note of correction or an erratum. Authors may also request to withdraw their publication if they discover that their work contains serious errors. In all cases the electronic version will be retained, marked with clear, unequivocal warnings.