Publication criteria

Photo: Pixabay | Translated by Zaira Pellegrini | Last updated: 26/01/2022

Original and unpublished
Duplicate submission
Articles derived from a larger study
Authorship
Policy regarding plagarism, self-plagarism, duplication and segmentation
International recommendations

Original and unpublished

Salud Colectiva only accepts original and unpublished works that have not been published in any print or online media, that have not been simultaneously sent to another publication, and that are not going through an evaluation process in another publication at the time of submission. As of 2019, Salud Colectiva accepts works previously deposited on preprint platforms SocArXiv, bioRxiv, arXiv, PsyArXiv or SciELO Preprints.

Works that fail to satisfy these requirements may be rejected at any stage in the evaluation process, even once they have been accepted and approved for publication.

Definition of “original work”

Although the term “original” is generally used as a synonym for “unpublished,” or to refer to the novelty of a work, due to its polysemy, it is necessary to differentiate the two terms. To define the concept of original, Salud Colectiva adopts the following definition from the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española: "Dicho de una obra científica, artística, literaria o de cualquier otro género: Que resulta de la inventiva de su autor. [A work of the scientific, artistic, literary genres, or of any other genre, that results from the inventiveness of its author]."

Therefore, if a text fails to meet this condition, it is not a work produced by those who purport to be its authors and could be considered plagiarism, which is a practice clearly denounced by the scientific community. It could also be the result of other unethical practices, such as fraudulent articles containing fabricated information, articles under ghost authors’ names or guest authors’ names who lend their names, or articles virtually created via automated programs for fake article generation.

In all these cases, the term “original” refers to the connection between the author(s) and the work they claim to be their own, and thus it is closely related to the authorship criteria the journal has adopted.

Definition of “unpublished work”

Due to the fact that the term “unpublished” refers to something that has not been published, the greatest difficulty arises in adopting criteria for the definition of “published” work. Traditionally an article was considered published when it was selected for inclusion in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Due to the proliferation of online formats, apart from the inclusion in peer-reviewed journals, the term “publication” presently covers the full spectrum of possibilities provided by the electronic systems of publication (works published full-text in institutional repositories; conference, symposium, or workshop websites; etc).

However, the generalization of preprint platforms has partly modified this scenario. In these platforms, the authors upload their work onto the internet to be discussed by their colleagues and then submit it to a journal to go through a peer review process and gain approval for publication. Therefore, the status of unpublished has returned to its original meaning: works that have not been previously published in a scientific journal.

The principal reasons why Salud Colectiva gives priority to unpublished works are as follows:

Publishing a work that has already been published by other journals is considered duplication.
Publishing only unpublished work is essential to the efficient use of resources in order to avoid the unnecessary duplication of information that may be provided by other journals.

Therefore, when publishing their works, authors should take into account the channels available for doing so and choose the one they consider most appropriate.

Duplicate submission

According to International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), as mentioned in the chapter Overlapping Publications, “duplicate publication of original research is particularly problematic” due to the following reasons:

“the possibility that two or more journals will unknowingly and unnecessarily undertake the work of peer review, edit the same manuscript, and publish the same article.”
"It can result in inadvertent double-counting or inappropriate weighting of the results of a single study, which distorts the available evidence.”

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has published a series of recommendations referring to duplicate submissions that can be consulted here.

In the event that Salud Colectiva detects a possible duplicate submission in the revision process, the journal will follow the steps proposed by COPE in “Suspected redundant publication in a submitted manuscript”

In the event that Salud Colectiva unknowingly publishes an article already published elsewhere, the journal will follow the steps proposed by COPE in “Suspected redundant publication in a published manuscript.”

Articles derived from a larger study

Works derived from a larger research project will not be considered duplicate publications as long as the question the article seeks to answer is different, that is, the aspects considered in the new work were not considered in the previous works derived from the same project.

If there are other works derived from the same research study that have published or are in the review process in other journals, they must be enumerated in the document “Declaration of ethical considerations and conflict of interests” requested in the initial stage of the submission process, in which the differences between the other derived articles and the article being submitted shall be clearly stated.

Authorship

Salud Colectiva adopts the authorship criteria defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors.

Those named as authors shall publicly assume responsibility for the article contents. All collaborators that fail to meet the authorship criteria must appear in the Acknowledgements section.

Research groups should achieve a consensus about “authorship criteria” in accordance with international publication practices before submitting their work to be evaluated by a journal. If any modification is suggested, such modification should again be agreed upon by all members of the group.

Unclear authorship criteria can appear in a number of circumstances and in different stages of the evaluation process, and could lead to a suspension of the review process or even lead to the rejection of the article. The main problems detected include the following:Unclear authorship criteria can be put in to evidence by a number of circumstances and at a number of different times, and could lead to a suspension of the review process or even lead to the rejection of the article. Among the primary problems detected, we can describe the following:

Authors that request to change the order in which names appear without the other authors’ consent.
Authors that include coauthors without notifying them and without their consent.
Authors that discover that their name has been included in an article after the article has been published, without having given their consent.
Authors that discover that their name has not been included in the article and has been withdrawn by the author who was in charge of the post without their consent.
Ghost authors: nonexistent individuals named as authors, or individuals who do not appear as authors although they meet authorship criteria.
Ghost writers: individuals who write an article but whose names are not included in the list of authors. If a professional editor intervenes in the article, their name may or may not be included in the list of authors depending on the authorship criteria agreed upon.
Guest authors: authors that lend their names, although they have not taken part in the research.

Policy regarding plagarism, self-plagarism, duplication and segmentation

As mentioned in the Publication Criteria, Salud Colectiva publishes works that, in addition to being original (that is, they are written by those who claim authorship), are unpublished (they have not been published previously in any another journal).

Crossref's Similarity Check service, based on iThenticate software, is used to verify the condition of originality and to avoid sending out for external review papers in which plagiarism, self-plagiarism or duplication practices are detected. Additionally, Internet search tools are used to track the research team's previous publications in order to detect cases of “salami slicing.”

In order to to explain these requirements and avoid publishing articles that engage in all such practices, Salud Colectiva has implemented the “Declaration of ethical aspects and conflicts of interest.” When authors submit an article, they are asked to make explicit whether they have published other works derived from the same research study and, in the case that they have, to describe the differences and similarities of each with respect to the article submitted to the journal.

As stated in our “report on editorial management 2011-2012,” in 2011, at the time of submission to Salud Colectiva, 16 of the articles rejected in the preevaluation stage had already been published in other online or print academic journals or in full text online at conference or symposium webpages (25.4% of all rejected articles).

After making explicit the journal’s policy both on our website and in direct communication with authors, in 2012 only 5 articles were rejected for failing to meet the condition of being unpublished (6.2% of all rejected articles). This percentage has decreased in recent years in spite of the increasing number of articles submitted.

This decreasing percentage represents an improvement in our communication with authors. We therefore consider that the current definitions of original, unpublished, redundant publication, result segmentation, parallel submission, and similar concepts should be topics of discussion among editors as well as in graduate-level institutions.

International recommendations

As a result of analyzing problems specific to editorial practice in scientific publications, different organizations at an international level have created criteria, guidelines and documents that may be useful to editors and authors, such as:

Editors are responsible for making these practices known, therefore researchers, authors and reviewers should inform themselves on the international recommendations regarding publication ethics in order to avoid making unintentional mistakes due to lack of knowledge.

COPE|Committee on Publication Ethics

01. What to do if you suspect redundant (duplicate) publication
(a) Suspected redundant publication in a submitted manuscript
(b) Suspected redundant publication in a published manuscript

02. What to do if you suspect plagiarism
(a) Suspected plagiarism in a submitted manuscript
(b) Suspected plagiarism in a published manuscript

03. What to do if you suspect fabricated data
(a) Suspected fabricated data in a submitted manuscript
(b) Suspected fabricated data in a published manuscript

04. Changes in authorship
(a) Corresponding author requests addition of extra author before publication
(b) Corresponding author requests removal of author before publication
(c) Request for addition of extra author after publication
(d) Request for removal of author after publication

05. What to do if you suspect ghost, guest or gift authorship

06. How to spot authorship problems

07. What to do if a reviewer suspects undisclosed conflict of interest (CoI) in a submitted manuscript

08. What to do if a reader suspects undisclosed conflict of interest (CoI) in a published article

09. What to do if you suspect an ethical problem with a submitted manuscript

10. What to do if you suspect a reviewer has appropriated an author’s idea or data

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publications
Last updated: December 2021