Ethical Principles

Ethical Principles and Best Practices in Biomedical Research

  1. ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

The Journal Acta Médica Costarricense (AMC) is governed by the principles established in the document "Recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical Journals", published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

The AMC Journal adheres to the biomedical ethical principles set out in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, the Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects and its amendments (World Medical Association), the International Ethical Guidelines for Health-Related Research Involving Human Subjects of the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Research conducted in Costa Rica must comply with the Biomedical Research Regulatory Law (No. 9234) and its regulations, and researchers must be authorized to conduct biomedical research by the National Health Research Council (CONIS).

Conflicts of interest in the articles must be declared in the letter of assignment and, if any, must be detailed in an accompanying document.

  • AMC Use and Reuse Policy

The ideas, procedures, methods of operation, or concepts expressed in the articles are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the point of view of the Editorial Board of the AMC Journal, nor the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica.

Any partial or total reproduction of the contents or images of the publication is authorized, including electronic storage, as long as it is for strictly academic and non-profit purposes, invariably citing the source and giving the authorial and publication credits to the AMC Journal.

In this sense, the authors who publish in AMC Journal can distribute, copy, remix, retouch, read, download, print, search and create from their work, always in a non-commercial way, indicating the credits to the Journal and its authors; likewise, they can share their work under the same conditions. The Creative Common Attribution-NonCommercial - Share-Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license applies.

Authors are encouraged to self-archive the articles they publish in the AMC Journal, both in institutional repositories and in personal web pages, with due reference to the Journal. The deposit of pre-prints in related repositories that allow is also authorized.

  • About the type of access offered by AMC Journal

The AMC Journal has as its policy, the free and open distribution of its contents, through electronic means. It does not impose payment to the authors for the submission of their manuscripts, nor the process of arbitration or publication.

  • Responsibilities of the authors

Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication by the AMC Journal are responsible for their content. Therefore, articles that include people who have not participated in the entire process carried out in the research that gives rise to them will not be accepted, following the four criteria set out in the recommendations of the ICMJE at http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf.

Authors must apply the instructions to authors required by this Journal to their full extent, including the delivery of the documents indicated therein. Those who publish in the AMC Journal should know that the use of data and information from other authors without citing them in the document and without including them in the list of bibliographical references, as well as the falsification of words to assume them as their own, are qualified as plagiarism, so their text will not be taken into account for publication. The Journal will apply software for plagiarism control.

In all cases, the bibliographic sources of the scientific references that contribute to the work presented must be cited and referenced completely and adequately. Also, the authors must cite in the text all the financial sources on which they relied, as well as declare any economic conflict of interest that could influence the final results presented in the manuscript.

  • Responsibilities of the editor

The AMC Journal guarantees that, upon receipt of the manuscripts sent by the authors, each manuscript will first be reviewed to confirm that it complies with the instructions to authors that the Journal makes available; then it will go through a process of evaluation by anonymous, double-blind and confidential peers. If the document received does not comply with the instructions to authors, the case will be referred to the Editorial Board to decide whether to reject it ad portas. 

The editor of the Journal is the person who initiates and coordinates the manuscript evaluation process, and should therefore maintain confidentiality throughout the process. He/she will be responsible for acknowledging receipt of the manuscript and will always be available to communicate with the main author, as well as to communicate the decision of the Editorial Board or any necessary changes to the text. In addition, he/she must inform the Editorial Board of any anomaly detected during the process, to make the appropriate decisions.

Also, the editor of the AMC Journal will ensure that the same people who appear as authors are maintained throughout the review process so that none of these people are removed or changed.

The personal data provided by the authors to the Journal will not be shared or used for any purpose outside the Journal; therefore, the maintenance of the secured data is the responsibility of the editor.

  • Responsibilities of reviewers

The AMC Journal maintains a group of reviewers who, in their field of expertise, dedicate their efforts to ensure the quality of the manuscripts submitted. These people declare, in advance, that they do not maintain any relationship with the editorial team, and warn that they recuse themselves from their participation when there is any interest that causes conflict in their work, either because of the people with whom they are related or because of the information contained in the manuscript. None of these persons will use the manuscripts they review for any purpose other than evaluation; in other words, the review process will be carried out in complete confidentiality.

Those who agree to review a manuscript must commit themselves to strictly comply with the deadline established by the Journal, as well as to notify the editor if they face any limitation to carry out their work objectively, during the time defined for this purpose, in which case, as an exception, an extension of the deadline will be considered. Likewise, they must follow the indications of the Journal and complete the respective guide provided as an attachment to the manuscript.

The reviewer's criticisms must be based on scientifically supported, independent, and impartial arguments, without exception. In case of finding or suspecting fraud of any kind in the manuscript, the reviewer should inform the editor, who will take the matter to the Editorial Board, which will make the corresponding decisions.

  • Plagiarism detection policy

The AMC Journal uses the "Similarity Check" tool to monitor the correct use of the sources referenced and cited in the text of the manuscripts. In this way, the use of original ideas or the citation of the source when these do not belong totally or partially to the authors is guaranteed.

Likewise, any type of fraud, whether it be image modification, data fabrication, copyright infringement of other texts, or misuse of data, is monitored.

If any type of plagiarism or fraud is detected, the Editorial Board will immediately inform the author in writing, and the manuscript will be rejected.

When any type of error, fraud, or plagiarism is discovered in an article already published, it will be retracted but not removed from the Journal. For this purpose, the word "Retracted" will be incorporated as a watermark on each page of the text.

Likewise, if any error is detected, either by the authors or by the editorial team, the correction to that error will be notified in the Journal and will be incorporated in the published version. The original version will be kept separately in a file, always accessible to readers, but will not be deleted.

  1. ON ADVERTISING

The AMC Journal may include advertising only in the printed version of the Journal, when it is news or information related to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica, or information considered of interest to professionals, and approved by the Editorial Board.

 

III. DATA SHARING POLICY

Articles published in AMC whose authors wish to share their research data should include a plan that documents the following elements: 1) what data may be shared in a specific repository, 2) what related documents will accompany those data, 3) copies of informed consent from study participants for that purpose, 4) how long the data will be available, 5) where and under what criteria the data will be shared (with whom(s), licensing, whether or not they have DOIs, types of analyses or mechanisms, etc.).

Authors who make use of such data (for example, for a secondary analysis) should clarify the source of the data and give credit to those who generated it; they should also explain how their contribution differs from previous analyses.