Anti-plagiarism policy

Not everything that is technically possible is ethically valid. Based on this statement the Editorial Board of the Journal DeporVida begins its work by considering this publication with a critical review.

Within the academy environment, the authors’ ethical criteria are needed as a parameter to information quality. This is essential to communicate with the audience. Furthermore, authors will ensure that data as well as results presented are original and not copied, made up, changed or manipulated. So, DeporVida insists on the originality of the works; hence, identifying plagiarism and redundant publications, and false or manipulated data, is crucial. Committing serious ethical misdemeanors are considered scientific frauds.

By the way, the Editorial Board of this journal reserves the right to disaffirm those works already published, which lack of reliability is been determined; resulting from involuntary errors like frauds or bad scientific practices: fabrication, manipulation or copying data, plagiarism of texts and redundant or duplicated publications, quotes without acknowledgements, use of content without permission or justification, among others. The objective behind disapproval is to correct the scientific production already published, to ensure its integrity. 

DeporVida has the Plagiarism Detector for students and professors. Copyscape and Turnitin alternative to detect plagiarism.

Turnitin is an internet preventive plagiarism service created by iParadigms, LLC, launched in 1997 for the first time. It revises the document searching for non-original content. The results are applied to identify similitudes to existing sources or in the formative assessment to help students learn how to avoid plagiarism and improve their writings.

Regarding the ethics aspects it is needed to explain that DeporVida is suspicious about professional ethics in scientific publications. Plagiarism and other kinds of behaviors less ethical in these works, likewise a voluntary error or not related to it, or a mistake in the editing proofreading process does not ensure the submission to be published.

Data forgery, copy of others’ ideas without their consent or credits´ acknowledgements, including irrelevant data or that contradict the research conclusions, adapting conclusions to the weakness of test data or changing the methodology, the design or research results to answer to demands of founding sources, or others, are ethical aspects that must always be considered among the proofreading process of an article.

Nevertheless, two different perspectives are taken into consideration; they must be observed the same. The first one is the behavior of the author who knows it is imperative to look after the application of moral principles holding science. The second one is details, thoroughness and skill the Editorial Board develops along the review of the submissions sent to be published. They both are related.

As behavior errors this scientific journal specialized in Sports Sciences considers the following:

Forgery of data fabrication: it means, altered, manipulated data or just created by the author to accomplish his purpose.

Plagiarism consists of the use of someone else´s ideas as their own, or when a great amount of text is included without acknowledging the original author. Also, when they reproduce pieces of text created by themselves (longer than 250 words, for example), and create a new article. This is known as self-plagiarism and it is illegal. Besides, the author ´s quality is questioned. Plagiarism and self-plagiarism are considered an infraction against the copy right and it is punishable by the law according to the levels of seriousness.

From the author’s perspective it is recommended to save the research draft for a while to show the veracity of his work, if necessary. Likewise, archiving for a reasonable length of time the original data of the research, to prove who obtained them.

Redundant or duplicated publications: it is just what some authors do without any mediating responsibility on their part. This happens when they take an article and send it to several journals at the same time. This becomes a major fault if they finally manage to get these works published by more than one journal. This is only their responsibility and mistake because they are who really know what journals they sent to what manuscript. Hence, redundant publishing are punished by editors, reason why the journal clearly explains that only accepts original works.

Editors verify when a submission has been already published and which out of the two was published first. This is possible from the acceptance date of the article the journal makes public. Authors are aware of the fact that this is a huge mistake, so they will record this within the conduct rules to avoid this act.

DeporVida demands from authors signing the originality letter, which constitutes the commitment ensuring they have not sent the work to any other journal simultaneously. From the journal´s point of view, this is a healthy way to warn them to avoid such behavior. However, the most important thing here is that they are conscious of how bad this practice is, and avoid it.   

Manipulation of digital images: this regards changing original images, like its bright, making some parts darker, eliminating parts from the original work, cut it or changing some of its components. Any of these modifications may be interpreted as a variation in the research data. Including an image within an article means an essential part of the data presented as evidence, not a simple illustration or an appendix of the information in it.

In every case, the author will refer the appropriate authorization and the editor will verify the originality of the copy right of the image when there is doubt regarding when to use it.

-Use of materials without authorization: it has to do with the wrongful use with or without authorization of e-mails and correspondence with other people; likewise the result of journal´s interviews or any kind of communication. This is considered to be a bad practice common to some groups. In these cases, the authors will have the consent signed by the researcher, teacher or a senior that originated the data and will keep them save in case the editor requires them. It is also essential the consent informed by the persons participating in the research when their personal life is jeopardized.

-Replacement of other authors: this means that an author will never be authorized to exclude any other author without his consent; or in its place, to change the content of the submission without the others’ authorization.

-Conflict of interests: this is a sensitive issue when it comes to researches financed by important companies or corporations that establish limits or restrictions to authors. There are also personal or professional clearly stated or not, current or prior limits. Consequently, there is conflict of interest when any prior decision taken interferes with the publishing or review process, and the submission of the work. In all cases, author will warn the editor so the journal is aware of the limitations and decide whether they accept or not such restrictions.