Anti-plagiarism policy and publication ethics

At Mediciego all manuscripts are analyzed to detect plagiarism in the following way:

At the beginning and throughout the editorial process, the editors carry out checks to detect possible plagiarism and the undeclared use of artificial intelligence resources, using tools such as: StrikePlagiarism https://strikeplagiarism.com/en/ ZeroGPT https://www.zerogpt.com/ Plagiarism Checker https://www.duplichecker.com/ Quetext https://www.quetext.com/ Plagiarisma http://plagiarisma.net/es/ . They will also check the bibliographic references to detect possible plagiarism. If the percentage of similarity between texts is greater than 20%, it could be plagiarism; in this case, the authors of the work will be contacted to clarify the circumstances or consider its rejection.

Articles should not contain text fragments from previously published works or those in the process of publication in journals or other media, without due citation.

If a previous version of an article has been published previously, this must be expressly indicated in the notes. The new version must contain substantial new features. The journal will reject articles that incur in different forms of plagiarism.

In the event of a complaint or detection of plagiarism, the Editorial Committee will form a commission of experts to investigate and rule on the violation. If the violation is proven, the article will be withdrawn and a retraction note will be issued in its place, after prior notification to the institution that supports the work, the employer, sponsor, or the competent national body.

Plagiarism is the copying or misuse of another person's intellectual property. Researchers should not present parts of other people's work or data as their own.

Duplicate and redundant publication of data is a bad practice consisting of duplication of information and recycling of texts, aimed at a different audience. The following are not considered duplicate publications: abstracts and posters presented at conferences, results presented at scientific meetings, results in databases and clinical trial records that have not been interpreted, as well as dissertations and theses collected in university repositories.

If the Editorial Board identifies any of these situations, the manuscript will be rejected. Sanctions are applied consistently after careful consideration; the journal will refuse to review future work by the authors involved.

Readers are requested, in case of detection of plagiarism, to inform the Editorial Committee of Mediciego of the title, name(s) of the author(s), volume, number and year of publication and other aspects of the article or document involved in plagiarism, through the email address mjperez@infomed.sld.cu

Mediciego assumes the code of conduct and good practices of the International Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) http://publicationethics.org/files/All_Flowcharts_Spanish_0.pdf,  which defines the appropriate conduct and duties of authors, editors and reviewers, as well as the sanctions for their violation.

Duties of authors:

  • Ensure that the data was collected ethically and be prepared to demonstrate that your research has been approved by your institution.
  • Submit papers that are not published or under review by other journals.
  • Ensure that the articles comply with the ethical standards established by the journal.
  • Declare any conflicts of interest if they exist.
  • Submit the corrected article within the deadline established by the editor.

Duties of editors:

Proceed in accordance with the journal's editorial policies.

  • Consider the article without taking into account prejudices based on skin color, sex, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin or citizenship.
  • Do not reveal information about submitted articles to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers or editorial board member.
  • Do not use information from an article without the consent of the author.
  • Maintain confidentiality and do not use for personal benefit the information or ideas obtained through peer review.

Duties of reviewers:

  • Notify the editor if you do not consider yourself adequately qualified or are unable to make the assessment within the deadline.
  • Consider any work received for review as a confidential document. It should not be shown or discussed with others unless authorized by the editor.
  • Use scientific criticism appropriately. Do not make personal criticisms of the author.
  • Alert the editor to any substantial similarity between the work under consideration and any other publication of which you are aware.

The following are considered ethical violations in scientific publication:

a) Misconduct in research: refers to the fabrication, falsification and alteration of data, bias or manipulation of information and plagiarism when proposing, carrying out or reviewing the research. If the Editorial Committee suspects this, it will request an investigation into the matter from the institution that supports the research, the employer, sponsor, or the competent national body.

b) Irregularities in the investigation: Irregularities in the investigation, whether carried out by identified persons or anonymously, will be reported only if they are supported by the respective evidence.

c) Fabrication, falsification or manipulation of images: sometimes it is necessary to edit images to reveal certain characteristics, however, when their manipulation is inappropriate it creates misleading results. Researchers must report when they edit images. They must also follow these recommendations:

  • Specific features must not be altered.
  • Original images must accompany the modified image intended for publication.
  • Adjustments to brightness or contrast may only be used when applied equally to the entire image and do not distort its meaning.
  • Excessive editing to emphasize an image size is inappropriate.
  • If any part of a recording is deleted or non-linear adjustments are made, this should be noted in the figure legend.
  • Figures should not be built up from different components. However, if the author deems this necessary, then this should be clearly indicated by dividing lines in the figure and legend.