Editorial Policies

OPEN SCIENCE

We abide to the open science policy established by Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Therefore, Veterinaria México OA has set the following requirements:

Open access. We do not require authors to pay any article processing charges. Likewise, there are no suscription fees for readers. Approved submissions are available in open access under CC BY 4.0 DEED license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en).

Open peer review. Authors are encouraged to make the peer review process available to our readers. Hence, the peer review will be published along with the manuscript if the authors agree to do it. This policy is compulsory for submissions authored by editorial board members.

Data availability. Authors are invited to make all experimental data fully available to readers. To comply with this policy, authors are invited to upload supplementary materials (if any) and the original datasets to SciELO Dataverse (https://data.scielo.org/dataverse/mxvetmexoa) or a third-party repository, such as:

Datasets and supplementary materials deposited in SciELO Dataverse are subject to peer review and will remain as drafts (unpublished) until the submission is accepted. Upon acceptance, they will be published with a DOI assigned. If the submission is rejected, they will be permanently deleted.

Authors are invited to use a single DOI for all supplementary materials related to an article.

If the data cannot be made publicly available, authors should inform the journal to include a corresponding statement.

For guidance on data deposit, please refer to SciELO's guidelines:
English version | Spanish version.

Please refer to the VMOA Manuscript_template for more options.

An example of a data set in *.csv format is available for download here.

 

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS REVIEW

All research article submissions are subjected to statistical review by a dedicated statistical editor. Submissions may be declined due to flaws in the statistical analysis.

Make sure that the study design, as well as the statistical treatment of data, are properly described in the methods section. When applicable, the statistical models must be described as well. 

 

PEER REVIEW

Our editorial team makes sure every submission undergoes thorough, objective, and constructive peer review. This policy is aimed at ensuring that all the research we publish conforms to internationally accepted scientific quality standards.

If the editor in chief or an editorial board member submits a manuscript as author or co-author, they do not participate in the editorial process of that manuscript. Instead, the submission is assigned to a different editorial board member, who will both handle the submission and make the final editorial decision. Moreover, such submissions, if accepted for publication, must be published along with the peer review process.

 

ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS

For research involving animals, the methods section must start with an "Ethical statement" reporting an institutional committee approval of the experiment. A copy of this approval shall be submitted as a separate PDF file during submission.

The paper should also cite the guidelines and/or regulations that were followed to perform the experiment. VMOA strongly encourages authors to comply with the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) guidelines.

 

HUMAN SUBJECTS RESEARCH

The Journal of Veterinaria México OA requires that research involving human subjects (e.g., surveys, sensory panels, or other participation) complies with all appropriate laws, regulations, and policies (e.g., the Declaration of Helsinki) governing the use of human subjects in research. The authors should state explicitly that institutional review board (IRB) or equivalent approval was obtained (or why it was not required) before commencement of the study, including the name of the IRB that granted approval.

 

PLAGIARISM, ATTRIBUTION, AND SEGMENTED PUBLICATIONS

All submissions are screened for plagiarism before entering the editorial process. Submissions incurring in this practice will be declined immediately.

Previous publications must be properly attributed, even if they were made by the same authors. Therefore, authors must clearly differentiate their ideas, concepts, and data, etc., from those from previous publications, and cite the corresponding references. Reviewers are also asked to report to the editor any sign or evidence of plagiarism.

Redundant or segmented publications (same hypothesis, methods, and results, but different text) pose a threat to publication ethics. Hence, we screen manuscripts in this regard and also ask reviewers to report any evidence of these practices.

To enforce this policy, research articles, as well as systematic reviews and meta-analyses must include a concise "Study Contribution" statement. This section shall provide a nontechnical explanation that captures the importance of the study and its contribution to its field of knowledge. Avoid repeating the objectives, results, or conclusions. Refer to the manuscript template for examples.

 

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

To ensure compliance with author qualification criteria, as well as transparency, an “Author contributions” section is required, describing the role of each author using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT taxonomy).

 

CHANGES TO AUTHORSHIP

Any changes to authorship shall be made before the manuscript is accepted for publication. Changes to the authors list (adding or removing authors, or changing the authors order) shall be requested, in written, by the corresponding author.

The corresponding author shall upload a letter, signed by all authors and directed to the Editor in Chief, explaining why these changes are made and stating that all authors agree. No changes to authorship are allowed after a manuscript is accepted for publication.

 

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Veterinaria México OA requires that all parties involved in a publication transparently declare any potential conflicts of interest (COI). Hence, every submission must include a “Conflict of interest” (COI) declaration that discloses COI of any of the authors.

Authors must declare all COI upon submission. Reviewers are expected to consider any COI before agreeing to review, and to confirm that they have no COI before submitting their review.

The disclosure of a COI does not necessarily mean that there is an issue to be addressed. It simply ensures that all parties are appropriately informed of any relevant considerations while they work on the submission. Potential COI should be declared even if the individual in question feels that these interests do not represent an actual conflict.

Examples of COI include, but are not limited to: possible financial benefits if the manuscript is published; prior working, or personal, relationships with any of the authors; patent activity on the results; consultancy activity around the results; personal material or financial gain (such as free travel, gifts, etc.) relating to the work; and similar issues.

 

FUNDING STATEMENT

Research articles must include a "Funding statement". This statement shall provide the names of the funding bodies and their URLs,  the grant identification number(s), as well as the initials of the authors that received the grant(s). Refer to the manuscript template for examples on how to write this section properly.

 

CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS

Corrections to published articles may be authorized when these involve minor mistakes that do not change or affect the interpretation of results or conclusions. Such corrections shall be requested in written to the editor in chief, explaining why these corrections are necessary and stating that all authors agree. The request of corrections must be signed by all authors.

Veterinaria México OA reserves itself the right to retract an article, and publish a retraction statement, upon confirmation of fraud, plagiarism, misleading results or conclusions, or failure to comply with generally accepted ethical standards.

 

ADVERTISING POLICY

Veterinaria México OA is funded with public financial resources and does not allow any form of advertisement.