About the Journal

 

Guidelines for ethical conduct

AUTHORSHIP

Mentioning the authors in scientific papers ensures that credit is given to the appropriate researchers, those responsible for the study. The intentional absence of representing the relationship of a scientist with his work is considered a failure on ethical conduct, which undermines the reliability of the study.

It is not allowed to mention names of authors who have not contributed to the paper, including guest authors with the purpose of increasing chances of publication;

It is not allowed to submit papers for publication without the author’s permission;

Participant authors, whether in writing, data collection or having any other contribution to the research, should be mentioned in the specific section in order to avoid "ghost authorships".

PLAGIARISM

One of the most common types of ethical conduct failure is plagiarism – when an author intentionally uses other scientists’ studies without permission, credit or knowing. There are different types of plagiarism, from literal copy to the paraphrase of another author’s writing.
Literal copy of excerpts is only permitted if the reference source is cited in the text with quotation marks, attending the standards for publication; It is not allowed substantial copy from research materials, processes, tables, and equipment; If the paper contains the essence of another paper, it should be properly referenced; Paraphrasing is only allowed if the reference source is cited and it does not change the meaning intended by the original author; Text recycling is not allowed. The articles submitted to Ágora go through the verification of possible plagiarism through Plagius - Plagiarism Detector software.

FRAUD IN RESEARCH

Fraud in research means to publish data or conclusions that were not generated by experiments or observations, but by invention or data manipulation. Authors may be required to send raw data related to the research for editorial review. Consequently, all data must be stored for a while after publication; Images can only be manipulated in order to improve clarity;
None specific feature of image should be improved, darkened, moved, removed or introduced;
Adjustments to brightness, contrast or color are acceptable provided they do not cloud or eliminate any original information.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Whenever researchers, authors, reviewers or editors have personal/financial interest or belief that may affect their objectivity or influence their actions inappropriately, there is a conflict of interest. Such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties.

When submitting a paper, one should explicitly declare whether there are potential conflicts of interest or not, either with research participants, either with agencies that provided resources for the research;

This information must be indicated in the manuscript on a notification page. In case there are extensive details about the possibility of conflict, a document in form of a letter should be sent as a supplementary document, through the SEER system (Electronic Journal Publishing System).

SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS, MULTIPLE AND/OR DUPLICATE PUBLICATIONS

Authors must make sure their papers are based on original research and have never been published before. Submitting or re-submitting papers for intentional duplicate publication is considered ethical misconduct in publishing.

Avoid submitting the same paper for more than one journal at a time; Even if the paper is under review process, one should wait for the reply before submitting it to other journals;

Avoid submitting papers, which have already been published in a journal, to be considered by another journal;

Avoid submitting papers that describe different but essentially the same research to different journals;
Inform about any previous paper submission (including presentations, summaries and outcomes or records postings) so that a duplicate submission may be considered;

In case you want to publish the paper in a journal from another country or in another language, contact the editorial team;

Declare any details concerning to the publication in other languages or countries.

Archiving

This journal utilizes the Rede Cariniana system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and allows them to create permanent archives of the journal for the preservation and restoration. 

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

DOI - Digital Object Identifier is a standard for identifying documents in digital networks. Composed of numbers and letters, it is assigned to a digital object so that it is uniquely and persistently identified in the Web environment. 

ORCID - Open Researcher and Contributor ID

Due to the importance of identifying the authors with greater accuracy, Ágora journal asks for the authors to include the ORCID in his/her metadata at the moment they submit the manuscripts.

This identifier individualizes the researcher, distinguishing one from the other whilst it avoids problems, such as ambiguities on the entries and spellings of the same name. Another important characteristic is that ORCID is unrestricted and allows the exchange of metadata.
By using ORCID ID, the researchers are connected with their activities, research results, publications and affiliations.

Sponsors

• Universidade de Santa Cruz do Sul-Unisc, RS, Brasil.