Declaración sobre ética y malas prácticas en la publicación científica (PEMS)

The Editorial Board of Materiales para la Historia del Deporte is committed to the scientific community in guaranteeing the ethics and quality of the articles published. The journal is fully committed to meeting and upholding standards of ethical behaviour at all stages of the publication process. Our journal adopts the code of good scientific practices approved by the CSIC in March 2010 and the best practice agreements adopted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Published articles during the editorial process must follow the principles and ethical criteria of these codes. At the same time, it guarantees an adequate response to the needs of readers and authors, ensuring the quality of the material published, protecting and respecting the content of the articles as well as the integrity of them.

In compliance with these good practices, Materiales para la Historia del Deporte has published the review system used for the selection of articles as well as the evaluation criteria to be applied by external reviewers. Materiales para la Historia del Deporte keeps these criteria updated, based exclusively on the scientific relevance of the article, originality, clarity and relevance of the presented paper.

Regarding publisher responsibilities, both Asociación Andaluza de Historia del Deporte (Andalusian Association of History of Sport) and the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid on behalf of which it publishes shall ensure that good practice is maintained to the standards outlined as follows.

The editorial board's members are recognized experts in the field; the full names and affiliations of the members are provided in the journal's web site as well as contact information for the editorial office: http://polired.upm.es/index.php/materiales_historia_deporte/about/contact

All journal content is subjected to peer-review. Therefore, Materiales para la Historia del Deporte guarantees that all judgments and findings in the peer-review process should be objective. Prior to evaluation, reviewers are confirmed to not have conflict of interest, and they advice authors with relevant published work which is not yet cited. The process ensures that articles will be treated confidentially prior to their publication. The peer-reviewed process is described here in detail: http://polired.upm.es/index.php/materiales_historia_deporte/about/editorialPolicies#peerReviewProcess

 

1. Ethical responsibilities

The Editorial Board undertakes to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when necessary. Our journal guarantees at any time the confidentiality of the evaluation process: the anonymity of the reviewers and the authors, the content evaluated, the review report issued by the reviewers and any other communication submitted by the editorial, advisory board and scientific committees, if applicable. In the same way, confidentiality will be maintained before any clarifications or complaints that the author wishes to send to the committees of the journal or to the reviewers of the article. Following closely the COPE's guidelines, ethical responsibilities are described as follows as regards editors, reviewers and authors:

1.1. Editors' responsibilities

• To act in a balanced, objective and fair way while carrying out their expected duties, without discrimination on grounds of gender, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs, ethnic or geographical origin of the authors.
• To handle submissions for sponsored supplements or special issues in the same way as other submissions, so that articles are considered and accepted solely on their academic merit and without commercial influence.
• To adopt and follow reasonable procedures in the event of complaints of an ethical or conflict nature, in accordance with the policies and procedures of the Society where appropriate. To give authors a reasonable opportunity to respond to any complaints. All complaints should be investigated no matter when the original publication was approved. Documentation associated with any such complaints should be retained.                                   

1.2. Reviewers' responsibilities

• To declare any potential conflicts of interest (e.g. where the author has a competing interest (real or apparent) that could be considered or viewed as exerting an undue influence on his or her duties at any stage during the publication process).
• To confirm/assert that the manuscript as submitted is not under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere. Where portions of the content overlap with published or submitted content, to acknowledge and cite those sources. Additionally, to provide the editor with a copy of any submitted manuscript that might contain overlapping or closely related content.
• To confirm that all the work in the submitted manuscript is original and to acknowledge and cite content reproduced from other sources. To obtain permission to reproduce any content from other sources.            

1.3. Authors' responsibilities

• To confirm/assert that the manuscript as submitted is not under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere. Where portions of the content overlap with published or submitted content, to acknowledge and cite those sources. Additionally, to provide the editor with a copy of any submitted manuscript that might contain overlapping or closely related content.
• To confirm that all the work in the submitted manuscript is original and to acknowledge and cite content reproduced from other sources. To obtain permission to reproduce any content from other sources.
• To participate in peer review process, and they are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes; they should provide a list of references and financial support if necessary
• To declare any potential conflicts of interest (e.g. where the author has a competing interest (real or apparent) that could be considered or viewed as exerting an undue influence on his or her duties at any stage during the publication process).
• To notify promptly the journal editor or publisher if a significant error in their publication is identified. To cooperate with the editor and publisher to publish an erratum, addendum, corrigendum notice, or to retract the paper, where this is deemed necessary.

 

2. Procedures in case of unethical behaviour

Materiales para la Historia del Deporte declares its commitment for the respect and integrity of the articles already published. For this reason, plagiarism is strictly prohibited. By accepting the terms and agreements expressed by our journal, authors must ensure that the article and the materials associated with it are original or do not infringe copyright. The authors also have to justify that, in the case of a shared authorship, there was a full agreement of all the authors affected and that it has not been previously presented or published in another journal or other type of divulgation.

2.1. Identification of unethical behaviour

• Misconduct and unethical behaviour may be identified and brought to the attention of the editor and publisher at any time, by anyone.
• Misconduct and unethical behaviour may include, but need not be limited to, examples as outlined above.
• Whoever informs the editor or publisher of such conduct should provide sufficient information and evidence in order for an investigation to be initiated. All allegations should be taken seriously and treated in the same way, until a successful decision or conclusion is reached.

2.2. Investigation

• An initial decision should be taken by the editor, who should consult with or seek advice from the publisher, if appropriate.
• Evidence should be gathered, while avoiding spreading any allegations beyond those who need to know.
• Texts that are identified as plagiarism or its content is fraudulent, will be removed from the journal if they have already been published or will not be published. The journal will act, in these cases, as as expeditiously as possible.

2.3. Minor and serious breaches

• Minor misconduct might be dealt with without the need to consult more widely. In any event, the author should be given the opportunity to respond to any allegations.

• For serious misconduct, the employers of the accused (university or institution of affiliation) are likely to be notified.  It is for the editor, with the advice of the publisher, to decide whether or not to involve the affiliated institution; they should examine the available evidence themselves or with the help of a limited number of experts.

2.4. Outcomes (in order of severity)

• Informing or educating the author or reviewer where there appears to be a misunderstanding or misapplication of acceptable standards.
• A more strongly worded letter to the author or reviewer covering the misconduct and as a warning to future behaviour.
• Publication of a formal notice detailing the misconduct.
• Publication of an editorial detailing the misconduct.
• A formal letter to the head of the author's or reviewer's department or funding agency.
• Formal retraction or withdrawal of a publication from the journal, in conjunction with informing the head of the author or reviewer's department, Abstracting & Indexing services and the readership of the publication.
• Imposition of a formal embargo on contributions from an individual for a defined period.
• Reporting the case and outcome to a professional organisation or higher authority for further investigation and action.

 

3. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Materiales para la Historia del Deporte is monitoring ongoing developments in this area closely and will review (and update) these policies as appropriate.

3.1. AI authorship

Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, do not currently satisfy our authorship criteria. Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs.   Use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and if a Methods section is not available, in a suitable alternative part) of the manuscript. The use of an LLM (or other AI-tool) for “AI assisted copy editing” purposes does not need to be declared. In this context, we define the term "AI assisted copy editing" as AI-assisted improvements to human-generated texts for readability and style, and to ensure that the texts are free of errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation and tone. These AI-assisted improvements may include wording and formatting changes to the texts, but do not include generative editorial work and autonomous content creation. In all cases, there must be human accountability for the final version of the text and agreement from the authors that the edits reflect their original work.

3.2. Generative AI images

The fast moving area of generative AI image creation has resulted in novel legal copyright and research integrity issues. As publishers, we strictly follow existing copyright law and best practices regarding publication ethics. While legal issues relating to AI-generated images and videos remain broadly unresolved, Materiales para la Historia del Deporte is unable to permit its use for publication. 

Exceptions:

•    Images/art obtained from agencies that our University have contractual relationships with that have created images in a legally acceptable manner.
•    Images and videos that are directly referenced in a piece that is specifically about AI and such cases will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
•    The use of generative AI tools developed with specific sets of underlying scientific data that can be attributed, checked and verified for accuracy, provided that ethics, copyright and terms of use restrictions are adhered to.
•    
*All exceptions must be labelled clearly as generated by AI within the image field.

Please note: Not all AI tools are generative. The use of non-generative machine learning tools to manipulate, combine or enhance existing images or figures should be disclosed in the relevant caption upon submission to allow a case-by-case review

3.3. AI use by peer reviewers

Peer reviewers play a vital role in scientific publishing. Their expert evaluations and recommendations guide editors in their decisions and ensure that published research is valid, rigorous, and credible. Editors select peer reviewers primarily because of their in-depth knowledge of the subject matter or methods of the work they are asked to evaluate. This expertise is invaluable and irreplaceable. Peer reviewers are accountable for the accuracy and views expressed in their reports, and the peer review process operates on a principle of mutual trust between authors, reviewers and editors. Despite rapid progress,  generative AI tools have considerable limitations: they can lack up-to-date knowledge and may produce nonsensical, biased or false information. Manuscripts may also include sensitive or proprietary information that should not be shared outside the peer review process. For these reasons we ask that, while Springer Nature explores providing our peer reviewers with access to safe AI tools,  peer reviewers do not upload manuscripts into generative AI tools.

If any part of the evaluation of the claims made in the manuscript was in any way supported by an AI tool, we ask peer reviewers to declare the use of such tools transparently in the peer review report.