Politics

Open Access Policy

This journal provides free and immediate access to its content under the principle of making research freely available to the public. (See The effect of open access)

EDUMECENTRO agrees with the Declaration of Open Access of Budapest - BOAI 2002, for which "it allows users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any purpose without any financial, legal or technical barriers, apart from those that are inseparable from Internet access itself" (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/translations/spanish-translation).

To reinforce this open access policy, EDUMECENTRO is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license, which allows sharing (copying and redistributing the material in any medium or format) and adapting (remixing, transforming and creating from the material) , under the following conditions: authorship is acknowledged, no commercial use is made of the materials, and new creations are licensed under the same terms (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.es ).

This journal does not charge fees neither for the submission of articles, nor for the processing or publication of them.

Anti-plagiarism policy

Plagiarism is a very serious form of ethical misconduct. It includes both theft and misappropriation of intellectual property and substantial unattributed verbatim copying of another person's work. Intellectual property theft or misappropriation contains the unauthorized use of unique ideas or methods obtained through privileged communication or handwritten review.

This journal uses an electronic coincidence detection system as part of its editorial management to guarantee the quality of the publication, which contributes to the prevention of possible plagiarism.

All the articles received in EDUMECENTRO are verified by the editors before and during their publication process, through the use of free tools, such as:  Google, Google Scholar, for the detection of possible plagiarism. It is necessary to clarify that they are not 100% reliable tools.

The reviewers and members of the Editorial Committee can also detect the occurrence of this bad practice. If fraud is found during the review process, the authors will be notified of the rejection of the article and if it is already published, it will be withdrawn immediately.

Readers are requested to inform the editorial of the journal, in case of detection of plagiarism, through our emails (maritzafranco@infomed.sld.cu , edumecen@infomed.sld.cu ) the title of the article, name ( s) of the author(s), volume, number and year of publication.

EDUMECENTRO does not encourage any form of plagiarism. Therefore, we recommend reviewing the content of your article before submitting it, as well as careful use of citations and bibliographical references.

We suggest authors the Miguel Roig Guide in Spanish or English, taken from his article Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing. A guide to ethical writing).

Ethical considerations: All articles are subjected to scrutiny processes to detect possible plagiarism, adopting the recommendations issued by the International Committee on Ethics in Scientific Publication (COPE) in resolving ethical conflicts. http://publicationethics.org/files/All_Flowcharts_Spanish_0.pdf

Application of publication charges

This journal DOES NOT APPLY CHARGES FOR PROCESSING OR PUBLICATION OF ARTICLES.

Declaration of Ethics and Good Practices

 

The signatory authors of the manuscripts accept the responsibilities defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors; In addition, they must declare, in a mandatory manner, the existence or not of conflicts of interest in relation to the research presented. The opinions they express are their sole responsibility and may not necessarily reflect the criteria or the policy of the Editorial Board.

The manuscript must not contain fragments of texts from works previously published or in the process of being published in journals or other media without proper citation. If they are from the author himself, they are considered self-citations.

Publishing Misconduct and Ethical Violations Policy

The works that are sent must have been prepared in accordance with the international recommendations on clinical research with people and laboratory animals (Helsinki Declaration of the World Medical Association). In addition, they must have been approved by the Ethics Committee and the Scientific Council of the institution. The signing authors accept the responsibility defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/)

The articles and opinions published in the journal are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect that of the institution or its editorial committee. Any ethical violation related to the document or the process will be resolved using the protocols established by the International Committee on Ethics in Scientific Publication (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines ), as well as what is established in the Ethical Principles posted on the journal's website.

EDUMECENTRO journal promotes good practices based on ethical publication standards among all collaborators. Each article submitted for review for publication must meet the following requirements:

1. Consent: all the authors give their consent for the submission and publication of the article submitted for evaluation, having completed the attached document (see letter of authorization for publication).
2. Contribution of the authors: all the authors contributed to the article without omission of any author, indicating the contribution of each author.
3. Originality of the work: the article submitted for review is original, has not been previously published and has not been simultaneously submitted for evaluation in another journal (see the originality form).
4. Consent to reproduce a work: the article does not include original material copied from other authors without their consent. If the article contains material from other authors, their consent for its printed and electronic reproduction must be clearly indicated.
5. Previous research: all the information included in the article under review, which comes from previous studies, has been referred to. If the submitted article is an analysis of a previously published proposal, it must always be cited (see the instructions for authors).
6. Journal archives: the article submitted for review will be kept in the journal archives and will be considered a valid publication as long as it meets each of the above criteria.
7. Review Committee: the members of the Review Committee have no relationship or ties of a work, academic, or personal nature with the authors.
8. Ethical Principles for Publication: please read the Ethical Principles of Publication in the journal and please complete the Ethical Principles Form (see the ethical principles form).

If the article does not adhere to all the criteria, the authors must notify the journal to withdraw the publication.

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES FOR PUBLICATION

 1. Institutional authorization

In studies where institutional authorization is required, researchers must provide information on the approval of their work proposals, with the corresponding authorization from the institution before the start of the study. The research must adhere to the protocol authorized by the institution.

2. Informed consent

Researchers must state explicitly whether or not they have the written consent of the participants involved in the research.

a) For research

1. The consent must inform the participant about the following:

a) the objective of the investigation, the procedures, as well as the expected duration.
b) your right to decline your participation in the research and to be able to withdraw even once the application has started.
c) the possible consequences of refusing to participate or withdrawing from the research.
d) foreseeable factors that may affect your willingness to participate, such as potential risks, discomfort or adverse effects.
e) the possible benefits and incentives of their participation in the research.
f) the limits of confidentiality.
g) the contact information of the person(s) responsible for the study who can answer questions about the research and about the rights of the study participants. Participants must be given the opportunity to ask questions before providing consent.

b) For the recording of voices and images in the investigation

Researchers must obtain the informed consent of participants before recording their voices or images for their data collection unless: (i) the research consists solely of naturalistic observations in public spaces, and it is not possible for the recording to be used in a way that could harm or identify individuals; or (ii) that the study design implies deception as a methodological strategy and that, therefore, consent for the use of the recordings is obtained during the closing or debriefing session (See section 6: deception in the research).

c) Disregard of informed consent for research:
Researchers may dispense with informed consent only when:

1. It would not reasonably be feasible for the research to cause discomfort or harm, and involve: the study of current educational practices, curriculum, or classroom supervision methods applied in educational settings; using only anonymous questionnaires, field observations, or archival studies for which the significance of the responses would not put participants at risk of civil or criminal liability or any other type of harm; the study of factors related to the work or effectiveness of the organization conducted in an organizational environment, where there is no risk that the employment capacity of the participants will be affected.
2. When legally authorized or by institutional or federal regulations.

3. Client/patient, students and subordinate research participants

When researchers conduct studies with clients/patients, students, or subordinates as participants, they must take precautions to shield potential participants from the consequences of declining or withdrawing their participation. Likewise, when participation in research is a requirement of a course or leads to the possibility of obtaining additional credits, the participant must be given the possibility to choose between equivalent alternatives.

4. Offer of incentives for participation in the study

a) Investigators should make every effort to avoid offering excessive or inappropriate incentives, financial or otherwise, to achieve participation in studies where such incentives could influence their participation.
b) When professional services are offered as an incentive for participation, researchers must clarify the nature of the services, as well as the risks, limitations and obligations.

5. Research deception

a) Researchers can only use deception when it is justified by the expected scientific, educational or practical value, and the use of non-deceptive techniques is not possible.
b) Researchers should not use misleading slogans in case the research could cause physical pain or severe emotional discomfort.
c) As an integral part of the design, investigators should disclose deceptive techniques to participants as soon as possible, preferably after their participation and never before the completion of data collection. Furthermore, participants should be allowed to decline their participation in the research if they consider it necessary.

6. Closing of Investigation (Debriefing)

a) Investigators must offer participants the opportunity to obtain adequate information about the nature, results and conclusions of the study, taking the necessary measures to avoid misunderstandings.
b) If the scientific or humanitarian value of the research justifies the delay or withholding of the information, the researchers should seek to reduce the risk of harm.
c) When researchers realize that the procedures used in the research have harmed a participant, they must implement the necessary measures to minimize the harm.

7. Ethical principles in scientific articles

a) Human rights, privacy and confidentiality: when necessary, authors should specify that they adhere to recognized standards, in order to minimize possible harm to participants, avoiding the use of coercion or exploitation, and protecting the confidentiality in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, the United States Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Rights and the European Medicines Agency Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice. Similarly, when appropriate, researchers must openly communicate any information that may influence the will of the participant, such as: sponsorship, the purpose of the study, the expected results and the possible consequences of the publication of the research.
b) Cultures and heritages: authors should not include any images of objects that could have cultural significance or could be interpreted as offensive, such as religious texts or historical events. Also, researchers must be careful not to include names or photographs of deceased individuals when this is contraindicated in the culture.

8. Report of the results of the investigations

a) Researchers should not fabricate data.
b) If researchers discover significant errors in published data, steps must be taken to publicly correct such errors.

9. Research Integrity

a) Misconduct: Research misconduct refers to fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism when proposing, conducting, or reviewing research, or when reporting research results, as defined by Federal State Policy United States for the Investigation of Misconduct (US Federal Policy on Research Misconduct). If the editorial board suspects misconduct, it will request an investigation in this regard, from the institution supporting the investigation, the employer, sponsor, or the competent national body.
b) Reports of irregularities: reports of irregularities in the investigation, made by identified persons or anonymously, will be investigated only if they are accompanied by the respective evidence.
c) Fabrication/falsification and manipulation of images: sometimes it is necessary to edit the images to reveal certain characteristics; however, inappropriate image manipulation creates misleading results. Researchers must report when they edit images. They should also follow the following recommendations:

1. The specific characteristics must not be altered.
2. The original unpublished images must also be presented when any modification is made to the image destined to be published. 
3. Brightness or contrast adjustments can only be used when they apply equally to the entire image and do not misrepresent the meaning of the image. 
4. Excessive editing to emphasize an image size is not appropriate. 
5. If any part of a recording or non-linear fit is deleted, it should be noted in the figure legend. 
6. Figures must not be built from different components; however, if the author considers it necessary, then he must be clearly indicated by dividing lines in the figure and in the legend.

d) Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the copying or misuse of another person's intellectual property. Researchers must not present as their own parts of other works or data from others. Manuscripts will be analyzed to detect plagiarism.
e) Duplicate and redundant publication of data: researchers should avoid publishing previously published data as originals. This does not preclude republishing or republishing data as long as it is accompanied by proper acknowledgment. The following previous publications are not considered duplicate publications: abstracts and posters presented at conferences, results presented at scientific meetings, results in databases and clinical trial registries that have not been interpreted, as well as dissertations and theses in university archives.

1. Recycling of texts: partial results of a previous publication that are addressed to a different audience are allowed when the discussion and the conclusion are different.
2. Double submission: authors may not submit a manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously. If the Editorial Committee becomes aware of such a situation, the manuscript will not be considered for publication.
3. Duplicate published information in other languages: translations of already published manuscripts will not be considered for publication.

f) Sanctions: Sanctions are applied consistently after careful consideration. First, a retraction will be issued, and in the most serious circumstances, the institution from which the author(s) hails will be notified.

10. Editorial Rules and Processes

a) Authorship: the list of authors and their sequential order must appropriately reflect the scientific or professional contributions of the researchers involved. All authors of the manuscript must sign an authorization form, indicating their level of participation in the study. Likewise, additional contributions that do not meet the authorship criteria should be listed in a acknowledgment section with the permission of the authors. All the required administrative requirements must be fulfilled (for example, approval of the Institutional Ethics Committee and registration of clinical documentation). All correspondence should be copied to all authors contributing to the article.
b) Authorship disputes: if the Editorial Committee suspects authorship problems, it will contact the corresponding author to request more information. If more information is needed, other authors will be contacted.
c) Funding: all funding sources, as well as their specific roles, should be listed in the acknowledgments section. If there is no funding source, this should be explicitly stated. Other sources of funding, such as editorial assistance, must also be specified.
d) Peer Review: EDUMECENTRO journal This journal conveniently uses open peer review practices as a mechanism to promote transparency in the editorial and scientific communication process. This type of review reveals the identities of authors and reviewers; that is, authors have the ability to identify reviewer comments.
e) Publication timing: EDUMECENTRO journal strives to ensure timely peer review, avoiding unnecessary delays in the publication process.
f) The editors and staff of the journal as authors: the members of the Editorial Committee and the Advisory Committee are not involved in any decision regarding their own articles submitted to the EDUMECENTRO journal. Accordingly, a brief statement will be provided detailing the process that will be used to make the editorial decision in cases where members of the Editorial Committee or the Advisory Committee are authors of a publication.
g) Conflict of Interest: Editors, authors, and reviewers must disclose any conflict of interest that might affect their ability to objectively submit or review a manuscript. Conflicts of interest include, but are not limited to, financial, personal, political, or religious interests. Authors must describe the relevant funding, including the purposes of such funding, as well as the corresponding patents, stocks and interests they hold.
h) Slander and Defamation: The Advisory Committee monitors manuscripts and peer review reports to identify expressions that may be considered defamatory or negligently made misrepresentations, which may lead to legal action. Such language should not be used, so the author of such expressions will bear all responsibility.
i) Academic Debate: EDUMECENTRO journal encourages constructive criticism of published papers. When a specific article is discussed, the author will be invited to respond before posting the correspondence. When possible, the correspondence and the author's response will be published together. Authors can indicate whether they consider a correspondence to be constructive, but they do not have the power to veto comments.
j) Appeals: authors who do not agree with the editorial feedback may file an appeal against the decision made by the Editorial Committee. Appeals will overturn prior decisions only when new information becomes available, so reversals of decisions will not be made without new evidence. The Editorial Committee may request the comments of additional reviewers in order to make a decision.
k) Corrections: readers and authors must notify the EDUMECENTRO journal if there are errors in a publication, especially those that could affect the interpretation of the data. Corrections will be posted, and when significant errors are found that could invalidate the work, posting a retraction will be considered.
l) Retractions and expressions of concern: retractions are published when the errors reported may affect the interpretation of the data, as well as when the information presented in the work is fraudulent, or in cases of serious ethical misconduct. Expressions of concern will be published when there are serious concerns or suspicions that should be reported to readers.
m) Withdrawal of articles: the elimination, deletion or concealment of an article is only allowed when there is a case that involves legal infractions, defamation, or other limitations of a legal nature, as well as when there is false or inaccurate data. In such cases, a withdrawal statement will be published.
n) Data protection legislation: EDUMECENTRO journal complies with data protection legislation.

11. Copyright and intellectual property

The author must sign a copyright agreement before publishing.

12. Socialization of data for verification

a) Researchers should share their database with other competent professionals seeking to verify their results after publication. The data provided will keep the confidentiality of the participants and will protect the legal rights of authorship regarding the study. Authors may request coverage of the costs of providing the information.
b) When researchers are asked to share their data to be re-analyzed, the use of this data will be exclusive for the stated purpose. Researchers must receive written agreement from the authors for the use of the data for any other purpose.

13. Peer Reviewers

Professionals reviewing material submitted for presentations, publications, research proposals, or grants must respect the confidentiality and proprietary rights of those who submitted the information.

References

Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. (2002). American Psychologist, 57, 10601073.

Wiley, J. (2014). Best Practice Guidelines on Publishing Ethics: A Publisher's Perspective. Second Edition. Recovered from http://exchanges.wiley.com/medialibrary/2014/03/17/8440af20/Best%20Practice%20Guidelines%20 on%20Publishing%20Ethics%202ed.pdf

Conflict of interests

The research submitted must comply with all the ethical statements for the types of studies, according to the Declaration of Helsinki (http://bvs.sld.cu/revistas/recursos/helsinki.pdf)

Public trust in the peer review process and the credibility of published articles depends in part on how conflicts of interest are dealt with before and during the editorial process.

Filing

This journal uses the LOCKSS system to create a distributed storage system among participating libraries and allows for the creation of permanent archives in the journal for preservation and restoration purposes.

The EDUMECENTRO magazine also adheres to the computer preservation and security policies established for the Health Network by the National Information Center for Medical Sciences (INFOMED). More..

Data opening

The journal promotes the openness of research data, for which authors are invited to publicly place and reference the data used in their research, so that in this way they can be shared and reused, which favors transparency and credibility  of the science. In addition, each original article, as well as a brief research paper, must be accompanied by the analyzed database (upload as complementary material), in a modifiable format (for Excel (.xlsx or .xls) or SPSS (.sav).

The Journal promotes the openness of research data, as long as the level of confidentiality allows it. As part of compliance with the principles of Open Science, the author may present his research data on any of the servers available internationally for such purposes, which guarantees compliance with the FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability).

The following are recommended:

DataCite, The Dataverse Network, Zenodo, SciELO Data

About the Preprints

The journal accepts documents previously published in recognized preprint servers (SciELO Preprints, PubMed Central, Medxiv, ArXiv, bioRxiv, Plos and others considered by the editorial board). The authors must mention in their submission the availability of the document in any of these servers and its exact location. In addition, they are requested that the articles are first deposited in SciELO Preprints, and that these be updated at the end of the review process and the layout tests.

Themes

• Aspects related to the training processes in medical sciences careers
• Curriculum design and its improvement in medical sciences
• The special methodologies in the teaching-learning process of the disciplines and subjects of the medical sciences, both in undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
• Evaluation and accreditation processes in health institutions.
• The application of the tools offered by information and communication technologies to design teaching methods and generate new forms of student-teacher-group interaction, through distance education.
• The universalization of higher education in health sciences
• Graduate education and its transformations
• University extension and its potential
• Promotion of health and quality of life
• Formation of values
• Legal culture related to public health care
• Vocational training and career guidance
• Life stories of prominent personalities in the health sciences and stories of health institutions, specialties, study plans, careers, etc.
• Bibliometric studies that contribute to the proper functioning of the journal, the didactics of medical education, the history of medical sciences, or any other matter already investigated in its articles.

Reader interactivity services

Readers will have opportunities to make interactive comments. At the end of each article you will find the link to do it.

Taxonomy of taxpayer roles (CRediT)

The contributions of each author's roles are subject to the CRediT taxonomy:

Taxonomy of taxpayer roles in Spanish is an advanced tool that many international scientific and/or academic publishers are adopting for the management of academic-scientific publication. The use of taxonomy provides greater transparency to the collaboration between authors, allowing the contribution of each author to the publication to be clarified.

This taxonomy distributes participation roles into 14 typologies through which an author can have recognition in the publication. Among which we can mention: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, acquisition of funds, project administration, research, methodology, resources, software, supervision, validation, visualization, writing of the original draft and finally the writing (review and edition).

Namely, each role is defined as follows:    Conceptualization – Ideas; formulation or evolution of the general objectives and goals of the research.

• Data curation – Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), cleanse data, and maintain research data (including software code, where necessary to interpret the data itself) for initial use and subsequent reuse.
• Formal analysis – Application of statistical, mathematical, computational or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
• Funding Acquisition – Acquiring financial support for the project leading to this publication.
• Research – Conducting an investigation and research process, specifically conducting experiments, or collecting data/evidence.
• Methodology – Development or design of the methodology; model creation.
• Project administration – Responsibility for management and coordination of the planning and execution of the research activity.
• Resources – Supply of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources or other analysis tools.
• Software – Programming, software development; computer program design; implementation of computer code and supporting algorithms; Test existing code components.
• Supervision – Supervisory and leadership responsibility in the planning and execution of research activities, including external mentoring to the core team.
• Validation – Verification, either as part of the activity or separately, of the overall replicability/reproduction of the results/experiments and other research products.
• Visualization – Preparation, creation and/or presentation of published work, specifically the visualization/presentation of data.
• Writing – original draft – Preparation, creation and/or presentation of published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).
• Writing – review and editing – Preparation, creation and/or presentation of published work by members of the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or review – including pre- or post-publication stages.