Ethical Guidelines and Editorial Policies

The Agronomy Science and Biotechnology (ASB) bases its standards and ethical policies on the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics - COPE (https://publicationethics.org/).

Editorial review and acceptance

The acceptance criteria for all articles are the quality and originality of the research and its importance for the journal's readers. The manuscripts are reviewed by the double-blind system, in which neither the reviewers nor the authors know their identities.

Articles will only be submitted for review if the Editor-in-Chief and / or Deputy Editor determines that the article meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.

Decisions to accept or reject an article for publication should be based only on the article's importance and relevance to the journal's scope, originality and clarity, and especially, robust material and methods.

The entire editorial process, from submission of manuscripts to publication, only takes place via the OJS system.

Publication Ethics

The Agronomy Science and Biotechnology (ASB) bases its editorial policies on the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics - COPE (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines).

ASB values �??�??an initial scientific evaluation of the manuscript, regardless of the author's geographical origin, political-ideological position, religious belief, gender, and ethnic-racial origin.

Manuscripts submitted to ASB will undergo a plagiarism / self-plagiarism detector before peer review, or at any time during the editorial process. To verify similarity with other publications, the editors will use the CopySpider software. Manuscripts with more than 10% similarity to other publications will not be accepted, and these submissions may be rejected at any time during the editorial process.

The articles are available in open access at the journal's electronic address.

Misconduct guidelines

ASB will publish, whenever necessary, errata, retractions and expressions of concern about published material. Any ethical infractions will be carefully analyzed by the Editorial Team.

Examples of misconduct are, but not only, �??slicing�?�, falsifying or fabricating data, copying unauthorized or unreferenced texts. Suspected ethical violations can be reported by anyone at any time, via email editoramecenas@gmail.com

 

Complaints and appeals

Journal ASB is available for any complaints against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher, through the email editoramecenas@gmail.com

Post-publication discussions and corrections

ASB is implementing CrossMark in its system, which allows mechanisms for correcting, revising or retracting articles to be carried out transparently after publication.

Confidentiality policies

By agreeing to the revision of the manuscript for ASB, the reviewers agree to keep the content of the manuscript confidential. As well as, they agree not to pass on or involve other people in the review process.

Ethical policies in research with humans or animals

Journal ASB will only accept submissions with the approval number of the Ethics Committee for studies involving human beings, including studies with questionnaires. Likewise, in the case of studies with experimental animals and/or genetically modified organisms, the authors must include in the declaration, under their full responsibility, that the work is authorized by the Ethics and/or Biosafety Committees and/or the Ethics Committee in Research, along with the approval number.

The name of the Institution / Committee that gave the approval must be included in the Material and Methods section of the manuscript. The authors must also indicate whether the experiments were carried out in accordance with the relevant institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals.

If no ethics approval is required, for example, if the article is a review, this must be stated in the Cover Letter. 

Conflict of interests

The Journal requires all authors to disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise, that may be perceived to influence an author's objectivity and impartiality is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. They must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript.

Editorial Team Publications

Submission of manuscripts by members of the ASB editorial team is permitted. Any and all submissions will be treated independently from the author/editor, who in this case will be treated as an author in the process. The ASB OJS System prevents any participation of authors in the peer review process, ensuring an impartial process in these cases. 

Funding sources

Authors should list all sources of funding in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the designation of their funders.

Authorship

All authors must have contributed to the work, in order to justify their name in the authorship of the manuscript.

Contributions by anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with due permission in the Acknowledgments section.

The Journal requests that the authors' ORCID be sent in the Cover Letter. The ORCID ID can be found at https://orcid.org/

Authors' Responsibility

Authors are fully responsible for the content presented in the manuscript. The authors are responsible for sending the original manuscript, which has not been previously published nor sent simultaneously for publication in another journal.

They must make it clear whether there is a conflict of interest. All authors listed as co-authors are aware of the work and agree with its content, submission, and transfer of the publication rights of the article to ASB.

Authors must explain that they used ethical practices (national and/or international) during the experimentation or conduct of their work, including the opinion of the respective Ethics Committee (when applicable). This information must appear in the manuscript (Material and Methods) making the information transparent.

After the publication of the manuscripts on the ASB website, both authors and ASB have the right to publish the articles and index them in databases.

Editors' Responsibilities

The editors are committed to making efforts to maintain the quality of the journal, its content as well as its ethical guidelines and other standards.

Editors must make fair and impartial decisions, be aware if scientific texts that attack, offend, or hostile any gender, ideological, ethnic-racial, cultural, or environmental positioning. Such cases must be reported to the Editor-in-Chief immediately. They must declare themselves prevented from conducting the editorial process of a manuscript in the event of any conflict of interest.

It is the responsibility of the editors that the editorial process is impartial. Editors have a responsibility to ensure the double-blind review system.

Reviewers' Responsibilities

Reviewers must provide their opinions in a cordial manner, with the intention of collaborating with the authors in improving manuscripts, even if the recommendation is to reject it. They must accept to be referees in manuscripts that are qualified to analyze carefully.

Reviewers should be aware if scientific texts that attack, offend, or hostile any gender, ideological, ethnic-racial, cultural, or environmental positioning. Such cases must be reported to the Editor-in-Chief immediately. Also, report suspected violations and misconduct.

They must make their comments in the text without their name or institution being identified, guaranteeing the double-blind process. As well as they must indicate a potential conflict of interest (or competing interests) of the reviewer in relation to the manuscript.

It is ideal for the reviewer to meet the journal's deadlines, and in case of delays, notify the Section Editor.

It is the reviewer's responsibility to maintain the impartiality and confidentiality of the manuscript's content, as well as not to forward the manuscript to other people.

The reviewers will be included in the journal's annual list of reviewers. 

Retraction policies

Soon, ASB will be implementing CrossMark in its publications.