Editorial Ethics and Research Integrity Policy

MENTOR Revista de Investigación Educativa y Deportiva promotes integrity, transparency, accountability, and ethical rigor throughout all stages of the editorial and publication process.

Authors, reviewers, editors, and all other participants in the publication process must act in accordance with principles of scientific honesty, editorial independence, confidentiality, respect for intellectual property, transparency, and accountability.

MENTOR draws on the good practices and guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and applies its policies according to the multidisciplinary nature of the journal in Education and Educational Sciences; Physical Activity, Exercise and Sport; and Health Sciences.

Principles of Editorial Integrity

Editorial decisions are based on scientific quality, relevance, originality, methodological or argumentative rigor, academic contribution, and compliance with MENTOR’s editorial and ethical policies.

Decisions are not influenced by authors’ nationality, origin, gender, institutional affiliation, beliefs, personal views, or other characteristics unrelated to the scientific assessment of the manuscript.

Receipt of a manuscript, referral for peer review, or favorable reviewer reports do not guarantee acceptance for publication.

Journal funding, institutional interests, and commercial relationships must not interfere with editorial decisions.

Responsibilities of Authors

Authors must submit original, unpublished work prepared in accordance with principles of research integrity.

Data, results, arguments, images, tables, and other elements included in a manuscript must be presented honestly and without fabrication, falsification, inappropriate manipulation, or deliberate distortion.

Sources must be appropriately acknowledged. Authors must avoid plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, substantial undisclosed reuse of previously published work, and any other practice contrary to academic integrity.

Every individual listed as an author must meet the criteria established in MENTOR’s Authorship and Contributorship Policy and accept responsibility for their own contributions.

For works with more than one author, contributions must be declared using the CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy.

Authors must disclose funding sources, competing interests, and ethical information applicable to the research.

When an author identifies a significant error in a submitted manuscript or published article, the author must promptly inform the editorial team and cooperate in the actions necessary to correct the scholarly record.

Originality and Manuscript Integrity

Manuscripts must not have been previously published or be simultaneously under consideration by another journal or publication outlet.

MENTOR conducts similarity screening during the initial editorial assessment in accordance with its Similarity and Plagiarism Detection Policy.

Textual matches do not automatically constitute plagiarism. Results obtained through automated tools are assessed by the editorial team before any decision is made.

Potential cases of plagiarism, undisclosed reuse, duplicate or redundant publication, fabrication, falsification, citation manipulation, or other integrity concerns will be assessed in accordance with MENTOR’s policies and, where appropriate, COPE guidance.

Fabrication, Falsification, and Data Manipulation

MENTOR considers practices such as fabrication of nonexistent data or results, deliberate alteration of information, unjustified exclusion of data intended to produce misleading conclusions, and inappropriate manipulation of images, results, or materials to be contrary to research integrity.

Legitimate modifications made to present or visualize information must preserve the meaning and integrity of the original data.

Where justified concerns arise regarding the integrity of information presented, the editorial team may request explanations, methodological documentation, supporting data, or other materials required to assess the matter, subject to applicable ethical, legal, and confidentiality obligations.

Citation Manipulation

MENTOR does not permit practices intended to artificially increase citations to authors, articles, journals, editorial team members, or other publications.

References must be selected on the basis of their scientific relevance and relationship to the content of the manuscript.

Authors will not be required to add citations that are not academically justified.

Self-citations are permitted when relevant and necessary to the development of the work. MENTOR does not establish a predetermined maximum number of self-citations.

Authorship and Contributions

Authorship must reflect the actual participation of individuals who made substantial contributions to the work.

MENTOR does not permit honorary, guest, symbolic, or ghost authorship.

Authors’ contributions must be declared in accordance with MENTOR’s Authorship and Contributorship Policy.

Authorship disputes must be handled through transparent procedures. Where appropriate, MENTOR may request the involvement of the institutions with which the individuals concerned are affiliated.

Ethics in Research Involving Human Participants

Research involving human participants must comply with the ethical, institutional, and legal requirements applicable to the study type, discipline, and jurisdiction in which the research was conducted.

Where applicable, manuscripts must report approval by an ethics committee or other competent body, including the name of the institution and approval number or code where available.

Where research has been determined to be exempt from ethical review under applicable requirements, authors must report this and, where appropriate, explain the basis for the exemption.

Authors must report informed consent where applicable and describe measures taken to protect participant privacy, confidentiality, anonymity, and personal data.

Studies involving children, adolescents, or other populations requiring additional protections must follow the consent, assent, and legal authorization procedures applicable to the nature of the research and relevant requirements.

MENTOR may request documentation supporting authors’ ethical declarations.

Medical Research Involving Human Participants

Medical or health research involving human participants must comply, where applicable, with the principles of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki in its current version, as well as other relevant ethical, legal, and institutional requirements.

Authors must report ethical approval, informed consent, and other relevant requirements according to the nature of the study.

Approval by an ethics committee does not exempt researchers from other applicable ethical, regulatory, or registration requirements.

Clinical Trials and Health Intervention Research

Clinical trials and other prospective studies that assign participants to health-related interventions must comply with applicable ethical, regulatory, and registration requirements.

Where applicable, authors must report approval by the relevant ethics committee or competent authority, informed consent, funding sources, and public registration of the study.

Clinical trials must be prospectively registered in a recognized public registry before or at the time of first participant consent, in accordance with the current recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

MENTOR recognizes primary registries included in the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) and ClinicalTrials.gov, in accordance with applicable criteria.

The registry name and registration number must be included in the manuscript.

Ethics approval does not replace prospective registration where such registration is applicable.

Research Involving Animals

Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional, national, and international standards governing animal welfare, care, and ethical use in research.

Where applicable, approval from the relevant committee or competent authority and its reference number must be reported.

Authors must describe measures taken to minimize suffering and ensure ethically appropriate treatment of animals used in the research.

Consent for Publication and Privacy Protection

Where an article contains information, images, photographs, recordings, clinical cases, or other data through which an individual may be identified, authors must obtain the appropriate permission for publication where required.

Identifying information that is not scientifically necessary must be removed or appropriately protected.

Consent to participate in research should not automatically be considered equivalent to consent to publish identifiable information.

Data, Transparency, and Reproducibility

Authors must describe their methods, procedures, sources, and analytical processes with a level of transparency appropriate to the design and type of research conducted.

Where relevant and ethically and legally possible, MENTOR encourages the availability of data, materials, instruments, code, and other resources that support research transparency, verification, and reproducibility.

Availability of such materials must respect confidentiality, personal-data protection, participant consent, intellectual property, institutional agreements, and other legitimate restrictions.

Where limitations prevent data sharing, these should be explained where relevant.

Competing Interests

Authors, reviewers, editors, and other individuals involved in the editorial process must disclose any actual, potential, or perceived competing interest that could compromise or reasonably be perceived as compromising their independence or objectivity.

Competing interests may include financial, employment, academic, professional, institutional, personal, or competitive relationships.

The existence of a competing interest does not necessarily imply misconduct, but it must be disclosed so that the editorial team can take appropriate measures to protect the independence of the process.

Authors must explicitly state when no competing interests exist.

Funding

Authors must disclose all funding sources related to the research or preparation of the manuscript.

Where no external funding was received, this must be explicitly stated.

Funding must not influence interpretation of the results or limit the scientific independence of the authors.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers must accept only manuscripts for which they have the expertise required to provide an appropriate assessment within the agreed timeframe.

Reviews must be objective, evidence-based, respectful, and intended to improve the scientific quality of the manuscript.

Reviewers must maintain strict confidentiality regarding manuscripts and any information obtained during the review process.

They must not use unpublished data, ideas, arguments, or materials obtained through peer review for their own benefit or that of third parties.

Before accepting a review assignment, reviewers must disclose any actual, potential, or perceived competing interest.

Reviewers may report potential integrity concerns identified during their assessment but are not responsible for making a final determination of misconduct.

They must not upload manuscripts, excerpts, data, or unpublished information to unauthorized external services or public generative artificial intelligence tools.

Responsibilities of the Editorial Team

The editorial team must ensure impartial, confidential, independent, and evidence-based evaluation of manuscripts.

Editors must protect manuscript confidentiality and use information obtained through the editorial process solely for journal-related purposes.

Editors with a competing interest relating to a manuscript must not participate in its evaluation or decision and must transfer responsibility to another competent and independent editor.

The Editor-in-Chief or the responsible editor designated by MENTOR makes the final editorial decision, taking into account reviewer reports, authors’ responses, and compliance with the journal’s editorial and ethical policies.

Editorial Independence

Decisions to accept, revise, or reject manuscripts are the responsibility of the competent editorial team and must remain independent of financial, commercial, institutional, or personal interests.

MENTOR’s publishing organization and funding sources must not intervene in decisions concerning individual manuscripts.

Allegations and Management of Potential Misconduct

MENTOR will assess any reasonably substantiated allegation concerning potential research or publication misconduct in an impartial, confidential, and documented manner.

Such matters may include plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, inappropriate manipulation of images or results, duplicate or redundant publication, citation manipulation, authorship irregularities, undisclosed competing interests, ethical violations, peer-review manipulation, inappropriate use of artificial intelligence, and other practices that may affect the reliability or integrity of the scholarly record.

Textual similarity and potential plagiarism cases will be handled specifically in accordance with MENTOR’s Similarity and Plagiarism Detection Policy.

Initial Assessment

When the editorial team receives an allegation or identifies a potential integrity concern, it will conduct a preliminary assessment of the available information to determine whether there are sufficient grounds for further examination.

The existence of an allegation will not in itself be considered evidence of misconduct.

MENTOR will seek to distinguish honest error, differences in interpretation, and potential deliberate misconduct.

Request for Information

Where necessary, the Editor-in-Chief or responsible editor may request explanations, methodological documentation, supporting data, ethics approvals, authorship and contribution statements, or other relevant information from the individuals concerned.

Individuals involved will be given an opportunity to respond to substantive concerns affecting them and to provide information or evidence before an editorial decision is made, unless legal or exceptional circumstances prevent this.

Advice and External Investigation

Where a matter requires specialized expertise or exceeds the journal’s capacity to investigate, the Editor-in-Chief or responsible editor may seek advice from the Ethics Committee Coordinator, other Ethics Committee members, independent specialists, or relevant institutions.

MENTOR’s Ethics Committee serves in an advisory capacity and does not replace the editorial responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief or responsible editor.

Where there are reasonable indications of potential misconduct requiring institutional investigation, MENTOR may refer the matter to the relevant institution and cooperate with its procedures.

MENTOR may use relevant guidance and flowcharts from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Editorial Decisions and Actions

Actions will depend on the nature of the case, the available evidence, the seriousness of the matter, and the stage of the editorial process.

Where appropriate, MENTOR may request clarification or correction; request additional documentation; temporarily suspend evaluation while a matter is clarified; reject a manuscript where sufficient editorial or ethical grounds exist; refer a matter to the relevant institution where justified; or implement corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, or other post-publication actions in accordance with the journal’s policies.

Actions will not be imposed automatically merely because an allegation has been made and must be based on the information and evidence available.

Post-Publication Cases

Where potential misconduct is identified after publication, MENTOR will assess whether a correction, erratum, expression of concern, retraction, or other action is required.

Such action will be taken in accordance with MENTOR’s Corrections, Retractions, and Post-Publication Updates Policy.

Complete removal of an article will be reserved for the exceptional circumstances established in that policy.

Confidentiality and Documentation

Information concerning allegations of potential misconduct will be treated confidentially and shared only with individuals, institutions, or authorities whose participation is necessary to assess or resolve the matter.

MENTOR will retain relevant documentation of the procedure in accordance with its editorial, legal, and data-protection obligations.

Complaints and Appeals

Authors and other interested parties may submit reasoned complaints or appeals concerning editorial decisions, peer-review procedures, integrity matters, editorial conduct, or other aspects of the publication process.

Appeals must clearly explain the grounds for reconsideration and include relevant evidence where applicable.

An appeal does not automatically result in a new review or reversal of the original decision.

Where necessary, an additional reviewer or independent expert may be asked to provide an assessment.

Complaints or appeals directly involving the person responsible for the contested decision will, where possible, be handled by another independent person within the editorial structure.

Communications may be sent to rjposso@revistamentor.ec.

Corrections, Retractions, and Other Post-Publication Actions

MENTOR may publish corrections, errata, expressions of concern, retractions, or other post-publication notices when necessary to preserve the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record.

Actions will depend on the nature and seriousness of the issue and will be implemented in accordance with MENTOR’s Corrections, Retractions, and Post-Publication Updates Policy and, where appropriate, COPE guidance.

Retracted articles will remain available whenever legal, ethical, and safety circumstances permit and will be clearly identified as retracted.

Complete removal of an article will be an exceptional measure.

Post-Publication Discussion

MENTOR may receive reasoned comments concerning published articles.

Where a comment raises a substantive scientific or ethical issue, the editorial team may request a response from the authors and assess whether a clarification, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other editorial action is required.

Communications must be respectful and supported by verifiable arguments or evidence.

Intellectual Property

Authors retain copyright in their work and grant MENTOR the right of first publication in accordance with the journal’s Copyright and Licensing Policy.

Submission or publication of a manuscript does not involve transfer of copyright to MENTOR.

Published articles are distributed under the Creative Commons license established by the journal.

Authors must ensure that they have obtained the permissions required to use protected third-party materials where such permissions are necessary.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

The use of artificial intelligence tools and other automated systems must comply with MENTOR’s Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence and Automated Tools.

Authors must disclose substantive uses of generative artificial intelligence in accordance with that policy and remain fully responsible for submitted content.

Artificial intelligence tools cannot be credited as authors or substitute for authors’ intellectual responsibility.

Reviewers and editors must not use public generative artificial intelligence tools to generate manuscript assessments or editorial decisions or upload manuscripts, data, or confidential information to such systems.

Declaration of Originality, Authorship, and Responsibility

As part of the submission process, all authors must complete MENTOR’s Declaration of Originality, Authorship, and Responsibility.

The declaration records matters concerning originality, authorship and contributions, funding, competing interests, research ethics, use of artificial intelligence, copyright, and acceptance of the journal’s editorial policies.

The document is available at:

Declaration of Originality, Authorship, and Responsibility

Signing this declaration does not transfer copyright to MENTOR.