Good Practices and Code of Ethics

Ethics Statement

MENTOR Journal of Educational and Sports Research adheres to international standards of editorial integrity and ethics in scientific publishing, in accordance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

All authors, reviewers, and editors must comply with high ethical standards, which include:

  • Originality of the manuscript and absence of duplicate publication.

  • Transparency in the collection, analysis, and presentation of data.

  • Declaration of informed consent, ethics committee approval, and protection of anonymity in research involving human participants.

  • Disclosure of conflicts of interest by authors, reviewers, and editors.

  • Peer review conducted under a double-blind system.

  • Investigation and resolution of misconduct in accordance with COPE guidelines.

 

Ethical Practices in the Journal

For MENTOR Revista de Investigación Educativa y Deportiva, it is essential to guarantee ethics in each of its published articles. Therefore, the entire editorial team, reviewers, and authors act according to good practice regulations to ensure the integrity of all publications. The journal adheres to the guidelines and international standards for editors and authors from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Below are the misconduct behaviors:

Violations

  • Falsification or fabrication of information: Manipulation of results, omission of results, or use of false information can lead to incorrect interpretations.
  • Plagiarism: Occurs when an author takes information from another source and presents it as their own or fails to correctly cite the original author.
  • Citation manipulation: Involves modifying the publication date of the information and altering fragments that may lead to incorrect interpretations.
  • Violation of privacy: Revealing the name or face of those who contributed to the research without consent.
  • Repeated publications: Using strategies such as changing the title, modifying part of the article body, changing the article language, among others.

The editorial board of MENTOR Revista de Investigación Educativa y Deportiva will verify the manuscript using various platforms to check for similarities with published texts or any other element that may breach ethical practices and tarnish the potential publication.

If necessary, the author(s) will be notified to make corrections and given the opportunity to submit a new version. Otherwise, the author will be informed of the non-acceptance verdict through the OJS system, according to the similarity or plagiarism detection policies.

Principles for Identifying and Preventing Misconduct

  • Under no circumstances will the members of the editorial and scientific committees knowingly promote or allow any form of misconduct.
  • The editorial and international scientific committee members will strive to prevent misconduct by educating authors and reviewers about the ethical standards expected of them.
  • Reviewers and committee members must be familiar with all types of inappropriate behavior to detect documents where misconduct has occurred or appears to have occurred. Any complaint will be handled appropriately.
  • In cases of misconduct, the editor will refer the case to the journal's Ethics Committee to resolve the issue, possibly working with the editorial and scientific committee members, expert reviewers, and subject matter experts.
  • The issue must be documented accordingly, including all factual questions such as who, what, when, where, and why. All relevant documents, particularly the articles in question, must be preserved.
  • The journal editor will contact the author, giving them the opportunity to respond or comment on the complaint, allegation, or dispute.
  • If the author(s) have engaged in misconduct, the editorial committee, advised by the Ethics Committee, will handle the cases following COPE's recommendations.
  • Care will be taken to distinguish between honest human error and the deliberate intention to defraud.
  • The editorial board and the Ethics Committee will consider retracting a publication in cases of misconduct or issuing a note in case of inconclusive evidence of misconduct or requesting correction of the false segment.

Authors' Responsibility

  • Articles submitted for publication must be the result of original research and not previously published. They must contain the obtained data and an unbiased analysis of the results. Necessary information should be provided for any expert to replicate the research conducted and verify or question the interpretations presented in the study.
  • Authors must avoid participating in inappropriate scientific conduct and violating ethical publication principles.
  • Authors should communicate their results clearly, honestly, without distortion, or undue data manipulation.
  • Authors are responsible for ensuring the originality of the data and results presented in the work, avoiding any form of copying, invention, distortion, or manipulation.
  • Authors should provide appropriate attribution and recognition, avoiding intentional distortion of the relationship between a scientist and the published work.
  • All authors must have contributed significantly to the research.
  • Authors must inform the editor of any direct or indirect conflict of interest with the editors, editorial team, or international scientific committee members.
  • No significant part of the article should have been previously published as an article or chapter, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere.
  • When an author discovers a significant error in their work, they must inform the journal as soon as possible to modify, withdraw, retract, or publish a correction or errata.
  • If a potential error is detected by any member of the Editorial Committee, the author is obliged to demonstrate that their work is correct.
  • Every research work must be well justified and planned, and must have been correctly designed. The authors commit to presenting validation documents of the study, if required. Depending on the nature of the research, if necessary, the researchers must present documents from a properly constituted ethics committee, certifying the correctness and approval of the study.

Ethics in Research Involving Human Participants

MENTOR Revista de Investigación Educativa y Deportiva requires that all studies involving human participants adhere to internationally recognized ethical principles, such as those established in the Declaration of Helsinki, CIOMS guidelines, and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) standards.

Authors must include in their manuscript a specific section titled “Ethical Considerations”, which must explicitly state:

  • Informed Consent: Confirmation that all participants voluntarily agreed to take part in the study by signing an informed consent form.

  • Ethical Approval: Identification of the institutional or independent ethics committee that approved the study, including the name of the institution and the approval reference number, if applicable.

  • Anonymity and Confidentiality: Assurance that appropriate measures were taken to protect the identity and privacy of participants.

  • Vulnerable Populations: In studies involving children, adolescents, individuals with disabilities, indigenous communities, or other vulnerable groups, consent from the participant (when applicable) and from parents, legal guardians, or authorized representatives is required.

Failure to include this information in research involving human subjects will be subject to editorial scrutiny and may result in rejection of the manuscript.

MENTOR reserves the right to request supporting documentation (such as consent forms or ethics approval certificates) during the peer review process or after publication if deemed necessary.

 

Editors' Responsibility

  • The Editorial Team will remain impartial when evaluating works submitted for publication and will respect the authors' intellectual independence, acknowledging their right to respond in case of a negative evaluation.
  • The Editorial Team must maintain confidentiality about received texts and their content until they have been accepted for publication. Only then can the title and authorship be disclosed.
  • No member of the Editorial Board may use data, arguments, or interpretations from unpublished works for their research without the express written consent of the author(s).
  • The Editorial Board must assign reviewers based on their knowledge area and safeguard the authors' identity to comply with the double-blind principle.

Reviewers' Responsibility

1. Reviewers must be familiar with and consider the editorial policy and the journal's statement of ethics and misconduct.

2. The journal will request that candidate reviewers have relevant scientific or professional experience in the corresponding field. They must have recently conducted relevant research or work and received peer recognition. Candidate reviewers must provide accurate information about their personal and professional background that fairly reflects their experience.

  • Reviewers should only accept manuscripts within their knowledge area.
  • All reviewers must withdraw if they know they are not qualified to evaluate a manuscript, if they believe their evaluation will not be objective, or if they have a conflict of interest.

Appeals and Complaints

  • Appeals related to the outcome of a peer review will consider well-founded arguments presented by the authors. If doubts persist, a new reviewer will be requested to determine the result.
  • For appeals related to plagiarism, the journal will use its detection mechanisms to verify the complaint. The case will be referred to the journal's Ethics Committee, and if necessary, the opinion of an external expert will be considered. All situations will be resolved according to the corresponding institutional, national, and international regulations.
  • Complaints related to the conduct of the journal's editorial or technical team members will be addressed by the journal's Ethics Committee if this is not possible or appropriate.
  • The person reporting the complaint should send an email to the address of Mentor- Revista de Investigación Educativa y Deportiva: rjposso@revistamentor.ec presenting their arguments clearly and attaching evidence.

Conflicts of Interest

  • Mentor- Revista de Investigación Educativa y Deportiva promotes that authors declare any conflict of interest as a sign of transparency. Personal relationships, employment relationships, funding, or support, etc., must be identified by the authors.
  • Authors, reviewers, editorial board members, and the journal's technical team must declare any conflict of interest that may compromise the impartiality or objectivity of their functions in the publication. Authors must do so when submitting their work, while reviewers must inform the Editor if they receive a review request or if they identify any factor that may influence the outcome, so they can be replaced by another reviewer.
  • If a conflict of interest is detected in a published document, the authors will be asked to explain the situation, and necessary clarifications will be incorporated into the document information.

Declaration of Originality

  • Authors must complete and sign the Declaration of Originality, rights assignment, and author data form, and declare each author's contribution if the article is collective. The Editorial Board of rjposso@revistamentor.ec commits to respecting the order in which the authors appear in the manuscript.

Other Information

  • Mentor- Revista de Investigación Educativa y Deportiva assumes that under no circumstances will it reveal the authorship of a document to any reviewer or vice versa, thus fulfilling our double-blind arbitration regulations and the editorial standards regarding this.

REFERENCES

  • Code of ethics and good practices. Revista Electrónica Educare Costa Rica.
  • International regulations: Best practice guidelines for journal editors and International standards for editors and authors by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Visit: http://publicationethics.org/about.
  • Revista EDUCARE - UPEL-IPB - Segunda Nueva Etapa 2.0