Ethical standards

Declaration of ethics

REVISTA DE URBANISMO adheres to a code of ethics and good practice for the publicaction of its articles. Revista REVISTA DE URBANISMO adheres to the code of ethics set out in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

This implies having an editorial team, an editorial committee and a board of reviewers that are highly qualified and experienced, in order to ensure the compliance of the guidelines of ethics and good practice. All the relevant information regarding institutional affiliation, academic degrees and ORCID are available on the web site www.revistaurbanismo.uchile.cl; thus ensuring compliance with the declared ethical standards.

Responsibilities of the editorial team

The editorial team is in charge of enforcing the application of these general guidelines for publication, as well as overseeing the evaluation process. It is the editors’ responsibility to ensure that the material being published is of relevance to the overall scope of this journal, that all the manuscripts are compliant with the formatting guidelines, and that the diversity in points of view and perspectives being published are disciplinary sound and adequate in the context of a respectful academic discussion.

The editors are responsible of ensuring compliance with the ethical standards and legal dispositions, including, but not limited to, those related to plagiarism, authorship and defamation.

The editors are responsible of ensuring that the evaluation process is double blind. Al the information from authors and peer reviewers, as well as sensible data included in manuscripts and evaluation reports, has to remain confidential until the material is published.

All unpublished material cannot be used by the editors without explicit consent from the authors.

Likewise, members of the team of editors are not authorised to use any information from manuscripts and/or evaluation reports, for personal benefit. If there is a conflict of interest between a member of the team of editors and an author and/or evaluator, the editorial task will be transferred to another member of the team.

The team of editors will respond to any ethical conflict derived from either published articles or complaints regarding published articles, in order to safeguard the reputation of the journal and authors, as well as to ensure the relevance of the published material.

Material submitted to REVISTA DE URBANISMO will be assessed and sent to peer review, regardless of the ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, creed, nationality and ideological position of the authors.

Responsibilities of the authors

By submitting a manuscript to REVISTA DE URBANISMO, authors accept these ethics guidelines for publication, and declare that the material being submitted is original and is not under consideration for other publications.

Authors must guarantee that all secondary source material included in their manuscripts is adequately referenced. Plagiarism, in any of its possible forms, will not be tolerated by the team of editors.

If a manuscript is presented by multiple authors, a significant contribution by all of them has to be ensured. It is responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that all authors agree on the version of the manuscript being final.

In the case of private or sensible data being used as part of a submitted article, explicit consent from the owner of said information is required. The corresponding author will be held responsible for obtaining explicit authorisations.

It is responsibility of the authors to explicitly mention any supporting institutions when due. Likewise, any commitments that may influence the interpretation of discussion and conclusions must be explicitly stated by the authors.

The authors must explicitly state if there are conflicts of interest of any nature (e.g. financial) that may influence the results and interpretations of their research.

If errors or mistakes are detected by the authors once the manuscript has been published, it is their obligation to inform the editor of Revista de Urbanismo, so the mistake can be disclosed by the journal.

Responsibility of reviewers

All members of the Reviewers Board are academics and professionals in the field of urban studies, with expertise in diverse areas of the discipline, ensuring diversity in terms of gender, origin and institutional affiliation. The reviewers names and ORCID are published on the journal's website www.revistaurbanismo.uchile.cl.

Revieweres are selected and assigned as a reviewer to an article by the editorial team, based on their expertise. However, a reviewer can reject an evaluation, or recommend someone better suited for the task, if they see that the material submitted to them is not within their area of specialisation. Reviewers also have to reject the revision of an article, if they find any conflict of interest that may affect their objectivity in the evaluation process. 

Reviewers must ensure that the content of manuscripts under review is kept under strict confidentiality, thus, it cannot be discussed or disclosed to third parties.

In order to ensure a timely development of the review process, reviewers must inform the editor if they accept or reject a manuscript as soon as possible.

Reviewers must ensure that the information included in every manuscript is accurate and truthful. If any omission or error is detected, it will be informed on the review report. The same applies if plagiarism of evident similarities to work that has already been published is detected.

Reviewers are not authorised to make use of any information contained in a manuscript under review, unless there is explicit authorisation from the authors. 

All criticism and observations contained in review reports must be presented in a respectful and neutral language, and must be based on reasonable and well documented arguments.

Management of unethical conduct

Identification / detection

• Actions defined as unethical include, but are not limited to, plagiarism and use of false data.
• If unethical actions are detected, they have to be reported immediately to the editor of REVISTA DE URBANISMO.
• An unethical action report must be accompanied with sufficient evidence to allow further investigation.
• Every unethical action report will be taken into consideration. Investigation will be conducted once evidence from all involved parties is gathered, in order to ensure the best possible outcome.

Investigation

• The way in which the investigation is conducted is defined by the editor in chief. The chief editor is entitled to request evidence, as well as to consult with the editorial board and the panel of reviewers if needed.
• It is important that the investigation is conducted in confidentiality.

Communication

• In the event of the detection of unethical action, the author or reviewer has to be immediately notified in writing.
• The notification will include a clear explanation of how the ethical guidelines have been broken.
• If unethical action is detected after the material has been published, the article will be eliminated from Revista de Urbanismo, and a formal communication will be issued. Said document will include a detailed account of the inappropriate conduct being reported.
• If an author is found responsible of unethical conduct, a ban from publishing in Revista de Urbanismo will be issued against him/her.