Ethic code

The Editorial Board of E-Balonmano.com: Journal of Sports Sciences, commits to:

·       Ensure the scientific quality of the journal by seeking the highest quality in the works selected for publication.

·       Avoid bad practices in publishing research results. For this, we commit to:

-     Maintain impartiality in the evaluation of the sent articles, prevailing the scientific merit and the suitability of the contents.

-     Do not discriminate any article for reasons of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, nationality, or political opinion of the authors.

-     Maintain confidentiality in the review process of the received articles; to do this, a double-blind peer review process will be used, maintaining the anonymity of the people involved.

·       Select external reviewers specialized in the field of study of the article under evaluation, maintaining the double-blind procedure at all times. In the event of a discrepancy between the EBM-J Sport Sci reviewers, they may seek another specialized external opinion in order to have more information to make a fair and realistic decision. EBM-J Sport Sci publishes recommendations to the reviewers so that they can carry out their work transparently.

·       Fight plagiarism from other jobs. The journal may use an anti-plagiarism tool, when it considered necessary, to detect bad practices in the authors.

·       The editors agree not to use information related to the reviewed works in their research, nor to disclose information from the review process without the consent of the authors and reviewers.

·       Editors should ensure that published research is carried out in accordance with international guidelines regarding dealing with humans and animals, as appropriate (e.g., Declaration of Helsinki, Data Protection Act ...). Editors must ensure that research has been endorsed by the Research Ethics Committee of a competent institution (university, hospital ...).

·       Manage the edition of the works received in a reasonable time. For this, we commit ourselves to follow up the deadlines indicated to the reviewers and in the communication of the Editors with the authors.

-     Editors agree to estimate or reject an article within a maximum period of thirty days from receipt on the platform.

-     The editors commit, for those articles that go through peer review, to issue a report within a period not exceeding 90 days. If there is a problem during the evaluation, the editors will contact the authors before the end of the established term.

·       Editors must investigate and act if they suspect that misconduct has occurred or if they receive a report of misconduct about articles received by the magazine.

·       E-Bm.com: Sports Science Magazine and its editors are inspired by the COPE code of conduct: https://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct

Reviewers agree to accept the review when there is no conflict of interest and to honestly carry out a critical and constructive review of the manuscript’s quality.

The ACCEPTANCE OF THE REVIEW is subject to:

1.     Availability of time to complete it within the indicated deadline.

2.     Knowledge and specialization in the study topic to review.

3.     Conflict of interest:

-     The reviewers do not know the authorship of the manuscript that they are going to evaluate.

-     Editors send articles without identifying marks, but it is possible that the reviewer could know the authorship in other ways; if so, we ask that you reject the Review and inform the editor of this circumstance.

4.     Response time: Reviewers agree to realise and send the Review within a maximum period of four weeks. Meeting the deadlines is a gesture of rigour and professional courtesy with the authors, something that all authors appreciate

The REVIEW OF THE MANUSCRIPT:

1.     Confidentiality: The assigned articles must be treated confidentially. Editors and reviewers agree not to use information regarding the reviewed papers in their research, nor to disclose information from the review process without the consent of the authors and reviewers.

2.     Manuscript analysis: Reviewers will analyse the article critically and constructively, committing themselves to evaluate all sections of the article.

It is recommended to assess whether the studies include a sex and/or gender-disaggregated analysis and whether they address its relevance in the research design, results, discussion, and limitations.

3.     Evaluations: The reviewers will provide a reasoned evaluation of their opinions, suggestions and decisions. Comments and suggestions to the manuscript will be made honestly, from constructive criticism, with correction and respect towards the authors.

4.     Decision-making: Once the report is completed, an objective assessment will be made: Accepted, Minor revisions, Major revisions, or rejected.

The authors commit themselves to the following ethical considerations:

·         The content of the paper must be original and unpublished.

·         AI tools cannot be listed as an author of a paper (COPE position).

·         “Authors should report the use of artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies to create content or assist with writing or editing of manuscripts in the Acknowledgment section or the Methods section if this is part of formal research design or methods” (Flanagin et al. 2023. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.1344).

·         Authors have not previously published or submitted the manuscript for evaluation in another journal.

·         Authorship should be limited to those authors who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, writing, or interpretation of the reported study.

·         Authors must ensure that no plagiarism and self-plagiarism has been used in their work (reuse of other published works).

·         Texts with content that promote some type of discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or nationality are not published. The journal is not responsible for the opinions of the authors or readers.

·         When the study design requires it, the authors should obtain the consent of the patients or participants prior to the start of the study, in addition to having been positively evaluated by an ethics committee from an authorized institution.

·         Authors declare and acknowledge the financial support for the project that led to this publication.