Ethics Policies and Good Practices
General Principles
Geography adheres to ethical principles aligned with national and international guidelines established by recognized institutional bodies in the academic environment, such as COPE and CNPq. Ethical behavior, integrity in intellectual production, and the dissemination of scientific knowledge are duties of all parties, including authors, editors, and reviewers.
Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
1) Authors are responsible for the manuscripts submitted to Geography, ensuring they are original and unpublished contributions, and cannot be simultaneously under review by another journal.
2) All authors of the manuscript must have effectively participated in its development, data systematization, and writing. Including those who did not contribute to the manuscript is unacceptable, and adding authors after submission is prohibited.
3) Authors must be aware of the journal's norms, licensing, policies, and submission conditions. In established cases, it is the authors' responsibility to provide information about authorship and permissions for published works.
4) The accuracy and correctness of the information provided in the manuscripts, metadata, or bibliographic citations are the responsibility of the authors.
5) Authors must be aware of the deadlines communicated by the scientific committee and expressed on the journal's website, being responsible for following the editorial process through the OJS system or registered email. Disregarding deadlines will result in the work being archived at any stage.
6) Authors must be aware that any improper intellectual appropriation (detected by similarity analysis), inappropriate use of previously published material as if it were new, and other unethical behaviors constituting fraud or misconduct - discussed in the Fraud and Misconduct Policies section - will not be accepted or tolerated, except in cases provided by the journal in the Submissions section, which covers works derived from theses or dissertations. All directly and indirectly used bibliography influencing the writing of the work must be cited, and any undue reproduction of others' ideas or textual paragraphs is considered unethical behavior.
7) Authors must disclose their sources of funding or support provided by institutional bodies.
8) Authors have the right and responsibility to appeal editorial decisions they consider unfair, harmful, or contrary to the academic community's best practices.
9) Relevant information must be communicated in "Comments to the Editor," such as: if the work is derived from a thesis or dissertation; if the submitted work has been partially presented or disclosed at conferences or congresses, etc.
Ethical Responsibilities of the Editorial Committee
1) Editors are responsible for all content published in the Geography journal and must intervene in cases of unethical behavior by authors, reviewers, or even among their peers.
2) Editors are guided by the journal's policies and must ensure the quality of published materials, maintain editorial integrity, freedom of expression, and respect for readers, authors, and reviewers, as well as compliance with legal provisions.
3) Editors must support and ensure transparency in editorial practices, being responsible for justifying decisions at all stages of the editorial process and responding to information requests or raised doubts.
4) Editors cannot intervene or reject submissions based on theoretical and methodological disagreements or political positioning. Editors cannot reverse reviewers' decisions, except in cases related to reviewers' ethical duties.
5) It is the duty of the Geography journal editors to respect the diversity of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or religion of all parties involved, including within the editorial committee and board.
6) Editors must not initiate or continue editorial processes that constitute conflicts of interest. Current editorial committee members are prohibited from submitting and publishing manuscripts in the Geography journal.
7) Editors must safeguard the identity of authors and reviewers, maintaining the confidentiality of manuscripts outside the editorial process.
8) Editors must select reviewers suitable for the scope of submitted manuscripts, ensuring the best possible review process.
9) Editors are responsible for handling fraud and misconduct reports confidentially, and disclosing information about suspected intellectual appropriation identified by high similarity or other unethical behaviors is unacceptable. Confirmed cases will apply appropriate retraction policies.
Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers
1) Reviewers are fully responsible for the reviews they provide to the journal.
2) Under no circumstances may a reviewer impersonate or be represented by another person during the review process, as this constitutes serious misconduct.
3) Reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts and handle documents and information discreetly, not disclosing, passing on, or using them for personal or third-party benefit.
4) Reviewers are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the guidelines and directions in the Geography journal, including the ethics policies described in this section.
5) Reviewers must strive to remain impartial during the review process, declaring to editors any identified potential intellectual, moral, professional, or personal conflicts of interest.
¨6) Reviewers must respect the deadlines indicated by the scientific committee, notifying them whenever they are unable to meet them.
7) Reviewers must respect manuscripts and their authors. Using foul language, insults, and personal attacks will completely disqualify the review.
8) Reviewers can and should report suspected misconduct or fraud. If they identify substantial similarities with other works, duplicated submissions in other journals, compromised data and results, etc., they must contact the Geography journal team to investigate the suspicion. Confidentiality is essential in these cases, and public disclosure of the suspicion by the reviewer is prohibited.
Conflicts of Interest
The Geography journal understands potential conflicts of interest as cases of:
1)Personal relationships between reviewers and authors, e.g., reviewers who participate in the same research group as a particular author, are their supervisors, or have a family relationship.
2) Publicly known relationships of friendship or adversity between reviewers and authors.
3) Conflicting political, moral, intellectual, professional, or religious interests.
4) Authors who are part of the editorial board and committee of the Geography journal.
The editorial committee commits to ethically selecting reviewers for manuscripts submitted by authors, ensuring a reliable editorial process. If a potential conflict of interest is identified, editors will observe ethical policies, and if the conflict is confirmed by the team's evaluation, the editorial process will be interrupted until a new reviewer is selected.
Proceedings in Suspected Cases of Misconduct or Fraud
Suspected cases of misconduct or fraud will be investigated confidentially by the Geography journal's editorial committee, and proceedings will only be given to formal reports accompanied by supporting documents. Anonymous reports without valid substantiation will be disregarded. The identity of whistleblowers will be protected by the journal, and they will be responsible for responding to information requests during the investigation. Reports can be made by editors, when there is substantiated suspicion (e.g., high similarity identified by the journal's software); reviewers, when they suspect unethical behavior in the manuscripts provided for review; or any other reader after manuscript publication.
Formal and substantiated reports will be analyzed by the Editorial Committee. Consequently, the editorial process of manuscripts suspected of ethical infringement will be suspended until the Committee completes its analysis, being entirely halted if misconduct is confirmed.
If misconduct is confirmed, the responsibility of those involved will result in:
a) Suspension of the editorial process or removal of already published articles from the platform;
b) Publication of a retraction for already published and disseminated works.
