Acta Neurologica Colombiana follows the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), in its editorial policy, in a comprehensive manner, regarding the roles and responsibilities of all those involved in the process of research and publication of scientific papers. The framework document of such ICMJE recommendations can be found here: https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/

In the same way, ANC recognizes and adopts the 16 principles of transparency and good practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), so that they are reflected in its editorial and scientific structure, in its technological infrastructure, in its policy, in its contents and in its daily management:

Contents of the journal

Name of the journal. ANC has kept its name since its creation and corresponds to its scope and origin, without any ambiguity.
Website. ANC has its official website on an Open Journal Systems platform and there it provides accurate and up-to-date information on the focus and scope of the journal, its target audience, the types of manuscripts it publishes, its editorial policy and ethical considerations, among other essential aspects of its structure, editorial and scientific processes and procedures.
Editorial schedule or frequency. ANC has a continuous frequency and declares it publicly in its guidelines, and this is reflected in the conformation of its four annual editions.
Preservation. ANC has a data preservation policy, associated with its website, in order to guarantee perennial access to its scientific contents. Also, the journal is part of the PKP PN or preservation project.
Copyright ownership. ANC has an author rights policy that is clearly set out, as to the conditions of the authoritative and co-authoring for the journal and the entitlement of the rights holder on the approved manuscripts.
Licensing. The journal uses Creative Commons licenses to protect works published in open access. These licenses are reflected both in the editorial policy and in the final, edited versions of published articles.

Publishing practices

Publication ethics and related practices. ANC has an exclusive section dedicated to publication ethics and follows COPE recommendations and best practices for the treatment of cases.
Peer review. ANC has a detailed description of how it performs its manuscript evaluation process, in its different stages, and in accordance with the conditions of the "double blind" system. The details of ANC's evaluation process can be found here: https://actaneurologica.com/index.php/anc/review
Access. ANC publishes its contents in immediate open access, through a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial and non-derivative (BY-NC-ND) license.

Organization

Editorial and management of the journal. ANC was created by the Colombian Association of Neurology and to date, is sponsored entirely by this association. The link between the journal and the association is clear on the website.
Editorial and scientific committee. The information of the editors and members of the editorial and scientific committee of ANC is public and is linked to the ORCIDs or resumes of each researcher. All members of the editorial structure have joined of their own free will and their permanence there depends on their active role as researchers and their availability of time to contribute to the journal's processes.
Editorial team and contact. The contact and editorial team information of the journal is complete and clear on the website.

Business Model

Publishing fees. ANC does not charge its authors either for submission or for publication; the process is completely free of charge. The open access model that follows is the "Diamond" model, that is, the journal is fully subsidized by the Colombian Association of Neurology.
Other income. The journal's income comes, in its entirety, from the Colombian Association of Neurology.
Advertising. ANC publishes advertising in its printed or digital version at the request of the Colombian Association of Neurology. However, advertisers do not have any type of relationship or interference with the scientific and editorial process of the journal, nor does the journal have any commercial interests (income from advertising is received directly by the Association since the journal is not constituted as a business unit).
Direct marketing. Since the journal operates under a subsidized open access model, without charging for publication, it has no commercial interest in the publication of manuscripts or in the invitation of authors. The dissemination of the journal's calls for papers for its regular or thematic issues is done in order to reach the scientific community in the area.

Ethical considerations for authors

Authorship. It is very important for the journal that authors have clarity on the conditions to define what an author or co-author of a manuscript is. For this purpose, the journal uses the four ICMJE criteria to establish who is an author:

An author is one who:

1. Has made substantive contributions to the conception or design of a paper or to the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of its data.
2. Has written the draft of the work, has critically reviewed it, and has contributed essential intellectual content for its composition.
3. Has approved the final version intended for publication.
4. Is recognized as responsible for all the contents of the work, for the accuracy and completeness of each of its parts, and can answer for any questions that may arise in this regard.

In co-authored manuscripts, an author is one who can clearly identify who has made what contributions to the work and who can attest to the transparency of the contributions of his or her other co-authors.

If any of the above criteria is not met, that person or party should not be included as a co-author but as a collaborator, among the acknowledgments of the manuscript.

Author contributions. To determine, without ambiguity, the contributions of each co-author of a manuscript, the journal asks its authors to declare, according to the CRediT taxonomy, who has made what contribution to the paper.

CRediT outlines 14 roles, which can be located here: https://credit.niso.org/

An example of how authors should register their contribution is the following:

Diego Roselli: conceptualization, data curation, research, methodology, supervision, writing (original draft), writing (revising and editing the manuscript); Catalina Cerquera: data curation, research, methodology, visualization, writing (original draft), writing (revising and editing the manuscript); Hernan Bayona: data curation, formal analysis, methodology, project management, software, writing (original draft), writing (revising and editing the manuscript).

Changes in co-authorship. Authors of a manuscript should be aware that changes in the co-authorship of a manuscript are not admissible after submission. Some authors are accustomed to introduce, without consulting the journal, new authors in the corrected version of manuscripts after the peer review process, but such conduct is not correct. The omission or deletion of an author in a revised version of the manuscript is also inappropriate and the journal may suspend the publication process of a manuscript completely if the authors incur in such a fault.

Any type of change in the co-authorship of a manuscript must be duly justified and must be consulted with the journal, and in this, all authors of the manuscript must express their agreement in writing and from their personal mailboxes, countersigning an official communication from the corresponding author, addressed to the editor-in-chief of ANC. The co-author who is being removed or added must also express his or her consent to such action in writing, with a copy to all co-authors. The journal will study these cases thoroughly and it will be a cause for rejection of a manuscript, in any of its phases, if inappropriate behaviors are identified when removing or adding new authors.

Exclusivity in the submission (simultaneous submission). The journal requests from its authors exclusivity in the manuscript submission process. This means that while the manuscript is being evaluated in ANC it cannot have been submitted to another journal before or during the process. Simultaneous submission to another journal will be considered an ethical misconduct, potentially violating the originality and copyright of the manuscript. If the manuscript is rejected, the journal will "free" the manuscript to be submitted to another medium, if the authors deem it possible.

Complaints and replies. Authors may express their objection about any process of the journal that has caused them dissatisfaction or that has allegedly violated the normal course of evaluation or publication of a manuscript.

Also, authors may send a reply if they disagree with a final decision of the journal regarding the non-publication of a manuscript. Such communications should be sent to the official mailbox of the journal, addressed to the editor-in-chief.

Suspected misconduct

If a reviewer identifies any type of unethical conduct in a manuscript (fabrication of data, manipulation of results, recycling of texts, among others) that is under review, he/she should immediately inform the editor-in-chief or the associate editor responsible for the process. Likewise, readers who detect any suspicious element of manipulation or misconduct in a published manuscript can report it to the journal's official mailbox so that the necessary inquiries can be made.

Handling of cases

Whenever cases of suspected misconduct or malpractice in a manuscript or its process arise, the journal will use the COPE recommendations and flowcharts to clarify, investigate, resolve, and make decisions to protect the integrity of the journal's processes and procedures and, of course, the reliability of its contents. The flowcharts for the treatment of cases can be read here: https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts

Corrections and retractions

The journal will issue a correction when a manuscript has been published with an unintentional, minor error that may lead to misunderstandings but does not affect the results or contributions of the paper. An example of this would be an error in the name or information of an author, an error in the title of a table or figure, the omission of a final statement of the article (acknowledgements, author contributions, conflicts of interest), among others. When the situation warrants it, the journal will declare the correction, publishing it online and will make the pertinent correction in the manuscript.

Retractions, on the other hand, will be made when a serious fault is evidenced in a manuscript already published: plagiarism, data fabrication, redundant or recycled publication, erroneous or fraudulent co-authorships, research that violates ethical protocols or violations to the peer review process. In these cases, the journal will publish a retraction note on the article, explaining the reasons, and will restrict access to its full text.