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 website 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:
- 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.
Ethical Oversight, Human and Animal Research, and Informed Consent Requirements
All research submitted to the journal that involves human participants, identifiable personal data, or human biological materials must have been previously reviewed and authorized by a duly constituted ethics committee or institutional review board. Authors are required to explicitly state the name of the approving body and provide the corresponding approval identifier, where applicable. Such research must have been conducted in accordance with internationally accepted ethical principles governing biomedical research, including the Declaration of Helsinki, as well as the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and the ethical standards promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics. In all cases, authors must confirm that voluntary, informed consent was obtained from participants or their legal representatives prior to their inclusion. When submitting case reports or case series, authors must additionally certify that explicit consent for publication was obtained, ensuring that no identifying information compromises patient confidentiality.
Studies involving animals or other non-human living organisms must likewise demonstrate prior evaluation and approval by an appropriate ethics oversight body. Authors must declare adherence to recognized standards for the ethical care and use of animals in research and ensure that all procedures minimized suffering and were scientifically justified. Submission of documentary evidence of ethics approval and informed consent is mandatory at the time of manuscript submission. Manuscripts that do not include these supporting documents will not be considered for review.
Final Statements of Manuscripts
In order to promote transparency and ethics, bioethics, and scientific integrity, all articles published by the journal must include six mandatory final statements, with some specific considerations.
The sections corresponding to each statement are as follows:
Author Contributions (Not required for single-author manuscripts)
For co-authored articles, authors must declare the specific contribution made by each author to the manuscript, in accordance with the 14 roles defined by the CRediT taxonomy:
An example of how authors should report their contributions is as follows:
Diego Roselli: conceptualization, data curation, investigation, methodology, supervision, writing (original draft), writing (review and editing); Catalina Cerquera: data curation, investigation, methodology, visualization, writing (original draft), writing (review and editing); Hernán Bayona: data curation, formal analysis, methodology, project administration, software, writing (original draft), writing (review and editing).
This section is optional only in the case of single-author manuscripts.
Ethical Implications
Authors must declare whether the manuscript involves any ethical implications, including:
- whether it received approval from an ethics committee
- whether it was registered as a clinical study in relevant databases
- whether informed consent was required
- whether mandatory methodological guidelines were followed in the preparation of the manuscript (CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, CARE, or others indicated by the EQUATOR Network)
- whether informed consent from patients is available (particularly in case reports or depending on the type of study)
If ethical considerations are related to the research methodology, they must be stated in this final section and also clearly specified in the Methods section of the manuscript.
Funding
Authors must declare whether they received funding for the research, writing, or publication of the manuscript, and from which source or organization.
If no funding was received, this must be explicitly stated.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors must declare any conflicts of interest individually, in accordance with the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.
If no conflicts exist, this must be explicitly stated.
Editorial Independence
In the case of manuscripts submitted by editors or members of the journal’s Editorial or Scientific Board, the process will be handled independently and exclusively by the technical team of the Editorial Coordination. Editorial independence will be preserved at all stages of the evaluation process, maintaining the conditions of the double-blind peer review system.
Editors and members of the journal’s editorial structure are required to declare their role in the journal and must refrain from influencing or participating in the evaluation of their own manuscripts.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Authors must declare whether or not they used artificial intelligence (AI) in the preparation of their manuscript. If AI tools were used, authors must specify which tool was employed and how it was used.
If no AI was used, the statement should read:
“The authors declare that no artificial intelligence was used in the preparation or writing of this article (original article, review, case report, consensus, or as applicable).”
Data Availability Statement
Authors must declare whether the article includes open data published in a data repository or available through other means (e.g., Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad), and provide the corresponding DOI or URL if applicable.
If no data are available, authors may declare:
“The authors declare that no data are available in open-access repositories. For any inquiries or requests related to the article, the corresponding author should be contacted.”
Acknowledgments (Optional)
If authors wish, they may include acknowledgments to third parties who contributed to the research or to the writing, publication, or review of the manuscript. This is the only optional section.
All these statements must be included in the submission form, in the checklist, and in the original manuscript submitted for peer review. Only the Ethical Implications and AI Use statements should be included in the anonymized version of the manuscript, avoiding any information that could reveal the identity or institutional affiliation of the authors.
Once the article is accepted (if accepted), the full set of final statements will be included in the published version.
Methodological Guidelines (EQUATOR Network)
In order to ensure scientific integrity and the quality of all manuscripts published by Acta Neurológica Colombiana, authors must consult and apply the appropriate reporting guidelines and checklists according to the type of manuscript (original article, systematic review, case report, among others). The journal, its editors, and reviewers may consult these checklists or request them from authors during the evaluation process:
https://www.equator-network.org/
Additional Requirements for the Submission of Clinical Studies
In order to guarantee transparency, traceability, and quality of clinical studies submitted for publication, the journal requires that all clinical trials be registered in a publicly accessible database prior to the start of data collection.
Manuscripts reporting results of clinical trials must include the study registration number and the name of the official registry in which the study was registered. Studies that were not registered or were registered retrospectively will not be accepted, except in duly justified exceptional cases.
Valid registries include, among others:
- gov – United States
- EU Clinical Trials Register – European Union
- ISRCTN Registry – International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number registry
- WHO ICTRP – World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform
The study registration must be aligned with international ethical principles and follow the recommendations of the CONSORT statement, as indicated in the description of original articles accepted by the journal.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The journal accepts the use of AI under two principles: (1) responsibility and (2) transparency.
First, responsibility refers to the fact that the accuracy, reliability, argumentation, analyses, and originality of all content in the article remain exclusively the responsibility of the authors. AI will not be considered a co-author, and no responsibility for errors, omissions, or inaccuracies may be attributed to it.
Second, any use of AI must be declared. The use of AI tools without disclosure to the editors or the Editorial Coordination will be considered a serious ethical breach and grounds for rejection of the manuscript at any stage of the publication process.
In order to protect the originality of manuscripts, the journal’s editors and technical team do not use AI tools for manuscript evaluation.
Similarly, the journal requests that reviewers refrain from using AI tools to evaluate manuscripts. The journal relies on expert reviewers with extensive experience in Neurology and in the specific subject areas of the manuscripts; therefore, editorial expectations are that all evaluations be based on the reviewer’s expertise and scientific judgment, rather than on AI-generated analyses.
Complaints and Appeals
Authors may express concerns regarding any aspect of the editorial process that they consider unsatisfactory or that may have affected the normal course of manuscript evaluation or publication.
Authors may also submit an appeal if they disagree with a final editorial decision regarding the rejection of a manuscript. Such communications must be sent to the journal’s official email address and addressed to the Editor-in-Chief.
Suspected Misconduct
If a reviewer identifies any form of unethical conduct in a manuscript under review (e.g., data fabrication, manipulation of results, text recycling), this must be reported immediately to the Editor-in-Chief or the Associate Editor responsible for the process.
Likewise, readers who detect any potential misconduct in a published manuscript may report it to the journal’s official email address for appropriate investigation.
Handling of Cases
In all cases of suspected misconduct or unethical practices, the journal will follow the recommendations and guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (https://publicationethics.org/guidance) in order to clarify, investigate, resolve, and make decisions, thereby protecting the integrity of the journal’s processes and the reliability of its content.
In cases involving allegations of misconduct or ethical concerns in published articles, the journal will issue an Expression of Concern to inform readers about the issue and the ongoing investigation.
Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern
The journal will issue a correction when a manuscript has been published with a minor, unintentional error that may lead to misunderstanding but does not affect the results or contributions of the work. Examples include errors in author names or affiliations, errors in table or figure titles, or omission of final statements (acknowledgments, author contributions, conflicts of interest), among others. When necessary, the correction will be published online and the manuscript will be amended accordingly.
Retractions will be issued in cases of serious misconduct in a published manuscript, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, redundant publication, incorrect or fraudulent authorship, violations of ethical protocols, or breaches of the peer review process. In such cases, the journal will publish a retraction notice explaining the reasons and will restrict access to the full text.
Finally, when the journal receives a substantiated allegation of potential misconduct or ethical issues related to a published article, it will issue an Expression of Concern to alert readers and inform them about the investigation process, always with the aim of safeguarding ethics, bioethics, and scientific integrity.