Policies

The corresponding author is understood to act in good faith on behalf of all the manuscript's authors and accepts shared responsibility for the originality and veracity of the work submitted. The order of authorship must be agreed upon jointly by all co-authors.

The Editorial Committee may request that each author's specific contribution to the work be detailed. Individuals who collaborated on the project but do not meet authorship criteria may be acknowledged, with their consent, in the Acknowledgments section.

The opinions, data, and conclusions expressed in the articles are the sole responsibility of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the journal.

Authors retain full copyright over their work published in the UCSA Journal.

By submitting a manuscript and accepting its publication, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive license to carry out the first publication of the article in any format or medium, recognizing the journal's right to disseminate the work.

The Scientific Journal of UCSA holds the intellectual property rights to the published articles. However, under its Open Access policy, the content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY) license. This allows third parties to share, copy, and redistribute the material in any medium or format, provided the original source is properly cited.

The Scientific Journal of UCSA offers free and permanent access to its content from the moment of publication, reaffirming that the free flow of information is essential for innovation and academic collaboration, allowing the scientific output of the Journal to reach the global research community without restrictions.

Works are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

This license allows third parties to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material), even for commercial purposes, provided appropriate credit is given to the authors and the original source of publication.

To favor the reproducibility of results, the Scientific Journal of UCSA requires authors to declare the availability of their research datasets through one of the following modalities:

a) Open access via repository: depositing the data in recognized institutional or thematic repositories that follow FAIR principles, providing the corresponding link (URL) or DOI at the time of submission; or

b) Availability upon request: stating that the data supporting the study's findings are available upon request from the corresponding author, specifying their name and contact email address.

In the event of ethical or legal limitations that prevent sharing the data under either modality, the corresponding restricted-access protocol must be specified.

To detect plagiarism in submitted works, the journal currently uses PlagScan software.

Authors are required to rigorously comply with the good practices and codes of ethics that govern global scientific communication (e.g., Committee on Publication Ethics). This entails the responsibility of avoiding simultaneous submission to multiple journals, as well as ghost or honorary authorship practices. It is also imperative to guarantee the originality of the work through the absence of plagiarism, integrity in data handling (avoiding any form of manipulation or falsification), and transparent disclosure of conflicts of interest, always ensuring adherence to current research ethics policies.

The editorial team of the Scientific Journal of UCSA guarantees an evaluation process free of conflicts of interest among all parties involved. Manuscripts are evaluated exclusively on their academic rigor and intellectual content, under principles of fairness and non-discrimination. Likewise, external evaluations that place personal judgment above the scientific quality of the work will be disregarded. Both authors and reviewers are required to declare any potential conflict of interest at the start of the process. Should a conflict be detected after publication, the journal will proceed with the appropriate correction, clarification, or retraction, following international ethics protocols.

According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): "AI tools do not meet the criteria for authorship, as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest, nor can they manage copyright and license agreements."

Authors who use AI tools in drafting a manuscript, producing images or graphic elements of the article, or in data collection and analysis, must be transparent in disclosing, in the Materials and Methods section (or similar section) of the article, how and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, including any parts produced by an AI tool, and are therefore responsible for any breach of editorial ethics.

The Scientific Journal of UCSA bases its editorial practice on international guidelines for ethics and transparency to ensure the integrity of scientific output. The editorial team adopts the standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as its main reference framework, along with the guidelines of other organizations of recognized global standing. Authors, researchers, and reviewers are invited to familiarize themselves with these international standards to prevent ethical lapses or technical irregularities that could arise from unfamiliarity with current regulations.

The Scientific Journal of UCSA adheres to the highest standards of academic integrity. Our ethics policy is based on the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The editorial team is committed to ensuring a fair and impartial review process, as well as to acting diligently on any suspicion of malpractice, including plagiarism, data manipulation, or improper authorship. All parties involved (authors, reviewers, and editors) must declare the absence of conflicts of interest and ensure transparency in the handling of scientific information.

The Scientific Journal of UCSA is committed to responding promptly and with due diligence to complaints regarding editorial processes or the conduct of personnel associated with the publication. Authors who believe their manuscript was rejected due to a technical error or bias in the evaluation may submit a substantiated appeal to the Editorial Direction via email.

All complaints will be handled under principles of confidentiality and respect. The resolution will be based on international scientific publishing best practices to ensure that the integrity of the academic process is not compromised.

Publisher: www.ucsa.edu.py

This publication receives institutional support from the Government of Paraguay, National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT), under its Paraguayan Program for the Development of Science and Technology (PROCIENCIA).