Editorial Ethics | UCOARTE. Revista de Teoría e Historia del Arte

Open Access Policy and Guides for good practices

This journal provides immediate open access to its content because it believes in one essential principle: offering the public free access to research facilitates the global exchange of knowledge.

UcoArte. Revista de Teoría e Historia del Arte appreciates the quality and results of the research published in each issue. For this reason, it takes as a reference the Ethics toolkit for a successful editorial office y Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). With the objective of promoting an accessible and free culture, the journal will always ensure free access to each of its contents. For more information, please feel free to consult the following links:

Ethics toolkit for a successful editorial office

Principles of Transparency y Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing

All the members of the editorial board are committed to evaluating and managing the original works with the greatest impartiality and always respecting the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). All parties involved in the review process will remain in the strictest confidence. When a conflict of interest occurs, that is, when the proposal to be evaluated is related in any way to the evaluator or the editorial board, they must reject the evaluation process of the work submitted.

All papers published by UcoArte will be licensed under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), so both the reading and research community is free to share, copy and redistribute the material in any medium, as well as remix, transform and build upon the material for any purpose. However, anyone using the published article is required to cite attribution for the content they use, always give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licence and indicate if changes have been made. The license can be found at the bottom of the website and in the sections of each article we publish. In UcoArte we believe that culture should be free and accessible to interested people, for this reason in our website you can download scientific articles at no cost, as well as the research community will not be charged for publishing in the journal.

On this basis, at UcoArte. Revista de Teoría e Historia del Arte, we take into account the following points:

1. Publication and authorship

UCOARTE requires authors to observe strict rules regarding editorial ethics: plagiarism - it is forbidden to publish the same research in more than one journal - duplicate publication of authors' own work - in whole or in part, without due acknowledgement - and misappropriation of other Authors' work. Allegations of misconduct will be discussed initially with the author concerned. In the event that the discussion persists the matter will be referred to the author's institution and funding bodies for investigation and prosecution.

2. Author's responsibilities

Authors are obliged to participate in a peer review process. The journal wishes to ensure that all authors have made a significant contribution to the research submitted for review, and that all data contained in their articles are true and authentic. We insist that all authors are obliged to make changes or corrections of errors.

If the articles submitted to the journal are the result of an I+D+I project or are the result of a funding source, these must be stated in the article, and the author must make sure to fill in the corresponding field in the OJS submission metadata.

If the article is the result of the contribution of two or more people, they must be listed as signatories, therefore they must specify to the journal the criteria followed to establish the order of authorship of the submission.

It should also be taken into account that those who have already participated in the publication of an article in the journal must respect a waiting period before being able to resubmit other papers, and therefore may not submit new proposals until two consecutive years have passed since the publication of the last contribution. This guideline aims to ensure the diversity of authors and topics in our issues, as well as to encourage the inclusion of different academic and professional perspectives.

3. Peer review and reviewer responsibility

UCOARTE's peer review judgements will be objective and reviewers must not have any conflict of interest with the research, the authors and/or the funders of the research. In this regard, the journal confirms that reviewers should indicate relevant published work that is not cited, and that reviewed articles should be treated confidentially.

4. Editorial responsibilities

The editors of the journal assume full responsibility and authority for rejecting or accepting an article. The editors confirm that they have no conflict of interest with the articles they reject/accept, that they will only accept an article when they are certain of its authenticity. If errors are found, the editors will encourage the publication of corrections or retractions, while preserving the anonymity of the contributors.

5. Questions of editorial ethics

Editorial ethics will be monitored and protected by the journal's editorial board by observing guidelines for unaccepted articles, maintaining the integrity of the academic record. The journal will always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when necessary, never publishing plagiarism or fraudulent data.

Declaration of good practices regarding the use of Artificial Intelligence in academic research

Artificial intelligence has been evolving at a vertiginous rhythm, both in terms of the number of users and the diversity of its applications. Its incipient trajectory in the publishing field has consisted, among other functions, in serving as a tool for the correct identification of the subject matter of the articles received by a journal in order to check the affinity to its field of study, as well as to analyze the format and quality of an original text or even to detect any indication of plagiarism. These applications are leading to consider its implementation in the automated processes of editorial management platforms, to the point that it can make decisions without human supervision, thus outlining a scenario of diverse and varied questions, among which we can find Are there editorial processes in which AI-assisted automation is desirable or accepted? Would it be considered ethical to place all trust in AI? What would happen if an author or reviewer does not agree with a decision or action taken by the mentioned tool?

Faced with these questions, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has recommended caution and stated that the application of artificial intelligence in academia should be governed by the principles of transparency, responsibility, rigour and ethics, making it a mere support tool that should not replace the creative, reflective, critical and ethical work of the research community. In this way, they have published a series of recommendations, among which we can point out:

For editors and publishers it has been specified that AI-based automation to carry out some tasks such as increasing the speed of information processing or peer review is completely valid, as long as it does not imply that artificial intelligence makes the final decision on the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript, thus being indispensable the figure of an editor to ensure human supervision to respect the rights of authors. However, the editorial team is fully responsible for the biases of the AI, as well as for the results obtained, which are the result of the development, training and updating of the algorithms by their suppliers. In other words, ultimately, the publisher remains responsible for editorial decisions, whether made by AI or human editors.

For authors, it is worth noting that just as they can challenge an editorial decision made by a human team, so too can they challenge an AI's judgement, arguing what aspects were overlooked during the review process or, for example, whether any discrimination was detected. In addition, at all times, the researcher is entitled to know in which part of the editorial process the AI was involved, which processes or workflows were automated and which depended on artificial intelligence.

At this point, in UcoArte. Revista de Teoría e Historia del Arte, we align ourselves with the recommendations of the COPE and, despite the fact that the help of AI can bring countless advantages during the editorial flow, we must clarify that the journal does not make use of this tool in any case, we only use the automated processes of the OJS platform for the reception, evaluation and publication of articles. In other words, the AI does not intervene in decision-making, the different editorial phases through which an original article passes, the search for reviewers or the creation of cover pages and audiovisual material.

We also take this opportunity to remind authors that anti-plagiarism tools such as Turnitin and large-scale language model detectors are at our disposal. For this reason, we follow the COPE recommendations and urge the research community, who have used artificial intelligence, to indicate in their contributions where they used it, including whether they were involved in image creation, data collection or analysis. Furthermore, following the first regulation on artificial intelligence drafted by the European Parliament (last update 19-02-2025), content modified with AI, such as images, audios or videos (e.g. deepfakes), should also be indicated in the articles, so that any reader knows that they have been created with artificial intelligence.

It is absolutely necessary to consider that these tools cannot be acknowledged as authors of an article, as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work, declare conflicts of interest, or manage copyright and licensing agreements, so authors are fully responsible for the entirety of their manuscript, including the AI-generated parts, and therefore for any ethical violations in the publication.

To learn more about the application of Artificial Intelligence in academic research, we recommend the following publications:

EU AI Act: first regulation on artificial intelligence

COPE Council: Artificial intelligence (AI) in decision making

COPE Council: Understanding current guidance for use of artificial intelligence

COPE Council: Artificial intelligence and authorship

Editorial practices on gender equality

UcoArte. Revista de Teoría e Historia del Arte firmly believes in effective equality among people, regardless of their sex, gender, ethnic origin, functional diversity, or sexual orientation. For this reason, the journal is committed to ensuring such parity, both in the different bodies that make up the editorial team and in the evaluation of the articles it receives.

Likewise, we invite authors to use inclusive language in their original works, and we therefore recommend consulting the Guía de buenas prácticas de lenguaje inclusivo para la redacción y la traducción (UCOPress. Editorial Universidad de Córdoba, 2023), where different examples and alternatives can be found to achieve more inclusive communication.

We encourage researchers to integrate gender analysis into the content and methods of their research, clearly stating in their contributions the results of data disaggregated by sex and gender. The goal is to improve the quality and transparency of contributions, develop more innovative approaches, and enhance solutions that fully meet the diverse needs of society.

At UcoArte, we fully support and follow the SAGER Guidelines as well as the principles on inclusive gender analysis in the content of R&I from the ERA European Forum Subgroup on Inclusive Gender Equality (2025).

When study subjects or artistic, social, or cultural topics can be differentiated by sex, research should thoroughly detail the methodology used to analyze each factor and reveal sex-related differences in the results. Additionally, if a study focuses on a specific sex, this focus should be explicitly stated in the article’s title and abstract. In the introduction, if relevant, potential gender inequalities should be addressed, and in the methods section, researchers should justify how sex and gender were considered in the study design, including, when applicable, reasons for excluding men or women from the study.

In general, to ensure the highest quality gender-perspective research outcomes, we propose that authors use the terms sex and gender carefully and reflect on the following questions in their manuscripts:

Are the concepts of gender and sex used precisely in the study?
Are gender and sex clearly defined and differentiated, along with the aspects examined for each?
Does the research rely on previous references supporting the presence or absence of significant differences between men and women in the study field?
Is it possible to collect and analyze sex- or gender-disaggregated data?
Does the research have a solid justification for the inclusion or exclusion of gender and sex?
Is the analytical approach objective and rigorous in addressing all gender- or sex-based implications? Has any ethical framework been used as a reference?

To evaluate original works from a gender perspective, we suggest that reviewers initially consider the following questions:

Are sex and gender relevant to the research under review?
Have all factors affecting the sex/gender variable been thoroughly examined, and if not, has their absence been properly justified?

We recommend the following publications for a deeper understanding of gender approaches:

Finally, we emphasize that UcoArte will always welcome studies on feminist topics and approaches, as well as those that explore the expressive qualities and artistic productions of the LGTBIQ+ community. In this regard, we invite authors to challenge and avoid research approaches that reinforce stereotypes or discriminatory biases, aiming for complete objectivity and rigor in addressing LGTBIQ+ identities and experiences while being sensitive to the diversity of realities they encompass. Only by doing so can we identify inequalities, promote rights, and improve the living conditions of people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and expressions.