Ethical and editorial policies

The Revista Colombiana de Ortopedia y Traumatología (Rev. Colomb. Ortop. Traumatol.) is committed to the promotion and support of good ethical practices, both in the biomedical field and in the publishing field. Therefore, it adheres to the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE); the Recommendations on Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals issued by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME); the Guidelines on Good Publication Practice issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE); the EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) Network work guidelines, and the Principles of transparency and best practice in Scholarly Publishing issued by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), and WAME. This is to ensure the quality, transparency, and integrity of the articles published in the journal, as well as the proper observance of the ethical principles that govern medical research. In this sense, papers submitted to Rev. Colomb. Ortop. Traumatol. must conform to such guidelines.

Research involving human and/or animal subjects

If human subjects are directly (e.g., administration of questionnaires, interventions, etc.) or indirectly (data obtained from medical records) involved in the study, it is necessary to report that the research was approved by an institutional ethics committee. The full name of the committee and the institution, as well as the number of the approval minutes and its date of issue, must be indicated. Similarly, it is necessary to state whether informed consent was obtained from the participants. Additionally, in the “Ethical considerations” subsection of the article it must be reported that the ethical principles for conducting medical research involving human subjects established in the Declaration of Helsinki were followed and the corresponding citation must be added. Finally, if the study was carried out in Colombia, it is also necessary to state that the scientific, technical, and administrative standards for health research contained in Resolution 8430 of 1993, issued by the Colombian Ministry of Health, were observed, and the respective citation must be added.

Regarding case reports, in line with the CARE guidelines (item 13), informed consent must be obtained from the patient or their legal guardian in order to use their data in the article and this must be explicitly stated at the end of the article (right after the conclusion section). In the absence of informed consent, a letter of approval from the institutional ethics committee of the hospital where the patient was treated can also be submitted.

Confidentiality and anonymity of the participants must be ensured at all times.

If the study involved animal subjects, the subsection “Ethical considerations” must state that the International guiding principles for biomedical research involving animals of the Council for International Organization of Medical Sciences and the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science were followed, and the corresponding citation must be provided.

Articles requiring approval by an institutional ethics committee or informed consent from the patient that do not include a copy (scanned or digitized) of these documents will be rejected. These documents must be uploaded in step 2 of the submission process in our OJS platform.

Conflicts of interest

Editors and reviewers must disclose any conflict of interest that may affect the impartial review of the articles.

Authors are required to disclose whether or not they have conflicts of interest related to the information contained in the article. Conflicts of interest include, but are not limited to, financial, business, and personal interests. Moreover, all authors must complete the ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest and upload it in their submission (step 2).

Likewise, authors must report whether the study was funded, including the sources and purpose of the funding. This information must be reported at the end of the article in the sections “Conflicts of interest” and “Funding”.

Peer review policy

Articles that comply with the requirements outlined in the Authors Guidelines of the Journal and have been revised according to the feedback provided by the editorial coordination during the preliminary methodological review (for additional details, please refer to the Editorial Workflow section) will be subjected to a double-blind peer review process (i.e., the identities of the authors and reviewers are concealed from one another). To this end, all details identifying the authors are removed from the manuscript version that is submitted to the peer reviewers, and the details of the reviewers are also removed from the evaluation form that is returned to the authors.

Peer reviewers are experts in a given topic or subspecialty, with an extensive academic and research background. These experts are selected based on their academic (specialty, subspecialty, fellowship, MSc and PhD degrees) and research achievements (publication of biomedical articles on the topic in the last 5 years). The editorial team are responsible for finding these experts, and once selected, they are invited to evaluate the article (12-14 peers). Authors may propose between 3 and 4 experts for the evaluation of the article, but their eligibility will be analyzed by the editorial team.

Peer reviewers will have 20 calendar days to submit their evaluation, but they may request an extension. The invite to review the article includes the necessary information to carry out and submit the evaluation, namely, the Peer review guidelines, Authors guidelines, and the evaluation form (for further details, see the Peer Review Guidelines). There are four possible evaluation decisions: acceptance, acceptance with minor revisions, acceptance with major revisions, and rejection for publication. Reviewers may also make additional comments on the review form and/or directly on the article.

If an article is approved (conditional acceptance or acceptance) by at least two peer reviewers, it will be formally accepted for publication. However, articles with a conditional acceptance (acceptance with minor or major revisions) will be accepted for publication once the editorial team verifies that the revisions requested by the peer reviewers have been made or approves the reasons for not making some of the changes requested.

Articles rejected by two or more peer reviewers will be rejected. In the event of a disagreement, the editorial team will make the most appropriate decision based on the reasons given by each peer reviewer and a new methodological review of the document.

The editorial decision on the acceptance (full or conditional) or rejection of the article will be notified to the authors, who will also receive the evaluation forms submitted by the peers.

The lists of reviewers who evaluated articles that were assigned to volume 37 (2023) and 38 (2024), regardless of whether they were approved or rejected for publication, are available on the Peer reviewers per volume.

Funding

The Rev. Colomb. Ortop. Traumatol is funded by the Sociedad Colombiana de Cirugía Ortopédica y Traumatología (SCCOT).

Advertising

Currently, the Journal’s OJS platform features advertisements for institutions, events, or products related to orthopedic and trauma surgery. It should be noted that the advertisement acceptance process is directly overseen by the SCCOT. Even though the editor is aware of the advertising pieces that will be published on the Journal's website, the advertisement has no connection with its contents in any way. Furthermore, editorial decisions are not contingent upon or associated with such advertising (refer to the Editorial Independence section).

Marketing statement

The Journal does not engage in any direct marketing activities, such as requesting manuscripts for publication on its own behalf or similar requests.

It is also hereby acknowledged that, once an article is published in the journal, the SCCOT publishes marketing material about it on its social networks solely for the purpose of dissemination.

Publication costs

The Rev. Colomb. Ortop. Traumatol does not charge any fees for the submission, processing (including the translation of contents into English), and publication of articles.

Editorial independence

Although the Journal is funded by the SCCOT, its editorial decisions are autonomous, in accordance with the provisions of subsection II-D.2. “Editorial freedom” of the ICJME Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

The Journal reserves the right to make format, content, and typographical changes to the original text at different stages of the editorial workflow, and authors will be notified of these changes for their review and approval.

Open access policy

This Journal provides open and immediate access to its contents based on the premise that free access to biomedical articles contributes to a greater global exchange of knowledge.

All content published in the Journal is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Deed, which allows the use, distribution, reproduction, and adaptation of the content in any medium or format, provided that credits are properly given, a link to the license is included, and any changes made are clearly identified.

Before submitting an article to the Rev. Colomb. Ortop. Traumatol., please make sure that you have read the Copyright Notice and that you have properly filled out the copyright assignment of publication and reproduction rights and the authorship responsibility forms. For more information, please refer to Copyright Notice and Authors Guidelines.

Digital preservation policy

The contents published in the Journal are preserved in Portico, an archive that safeguards access to e-journals, e-books, and digital collections. This guarantees the permanent access to and availability of the contents in the future. Upon publication on our OJS platform, articles are uploaded to said digital preservation system.

Copyright

Upon submission, authors agree to transfer the rights of publication, reproduction, and distribution of their articles to the Revista Colombiana de Ortopedia y Traumatología. Authors must refrain from using or allowing the use of the article (or any parts thereof) without the previous approval of the Journal.

By making a submission, authors consent to the following conditions:

Authors shall retain copyright and assign the publication, reproduction and distribution rights to the Journal. These rights are subject to the Creative Commons Acknowledgment License, which allows third parties to use and share content as long as the authors and sources are cited.
Authors may adopt other non-exclusive licensing agreements for the distribution of the published version of the article (e.g., depositing it in an institutional digital archive or publishing it in a monographic volume), provided that they acknowledge that the original publication was made in this Journal.
Authors are allowed and encouraged to disseminate their articles via the Internet (e.g., in institutional digital archives or on their websites) after they have been published in this Journal, as this may result in interesting exchanges and increase the number of citations.

Authors must sign the assignment of assignment of publication and reproduction rights and the authorship responsibility forms, as indicated in the Authors Guidelines (section 1).

Authorship and changes of authorship

Contributors listed as authors of the article must meet all the authorship criteria established in sections II-A and II-B of the ICJME Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Therefore, it is not necessary to include information related to “Author Contributions”.

Authorship changes must be requested to the Journal's e-mail address (rcot@sccot.org.co), explaining the reasons for the change in a clear and detailed manner. Each case will be carefully analyzed to assess the pertinence of the request.

Authors are legally and morally responsible for the contents of the article. Accordingly, they must ensure the accuracy and reliability of the statements made, as well as of the data and findings presented therein.

Plagiarism

The Rev. Colomb. Ortop. Traumatol does not condone any form of plagiarism and uses the iThenticate software to detect plagiarism under the following parameters: No reference or matches of less than seven words will be taken into account. Articles with a similarity percentage higher than 20%, except for those derived from an undergraduate or graduate thesis, will be rejected or returned to the authors for adjustment and will undergo a new review. This decision is made entirely at the discretion of the editorial team, following a qualitative analysis of the software-generated report. The iThenticate analysis is performed before the initial methodological review.

All sources cited by the authors must be reported and referenced in accordance with the Vancouver citation style. If images or tables used in the article have been published elsewhere, the authors must obtain permission to reproduce them or make modifications before including them in the article. In all cases, the corresponding citation must be made, stating whether the image or table was taken or adapted from the source.

Originality

Articles submitted to our Journal must be unpublished. Translations or adaptations of studies and articles previously published in other journals will not be accepted. However, articles including data published in abstracts and posters presented at academic events, results reported at scientific meetings, results in databases and clinical trial registries that have not been interpreted, or results described in dissertations and theses are accepted, as they are not considered duplicate publications.

Authors must refrain from engaging in misconduct, including:

Simultaneous submissions: Authors must not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal, whether in the same language or in a different language. Likewise, the article must not be submitted to other journals while it is under consideration for publication at the Rev. Colomb. Ortop. Traumatol.
Duplicate or redundant publication: Authors must avoid duplicate and redundant publication. According to the ICMJE Recommendations, duplicate publication is defined as the publication of an article that substantially coincides with a previously published work, without explicitly citing that publication (for other considerations and specific definitions regarding these cases, please refer to subsection III-D.2 of the ICMJE recommendations). In turn, COPE defines redundant publication as a situation where two or more articles, with no complete cross-references, present the same hypothesis, data, discussion, or conclusions. Authors of articles that have been published or are in the process of publication in other journals containing information that partially or completely coincide with what is described in the article submitted to our Journal (e.g., same patients or participants) must provide a letter detailing all the characteristics of said articles (language of publication, source, and relationship with the article submitted, etc.). The editorial team will review each case to determine if the publication is duplicate or redundant.

If simultaneous submissions, duplicate or redundant publications, or other unethical practices are detected, the article will be rejected. This assessment shall adhere to the recommendations and procedures established by the ICJME and COPE.

Preprints

Articles that have been published as preprints (e.g., in SciELO preprints, Preprints etc.) can be submitted to the Journal. In these cases, authors must inform that the manuscript was published on a preprint server.

Use of artificial intelligence

Authors must report on the use of artificial intelligence-powered technologies (e.g., extensive language modeling, chatbots, or image creators) during the research and manuscript writing process. (e.g., data collection, assistance in text writing, and creation of figures). To this end, authors are required to provide a detailed description of how they used such technologies in the section(s) of the article that they deem pertinent. For further information, refer to subsection II-4 of the ICJME Recommendations and Recommendation 2 of the WAME Recommendations on Chatbots and Generative Artificial Intelligence in Relation to Scholarly Publications (hereinafter “WAME Recommendations on the Use of Artificial Intelligence”).

In accordance with subsection II-A.4 of the ICJME recommendations and WAME recommendations 1 and 3 on the use of artificial intelligence, the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work are the responsibility of the authors, and chatbots (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek) cannot be listed as authors as they cannot be hold responsible for these aspects. Consequently, authors are fully responsible for the content derived from the use of artificial intelligence-powered technologies.

Artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence-powered technologies must not be cited.

Currently, the Journal does not use artificial intelligence for reviewing manuscripts, communicating with peers and authors, or carrying out activities at other stages of the editorial workflow. In the event that this changes, the Journal commits to updating the “use of artificial intelligence” section of its ethical and editorial policies to align with WAME recommendation 4 on the use of artificial intelligence, indicating when and how it is employed.

In accordance with our Peer Review Guidelines and following the WAME recommendation 4 on the use of artificial intelligence, peer reviewers must report the use of chatbots and other artificial intelligence-powered technologies for manuscript review and evaluation and correspondence preparation.

Data integrity and availability

Researchers must ensure data integrity in compliance with section 2 of the COPE Guidelines on Good Publication Practice, which stipulates that data must be properly analyzed and not falsified or fabricated.

Authors shall be asked to provide the original dataset for verification and request the necessary adjustments when the editorial team identifies discrepancies during the methodological review. The article will be rejected if any inappropriate behavior (e.g., manipulation or falsification of data) is detected during this process.

The use of secondary data in the study must be fully stated in the "Methodology " section of the article. Data available on the Internet must be cited in accordance with the Vancouver referencing style.

Image integrity

The manipulation, fabrication, or alteration of images for fraudulent purposes is not allowed, as it constitutes scientific misconduct. While some images may benefit from enhancements in lighting and composition to improve information visibility, alterations must only be made if they do not compromise the integrity of the content of the image. Authors must possess the rights to the images used in the article; otherwise, they must verify that images obtained from external sources can be reproduced and cited in open-access academic publications and must also cite them in the article.

Images of study participants (e.g., in case reports) must protect the identity and privacy of the individuals involved. To this end, the image must be edited to preserve the participant's anonymity (e.g., by blurring the patient's face).

Corrections and retractions policy

Any error detected in an article published by the Journal must be reported to the editorial team at rcot@sccot.org.co. The editorial team will subsequently assess the case and determine whether it is appropriate to make the corrections. If such corrections do not impact the scientific accuracy or clarity of the text, the editorial team may reject them, as the aim is to avoid delays in the editorial workflow and such corrections should have been made during the appropriate stage (revision of layout versions prior to publication). When the editorial team determines that corrections are necessary, a revised version of the article will be published, which will include the modifications along with a note at the end of the article detailing the changes and the date on which they were made. Similarly, if previous versions are accessible in other indexing databases and/or servers, the responsible entities will be notified of the modifications and the new version will be submitted for replacement. In the absence of consensus among authors about a correction, the editors will consult the opinion of independent peer reviewers prior to implementing the correction. The position of the dissenting author(s) will also be informed in the note mentioned above.

The editorial team will contemplate retracting an article when there is sufficient evidence of incorrect results, inaccurate findings or unreliable data, plagiarism, duplicate publication, or any other form of editorial or research misconduct. Authors will be notified of the retraction decision, and the article will be marked accordingly on the Journal's website. The article will feature a notice before the title stating its retraction, accompanied by a PDF file containing the final version processed by the Journal, detailing the reasons for retraction on the first page and including the watermark “retracted article” within the text. If the PDF file of the retracted article must be removed from the Journal’s website for legal reasons, the metadata of the submission will be preserved in the volume in which it was published, with the PDF replaced by a note stating that it has been removed due to legal issues.

Finally, the journal accepts letters to the editor to promote scholarly discussion among authors and researchers. Thus, readers are encouraged to contribute and rectify any inaccuracies identified during this academic conversation, since these short articles allow for the dissemination of critical, analytical, or interpretative perspectives on articles published in the Journal.

Claims and petitions

All inquiries or claims regarding the contents published in the Journal must be sent to its official e-mail address (rcot@sccot.org.co).

Upon receiving a complaint or request concerning a published article or a decision made by the editorial team, the Journal will conduct an exhaustive analysis of the editorial workflow related to the article or decision in question, and a detailed response will be sent including all relevant evidence.

Personal data processing policy

The names and e-mail addresses of the participants involved in the editorial process, as well as other personal data, will be used exclusively when necessary during the different stages of this process and will not be disclosed to third parties.