Policies

OPEN, UNIVERSAL, AND COST FREE ACCES POLICY

Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal is an open access journal under the Budapest Open Access Initiative.  Microtextualidades does not charge any fees for the submission, nor for the processing, publication or reading of the articles it publishes. Its contents are accessible from the moment of publication and no prior registration is required to access them. 

POLICY ON ARCHIVING AND DIGITAL PRESERVATION

Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal follows preservation practices aimed at ensuring permanent accessibility to its digital resources and materials, following the recommendations established by the Digital Preservation Handbook:

• Local preservation on servers and our own storage. Preservation through our own repository. Through this repository, it is possible to access the entire Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal collection, including data from each issue and from each article. Performing backups and periodic monthly archiving in local mode on our server.
• Preservation through repositories and external services. Hosting of full texts in repositories, services and external systems such as Dialnet, including the data of each issue and each article.

Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal also carries out the following processes to guarantee preservation and maintain the accessibility of its digital materials in the long term:

• Preservation metadata: The journal uses quality metadata through DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative), OpenURLand MARC
• Persistent identifiers: All articles in the journal, since its inception in 2003, each have a DOI (Digital Object Identifier).
• Service and data infrastructures for interoperability: The journal uses the OAI-PMHprotocol and is compatible with DRIVER
• File integrity monitoring: Periodic file integrity checks are performed through the tools available on the server where the journal is hosted.

Policy on Self-archiving: 

Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal allows and encourages its authors to increase the visibility, scope and impact of their articles published in the journal by disseminating and self-archiving them in the following:

• Their personal web spaces (web, blog, social networks, scientific forums, etc.)
• Institutional open archives (university archives, Hispana,Europeana, etc.)
• Academic and scientific social networks such as ResearchGateand edu

In addition, these publications are required to include the details of all bibliographic data of the publication.

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

In line with international recommendations established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and its standards of conduct,  Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal follows a rigorous procedure in the control of originals received in order to avoid poor quality scientific practice, endorsing editorial standards established by the World Conference on Research Integrity.

Code of Good Practice

Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal believes that it is necessary and important to promote ethical publishing throughout the editorial process; the criteria of conduct and good practice governing the activity of its Editorial Board, as well as the commitment by authors and external reviewers, are described below.

I. Commitment of the Editorial board  

• Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal ensures the confidentiality of the authors of manuscripts received and of the external reviewers related to the external review process.
• Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal will decide whether or not to publish originals, but always in a timely manner so as not to lower their current value.
• Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal will ensure that all originals received are submitted to a double, external, anonymous review by experts in the topic area. To achieve this aim, we will use reference terms and glossaries included in the manuscripts.
• In the case of conflicting evaluations, Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal will commit to sending the manuscript to a third reviewer whose verdict will be final in the acceptance or denial of the original.
• Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal will keep the authors informed about the phase of the evaluation process in which the originals are located.
• The list of external reviewers will be revised and updated periodically and made public the year after their collaboration.
• Acceptance of originals will be based on criteria of conceptual rigor, rational coherence, scientific relevance of the topics of the publication, and the absence of infringement on institutional ideology of respect for people’s dignity.
• Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal will keep a suggestion box permanently open by way of the e-mail address [email protected] and all complaints and suggestions will be answered one by one.

II. Commitment of publication by the authors 

• Authors of the manuscripts will guarantee that the manuscripts submitted to Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal are originals, and are not published (and are not, or have not been, published) partially or completely in any other journal.
• Authors will use the most current and accredited bibliography related to the topic of the article.
• Authors will not discriminate based on ideological, commercial, or any other grounds, against the references and sources of authority used.
• Authors will agree to include an anonymous copy of the original in order to be used for an external peer-review.
• The authors agree to submit the manuscript following the publication guidelines of  Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal.
• The authors, in the case of co-authorship, guarantee the inclusion of those who have made a significant scientific and intellectual contribution to the conceptualisation and planning of the work as well as to the interpretation of the results and the writing of the paper.
• In the case of co-authorship, the authors will decide beforehand the order of the signatories, and they will indicate this to the journal.
• In the event of a conflict of authorship, the journal applies the protocol of COPE. 
• Authors will declare the direct or indirect sources of funding for the research that originated the manuscript.
• The authors commit to collaborating effectively and quickly in the editing phase of the manuscript. 

III. Commitment of external reviewers

• Before the acceptance of a manuscript, the reviewers will indicate to the editor of the journal if the topic is adapted to their area of specialization, and they will warn about possible conflicts of interests.
• Reviewers will apply scientific, rational criteria in the deliberation of the texts to be revised.
• Reviewers will commit to elaborating an impartial report that specifically states the degree of contribution of the text, its current relevance, consistency, rigor, and the written clarity of the article.
• The reviewers will develop a report using the template provided by the journal. They will add their comments so that the editor will have a fair assessment of the manuscript sent, and the author will be able to rectify and improve the quality of the original.
• The reviewers will commit to complying with the time limits given by the editorial team of  Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal in order to avoid possible delays in the publication of the texts.

PROTOCOL FOR UNETHICAL BEHAVIOUR

In order to expedite the decision-making process in cases where unethical behaviour is detected or observed Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal follows a protocol inspired by COPE's recommendations to promote integrity in research and its publications. The journal's editorial board thus follows the following flows:

• Authorship conflicts. Authors should be explicit regarding their individual contribution to the article has been (ghostwriting policy)
• Plagiarism
• Duplication, concurrent publications, or simultaneous submissions to several publications
• Appropriation of research results
• Fraud or research errors
• Infringement of research rules
• Undisclosed conflicts of interest. Authors must identify sources of funding for research
• Reviewer Bias

Good research practices and academic integrity

In those cases in which the work conducted includes research with human beings and/or their personal data such as observational, psychological or behavioural research on humans, participation of students pending evaluation by one of the researchers in the project, use of personal data or similar, the researchers must have favourable certification of good practice issued by the Research Ethics Committee, or a similar body, of the institution or institutions where the study was conducted.

In this regard, Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal follows the recommendations in the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity of ALLEA (ALL European Academies), and endorses the provisions of research legislation regarding the duties of research personnel, which in Spain are defined within Law 14/2011, of June 1, related to Science, Technology and Innovation, Article 15.

DEMAND FOR ORIGINALITY AND DETECTION OF PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism constitutes unethical intellectual behaviour and is unacceptable. Authors shall ensure that they only submit their own original works. If they have used works and/or words from third parties, they must mention this specifically, and cite the sources appropriately.

Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal uses the software iThenticate (© 2021 Turnitin, LLC.) to detect possible plagiarism. All of the deliveries received by Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal will be submitted to the plagiarism detection process through this software.

Apart from the internal system of plagiarism detection used by Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal, authors and reviewers are informed of the existence of free access or licensed tools that can be of help in the supervision of originality and plagiarism control.

Procedure in the case of plagiarism

In the event that plagiarism is detected, authors will receive a matching report generated by the computer tool with the reference sources on which the comparison is based, so that they can submit a response before a decision on publication is made.  

Authors with a final accredited plagiarism report will not be allowed to republish in the journal within 5 years.

AUTHOR'S COPYRIGHT

Authors shall retain their copyright and ensure that Microtextualidades has the right to first publication of their work, which shall simultaneously be subject to the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) whereby the user is free to share, copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format; and to remix, transform, and build upon that material under the following terms: Proper credit (journal, author, url /doi) must be given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

Authors may adopt other non-exclusive licensing agreements for the distribution of the published version of the work (e.g., depositing the article in an institutional telematic archive or publishing the work in a monographic volume) provided that the initial publication in Microtextualidades is indicated.

Authors are allowed and encouraged to disseminate their work through the Internet, which can produce interesting exchanges and increase citations of the published work. (See the effect of open access ).

EDITORIAL PRACTICES REGARDING GENDER EQUALLITY

Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal is committed to gender policies that lead to true equality in our society between women and men. A number of key actions, which are detailed below, expresses this commitment:

A. Editorial involvement

The journal has taken the appropriate measures to ensure balanced editorial representation between men and women; these measures are reflected both in the different departments of the journal as well as in the participation of the people who evaluate the studies.

B. Use of inclusive language

Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal encourages authors interested in publishing in our journal to use inclusive, non-sexist language in their scientific articles. In this sense, we recommend the use of inclusive terms for both genders, utilising explanatory syntagmas, omitting references to the subject and, when none of the above is possible, using gender-specific terms.

Accordingly, we suggest that those interested in publishing in Microtextualidades. Short Short Story and Flash Fiction International Journal follow the guidelines of the CSIC Guía para un uso no sexista de la lengua , as well as those of the European Commission in Gendered Innovations How Gender Analysis Contributes to Research and the Gendered innovations 2. How inclusive analysis contributes to research and innovation: policy review

C. The gender factor in research

All scientific papers must consider the gender variable in any research on humans, animals, tissue, or cells, or in other words :

1. One must analyse the differences within each gender and present the results disaggregated by gender.
2. It is essential to reflect upon and make a reasoned decision regarding the gender composition of the samples and report on the gender of the research subjects.