Lucentum is committed to the ethical and transparency principles and to the good publication practices established by the Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE), n order to ensure compliance with ethical and quality standards in all published works. The above principles and practices are applied together with the following publication ethics policies and our anti-plagiarism policy.

1 Editorial Team

• The publisher, the editors and any funding received will be indicated.
• Articles or translations of articles already published will not be accepted. Neither will be plagiarism or fraudulent or altered data.
• Only well-documented and sufficiently verified articles will be accepted.
• The editorial team has the authority to accept or reject an article, in accordance with the editorial policy.
• The editorial team will have no conflict of interest with the authors or the topics of the articles received.
• It will ensure that the reviewers have no conflict of interest with the authors, as well as guarantee their anonymity during the evaluation process, and maintain confidentiality regarding the articles received until they are accepted for publication.
• During the editorial process, it will facilitate the correction and improvement of the works received.
• It will encourage the publication of corrections and retractions in the event that errors or fraud are detected in published articles.
• No fees will be charged for the publication of articles.
• The Editorial Board will ensure compliance with the principles of editorial ethics.

2 Authors

• Articles will be signed by all of their authors.
• Authors will declare:
  • That the work is the result of research and study by all of the signatories.
  • That the data provided is true and has been verified.
  • That the published materials have the appropriate permissions and have been obtained in accordance with current legislation.
• Authors will agree to submit their work to an anonymous peer review process.
• Authors will undertake to correct any errors detected, if necessary.
• Articles may be withdrawn by authors who disagree with the decisions made.

3 Reviewers

• The identity of the author(s) of the article will remain unknown.
• Articles will be treated confidentially.
• The review will be objective and constructive.
• They will indicate interesting or novel bibliography.
• They will advise the author on unpublished works and lines of research currently under development.

4 Authorship and contribution to manuscripts

Those listed as authors or co-authors must have made substantial contributions to all of the following:

• Research: conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.
• Article: drafting or critical revision regarding important intellectual content.
• Approval: of the final version of the article before submission for publication.

The number of authors (no more than 6) of the paper must be justified by the topic, complexity and length of the paper. The order of signature must be agreed upon by all authors, and those having contributed the most must appear first.

The person listed as the main contact for the journal will be responsible for any cases of fraudulent authorship attribution, as well as for declaring to the journal that the final version of the article has been approved by all signatories. Therefore, all authors must sign the Declaration of Authorship and Commitment to Good Practice document.

When there is more than one author, please provide the name and surname of each person and their contribution(s) following the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy).

4.1 Additional Conditions for Publication

The journal does not accept articles from authors or co-authors who work at the University of Alicante or who are part of the Editorial Board.

Authors may not publish more than one article per year in the journal.

5 Conflict of interest

Authors must expressly state any personal or financial connection that may influence the conclusions of the manuscript. Otherwise, they must declare that there is no conflict of interest involved. The editorial board will evaluate the information provided and decide whether a conflict of interest exists and, if so, whether it can be avoided. If it cannot be avoided, the manuscript will be rejected.

Referees must reject proposals for manuscript reviews if there is a conflict of interest due to any type of affinity, contractual or direct collaboration relationship. During the review process, they must expressly declare that no conflict of interest exists.

The editorial team will disclose any sources of funding that could potentially be considered conflicts of interest with respect to accepted or rejected manuscripts.

6 Reports of malpractice, retractions and corrections

Any person may contact the journal to report possible cases of malpractice, plagiarism, falsification of data, etc., concerning articles published in Lucentum. The editorial team will investigate the matter, give the authors a period of 10 days to present their allegations and decide on the matter. If malpractice is found, the PDF file of the article will be removed from the issue in which it has been published, and this circumstance will be expressly stated. The editorial board will at all times facilitate the publication of retractions for any of the above reasons or for unintentional errors.

In the event that serious errors in articles already published are discovered by those responsible for the articles, they must inform the editorial board, which may consider the publication of an erratum slip accompanying the article. Spelling or grammatical errors will not be considered serious and, therefore, no erratum slip will be published in those cases.

7 Complaints and suggestions

Anyone may submit a complaint or suggestion by e-mail to the main contact person of the journal, who will forward it to the editorial board. The board will then examine and decide on the matter, and the person involved will be informed.