Policies

OSJ uses double-anonymous peer review: authors and reviewers do not know each other's identities during the process. The editorial workflow follows these stages:

1. Editorial screening — the editor checks fit with the scope, compliance with the guidelines, anonymization of the manuscript and similarity with previously published texts. Unsuitable manuscripts may be declined at this stage.
2. Peer review — manuscripts that pass screening are sent to at least two expert reviewers with no ties to the authors. The reference timeframe for review is four weeks.
3. Editorial decision — based on the reviews, the editor decides to accept, request revisions, request a new round of review or reject. Reviews are sent to the authors anonymously.
4. Revisions — authors submit the revised version together with a point-by-point response letter. Further rounds of review may take place.
5. Copyediting and production — accepted manuscripts undergo copyediting, standardization and typesetting. Authors approve the proofs before publication.

Reviewers assess originality, relevance, methodological rigor, appropriateness of the analysis, clarity of writing and consistency between results and conclusions. The final decision rests with the editor-in-chief or the assigned editor.

Type: Double-anonymous review.

We are grateful for the contribution of our reviewers, which is essential to the quality of the journal. When accepting a review assignment, we ask reviewers to:

• declare any conflict of interest and decline the review if they recognize the authors or cannot assess the manuscript impartially;
• treat the manuscript as a confidential document, neither sharing it nor using it for their own benefit;
• not upload the manuscript to artificial intelligence tools, as this would breach confidentiality;
• assess originality, relevance, study design, methods, statistical analysis, ethics, clarity and consistency of the conclusions;
• write constructive, specific and respectful comments to the authors, keeping confidential remarks to the editor separate;
• provide a recommendation (accept, revisions required, resubmit for review or reject) and meet the agreed deadline, notifying the editor of any delay.

OSJ provides immediate, free open access to all of its content, on the principle that making scientific knowledge freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Readers may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search and link to the full texts, without registration or payment, provided that the authors and the original source are cited.

Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal the right of first publication. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits sharing and adaptation of the work for any purpose, provided that authorship and initial publication in this journal are properly acknowledged.

Authors may enter into additional arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the published version (for example, in institutional repositories or as book chapters), with acknowledgement of its initial publication in OSJ.

License: CC BY 4.0.

OSJ follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for the ethical conduct of authors, editors and reviewers.

Research involving human participants. Studies involving human participants must have been approved by a Research Ethics Committee, in accordance with Brazilian National Health Council (CNS) Resolutions No. 466/2012 and No. 510/2016 (or the equivalent regulations in the country of origin) and the Declaration of Helsinki. The approval number (CAAE, in Brazil) and the obtaining of informed consent must be stated in the manuscript.

Clinical trials. Trials must have been registered on a recognized platform (for example, ReBEC or ClinicalTrials.gov), with the registration number reported in the abstract.

Case reports. These require consent for publication from the patient or their legal guardian and the removal of any data that could identify the patient.

Animal research. Research must comply with current legislation (Law No. 11,794/2008) and the ARRIVE guidelines, with approval from an Animal Use Ethics Committee.

Authorship. Only those who meet the ICMJE criteria qualify as authors: substantial contribution to the study, drafting or critical revision, approval of the final version and accountability for the content. Contributions must be described using the CRediT taxonomy. Changes to the author list after submission require justification and the agreement of all authors.

Misconduct. Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, simultaneous submission, redundant publication and citation manipulation are considered misconduct. Suspected cases are investigated following the COPE flowcharts and may lead to rejection, retraction and notification of the authors' institutions.

Authors, reviewers and editors must declare any financial, professional or personal relationship that could influence, or appear to influence, their work. Authors report conflicts of interest and funding sources in the manuscript; where there are no conflicts, they must state "The authors declare no conflicts of interest".

Reviewers declare conflicts when accepting the invitation and must decline the review when they have ties to the authors. Editors with a conflict regarding a manuscript do not take part in handling it, which is transferred to another member of the editorial team. Manuscripts by members of the editorial team follow the same process, without the author-editor taking part in the decisions.

Manuscripts undergo similarity checking during editorial screening. Substantial similarity without proper citation — including with the authors' own previous work (self-plagiarism) — leads to the manuscript being returned or rejected. Cases identified after publication are handled in accordance with the corrections and retractions policy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools cannot be listed as authors, as they cannot take responsibility for the work. The use of generative AI in the research or in writing must be declared in the methods section or in the acknowledgements, stating the tool, version and purpose. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality and integrity of the content.

AI may not be used to generate or alter data, images or results. Reviewers and editors must not upload manuscripts to AI tools, in order to preserve confidentiality.

OSJ encourages the sharing of the data, code and materials underlying the results in public repositories, subject to ethical and legal restrictions. Articles must include a data availability statement indicating where and how the data can be accessed or the reason for any restriction.

Authors are advised to follow the EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines appropriate to the study design: CONSORT (clinical trials), STROBE (observational studies), PRISMA (systematic reviews), STARD (diagnostic accuracy), CARE (case reports) and COSMIN (measurement properties).

OSJ accepts manuscripts previously deposited on preprint servers (for example, SciELO Preprints, medRxiv or OSF). Authors must disclose the deposit and the preprint DOI at submission. After publication, authors are advised to update the preprint record with a link to the published article. Abstracts presented at scientific meetings do not preclude submission.

Errors identified after publication are handled transparently, following the COPE guidelines:

• Erratum — corrects errors that do not affect the conclusions; it is published linked to the original article.
• New version — the journal keeps the version history of the article, and previous versions remain accessible.
• Expression of concern — published when there is evidence of a problem still under investigation.
• Retraction — applied in cases of serious error that invalidates the conclusions, proven misconduct or redundant publication. The article remains available, marked as retracted, together with an explanatory note.

Authors may appeal an editorial decision by sending the editor-in-chief, via the journal email, a reasoned justification with a point-by-point response to the reviews. The appeal is assessed by an editor not involved in the original decision, and the new decision is final.

Complaints about the editorial process, the conduct of editors or reviewers, and ethical issues may be sent through the same channel and are answered within 30 days.

The Oxton Science Journal follows the diamond open access model: it charges no fees for submission, review, article processing (APC) or publication. Authors do not pay to publish and readers do not pay to access.

Editorial costs are covered by Oxton Education. The absence of fees does not affect the rigor of the review: all manuscripts follow the same screening and peer review workflow.

Published content is preserved on servers with regular backups. Metadata are available via OAI-PMH for harvesting by indexing services and repositories, and every article receives an ORI (Oxton Research Identifier), a permanent identifier whose address always leads to the full text.

The names, email addresses and other personal data provided to the journal are used exclusively for the services provided by this publication — submission management, editorial communication and peer review — and are not made available for any other purpose or to third parties. Personal data are processed in accordance with the Brazilian General Data Protection Law (Law No. 13,709/2018).

Data subjects may request access to, correction of or deletion of their data at any time through the journal contact email. The names and affiliations of authors of published articles form a permanent part of the scholarly record.