JVATiTD - Editorial Policies

Journal of Venomous Animals and Toxins including Tropical Diseases (JVATiTD) is an open access interdisciplinary publication, dedicated to publish research on all aspects of toxins, venomous animals and their derivative products. It also welcomes topics in tropical medicine with a focus on infectious diseases, parasitology and immunology.

The journal adopts the continuous publication model, this means that as soon as a manuscript is prepared it will be released online, creating a rapid flow of quality articles.

Submission of a paper to JVATiTD implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content, that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s policies, and that it has not previously been published or is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.

It is also worth considering that JVATiTD supports the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Moreover, the journal adheres to the principles of Open Science, promoting transparency, reproducibility, and accessibility in research, specifically regarding the prompt deposition and dissemination of research data to ensure study validation.

All submitted manuscripts must be in English. To facilitate proper peer-reviewing, it is essential that the text is submitted in grammatically correct English. If the authors are not native English speakers, we recommend that you have your manuscript professionally edited before submission or read by a native English-speaking colleague.

JVATiTD follows the Open Access model, providing immediate, worldwide, and unrestricted virtual access to the full text of all its published scientific content. Under this policy, authors retain the copyright and grant usage rights to third parties through the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. This allows any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, as well as to crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, provided the original work is properly cited. This open access model is supported by an article processing charge (APC) paid by the authors’ institutions or research funding agencies for accepted manuscripts, ensuring that no financial barriers are imposed on readers.

JVATiTD supports Open Science practices and accepts the submission of manuscripts previously deposited on publicly recognized, non-commercial preprint servers (such as bioRxiv, arXiv, SciELO Preprints, and others). In accordance with ICMJE and COPE guidelines, the journal does not consider preprint deposition as prior publication. Authors must provide the preprint DOI at the time of submission.
Although the journal maintains a double-blind peer review model, authors should be aware that anonymity may be diminished, as reviewers could identify the authorship through searches in public repositories. Nevertheless, the ethical rigor and integrity of the scientific review process remain guaranteed.
 

JVATiTD operates using a double-blind peer-review system, ensuring that the identities of both authors and reviewers remain confidential throughout the entire evaluation process. In alignment with Open Science practices, the journal maintains editorial transparency by disclosing the name of the editor responsible for overseeing the peer-review process and the final decision in each published article. Publication decisions are based strictly on criteria of originality, validity, and significance, with the final authority resting with the editor-in-chief supported by the insights of independent expert reviewers.

At the time of invitation, peer reviewers must disclose any relationships or activities that could bias or be perceived to bias their evaluation of the manuscript (such as financial links, institutional/personal rivalries, or recent collaborations). Given the journal's double-blind peer review system, if a reviewer suspects or deduces the identity of the authors and believes this knowledge poses a potential conflict of interest, they must notify the editorial office and recuse themselves from the evaluation process. Furthermore, reviewers are strictly prohibited from using unpublished information gained from the manuscripts they review for private or professional gain.

Use of AI-assisted tools by reviewers
Peer reviewers are permitted to use AI-assisted tools solely to support data verification, fact-checking, or to improve the clarity of their own report writing, provided they utilize private/closed enterprise versions of AI applications that strictly guarantee that the submitted manuscript data is not used for model training or retained in public servers. Reviewers are strictly prohibited from uploading any confidential manuscript content into public/open AI tools, as this constitutes a severe breach of confidentiality. Under no circumstances should AI tools be used to generate, draft, or synthesize the scientific evaluation or the final peer review comments, which must remain entirely the original and critical work of the human reviewer.

JVATiTD incorporates AI-assisted tools into its editorial and publishing workflows to ensure technical quality and scientific integrity. These applications support initial manuscript screening, scope verification, plagiarism and text similarity detection, metadata validation, and the identification of potential peer reviewers. The use of these technologies serves strictly as an operational and technical aid; it does not replace the critical, analytical, and sovereign judgment of the editorial board and human peer reviewers in the scientific evaluation process.

For comprehensive instructions, mandatory disclosure rules, and examples of how authors must report the use of artificial intelligence in their submissions, please refer to our Guidelines for Authors section, 'Use of artificial intelligence-assisted technologies'.

Authors are expected to fulfil the four criteria established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE): (1) contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; (2) drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be published; and (4) to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributors that do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the ‘Acknowledgements’ section. Each author must describe his/her role in the manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors have agreed to the submission of the manuscript, but all of them should take responsibility for its content.

The list of authors should be carefully analyzed when submitting the manuscript. Any change (addition or removal of authors) during the evaluation process must have a reasonable and strong explanation in addition to a signed agreement of all authors. Authorship changes are not allowed after acceptance of the article.

Artificial intelligence tools must not be listed as authors or co-authors, as they cannot take responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, or originality of the work. These are essential criteria for authorship and remain the sole responsibility of the human authors.

For all articles published in JVATiTD copyright is retained by the authors. Articles are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, meaning that anyone may download and read the paper at no cost. Moreover, the article may be reused and quoted provided that the original published version is cited. These conditions allow for maximum use and exposure of the study, while ensuring that the authors receive proper credit.

JVATiTD is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics and follows the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the SciELO Guidelines on Best Practices for Strengthening Ethics in Scientific Publication. All research involving human subjects, human material, or animals must be approved by an appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Institutional Ethics Committee before undertaking the research. For research conducted in Brazil, this includes approval from the CEP/CONEP system (for humans) or CEUA (for animals). A statement including the name of the ethics committee, the project identification code, and the date of approval must be cited in the manuscript.

Clinical trials or randomized controlled trials must have been registered in a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. Furthermore, any experimental work using animals must conform to the principles of animal welfare in experimental science, and reference must be made to specific principles of laboratory animal care or similar national regulations to ensure ethical standards are met.

Authors must ensure that the reported research is not the result of misconduct such as data fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or duplication. To prevent misconduct and ensure scientific validation, JVATiTD may request the original raw data underlying the manuscript results for review or auditing purposes at any time during the evaluation or after publication. Submission of a manuscript implies that the work is original and is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. To ensure the integrity of the scientific record, all manuscripts are submitted to a plagiarism detection software (iThenticate) and automated tools to verify data and image integrity.

In cases of suspected or confirmed misconduct, the journal will strictly follow COPE flowcharts and SciELO guidelines. Depending on the nature and severity of the case, appropriate actions will be taken to safeguard the scientific record, which may include the publication of an erratum, addendum, expression of concern, or a formal retraction (total or partial) in accordance with SciELO criteria.

The Journal of Venomous Animals and Toxins including Tropical Diseases (JVATiTD) is committed to promoting equity and diversity in scientific research. In alignment with international standards, we endorse and require authors to observe the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines.

Authors are expected to integrate sex and gender-based analysis (SGBA) throughout the research process – from study design and data analysis to the reporting of results and interpretation of findings. If sex and gender variables are not included in a study, authors must provide a clear justification for this exclusion. Our editorial board is equally committed to fostering gender equity in the formation of its team and the peer-review process, aiming to ensure balanced representation and the elimination of unconscious bias in scientific evaluation.