Publication Ethics

Intercom is committed to good practice and follows ethics and scientific communication responsibility standards established by leading national and international institutions, including: the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), FAPESP, the SciELO Guide to Strengthening Ethics in Scientific Publishing, and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (version 4.0, 2022), a joint document of COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, and WAME.

The journal is committed to standards of ethical behavior for all parties involved in publication — authors, editors, and reviewers — and encourages them to study and follow the standards of good scientific research practice.

All articles reporting research involving human subjects are expected to present relevant information on the ethical procedures adopted, with proof of approval from the Ethics Committee attached at the time of submission, in accordance with human subjects research regulations.

Any form of unethical behavior, including plagiarism in any instance, is not accepted by the journal. By submitting an article, authors declare that the content is original and guarantee that the work has not been published nor is under review at any other journal. To promote textual originality, the journal adopts text similarity verification software.

Options for Post-Publication Discussion

Readers who identify relevant issues in already-published articles — whether conceptual, methodological, or factual — may send them to the editorial team via the journal's institutional email. The team will assess the relevance of the submission and, where appropriate, may publish a clarification note, an erratum, or initiate the misconduct investigation procedure described below, always communicating with the authors of the original article.

Duties of the Editors-in-Chief

• any unethical conduct identified in works published in Intercom may be brought to the editors' attention at any time, by any person, provided it is accompanied by sufficient information and evidence to initiate an investigation;

• all necessary attempts must be made to resolve the issue; in all cases, the author must have the opportunity to respond to the allegations;

• inform or notify the author or reviewer whenever there is evidence of a misunderstanding or misapplication of acceptable standards;

• decide on retraction or formal withdrawal of publication, where applicable.

Duties of the Executive Editors

• review all submitted articles, being responsible for the decision to accept or reject based on reviewers' reports;

• ensure the desired quality standards, respecting the objectives of the journal and of each section;

• avoid poor practice and unethical behavior, especially plagiarism and fraudulent information;

• select reviewers appropriately, considering thematic affinity and recognized academic production;

• ensure that peer review guarantees the quality of the publication, justifying any significant deviation from the process;

• evaluate manuscripts based solely on importance, originality, clarity, and scientific relevance, without regard to the authors' race, color, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, nationality, career stage, or political or ideological affiliation;

• not disclose information about a manuscript under review, except to reviewers and the editorial board;

• prevent the use of unpublished material from a submitted manuscript in the editor's own research without the express, written consent of the author;

• prevent commercial interests from compromising the intellectual standards of the publication;

• take appropriate action in response to ethical complaints about submitted or published manuscripts, including corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary;

• decline to review manuscripts in the event of a conflict of interest, whether competitive, collaborative, or of any other nature, with the authors, companies, or institutions involved;

• ensure that published material complies with internationally accepted ethical guidelines, and may refer to the journal's Scientific Committee when necessary;

• take all appropriate measures in the face of suspected misconduct, whether in published or unpublished work.

Duties of Reviewers

• assist editors in editorial decisions and, through their communications, help authors improve the article;

• immediately notify the editors if they do not feel qualified to review the article, or if reading it within the given deadline is not feasible;

• treat manuscripts received for review as confidential documents, without exposing them to third parties;

• consider relevance, correctness, originality, currency of references, adequacy to the field of knowledge, methodological rigor, and quality standards;

• fully complete the review form received with the article;

• maintain confidentiality of privileged information or ideas obtained while reading manuscripts, without using them for personal gain;

• issue objective opinions, with clear points of view supported by arguments;

• identify relevant published work that the authors have not cited;

• alert the editors in case of suspected plagiarism or self-plagiarism, indicating any other published or submitted work that is substantially similar;

• decline to review manuscripts in the event of a conflict of interest with any of the authors, companies, or institutions involved;

• not use Generative Artificial Intelligence tools to draft, summarize, or assist in preparing reviews, nor insert, copy, or share, in whole or in part, the content of the manuscript under review in any generative AI tool, in accordance with CNPq Ordinance No. 2,664/2026 and with the duty of confidentiality in peer review.

Duties of Authors

• engage in serious, systematic research in their specific field and subfield;

• declare, at the time of submission, that the content of the article is original and has not been published or submitted to any other publication, in any language;

• identify, where applicable, institutions and agencies that provided financial support for the research;

• ensure that articles reporting research involving human subjects contain information on the ethical procedures adopted, attaching proof of Ethics Committee approval at the time of submission;

• present an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance, with sufficient detail and references to allow the study to be replicated;

• give due credit to the authors of cited works;

• not submit manuscripts describing essentially the same research to more than one journal simultaneously, nor publish the same article in more than one journal;

• list as authors all persons who made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the study, ensuring that all co-authors have reviewed and approved the final version and agreed to its submission; individuals who contributed to the project but do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged in a note, with prior authorization;

• immediately inform the editor or a member of the Editorial Board upon identifying a significant error or inaccuracy in a published work, cooperating in correcting the article;

• commit to acting as a reviewer for other articles in their subfield, as a form of reciprocity with the academic community.