About the Journal

Scientia Agricola journal supports the good practices of Open Science, which results in a more transparent editorial process. This way, manuscripts deposited in the SciELO Preprints server can be submitted to this journal. However, the journal's Editorial Board will decide on the peer-review process for the manuscripts already posted as preprints. Preprints are considered an author’s version of the manuscript before the peer-review process, posted on a free-access website. Preprints can be posted at any moment during the peer-review process. They are not considered formal publication and will not compromise the submission of any manuscript to Scientia Agricola. Once the manuscript is approved and published by Scientia Agricola, it is the author’s responsibility to communicate the facts to the preprint repository.

Scientia Agricola adopts a single-anonymous peer review process to ensure an unbiased judgment and the quality of published articles. The process includes the following steps:

1. The technical advisory board will first evaluate the manuscript for compliance with Scientia Agricola’s rules and analyze it using plagiarism detection software. Otherwise, the manuscript is returned to the authors for adjustments. Once the requirements are met, the manuscript proceeds to the Editor-in-Chief.
2. The Editor-in-chief assesses whether the manuscript complies with the journal’s scope and quality standards. At this stage, manuscripts failing to meet these criteria are rejected at this stage. If appropriate, the Editor-in-Chief assigns an Associate Editor, who selects expert reviewers for further assessment.
3. Reviewers evaluate the manuscript and submit their opinions through the ScholarOne system. 
4. The Associate Editor makes the final decision on the manuscript, which can be accepted, rejected, or returned for minor or major revisions. This decision is communicated to the authors.

Transparency and Openness in Peer Review Policy:

Disclosure of the Responsible Editor(s): Scientia Agricola publishes the names of the Associated Editors responsible for the evaluation in the final article. This practice reinforces the journal's commitment to editorial integrity of and acknowledges editors for their crucial role in maintaining publication quality standards.

Transparency Options in Peer Review: Although Scientia Agricola does not publish the reviewers’ identities and their reports, this procedure will be progressively implemented in the near future.

Authors are encouraged to make available previously or at the time of publication all content (data, software codes, and other materials) underlying the manuscript text in open online repositories such as SciELO Data. Otherwise, authors may declare that data will be available from the corresponding author upon request.

Scientia Agricola does not charge a fee for submitting, evaluating, or reviewing articles. However, after the journal accepts an article, there is a publication fee of R$ 200.00 (two hundred Reais) per printed page for Brazilians and U$100.00 (one hundred dollars) per printed page for foreigners per article. This fee is to pay for English review, markup XML, and iThenticate software. Other expenses for maintaining the infrastructure of the Scientia Agricola secretariat are also paid with this fee.

Scientia Agricola strictly adheres to ethical publication guidelines and combats scientific misconduct. The journal reserves the right to take appropriate action whenever misconduct is detected, which may include immediately rejecting the manuscript, prohibiting future submissions from the authors involved, and communicating infractions to affiliated institutions.

Scientia Agricola strictly prohibits plagiarism and self-plagiarism.

The journal publishes only original articles. Submitting a manuscript to multiple journals simultaneously or dividing the results of a study into several manuscripts is strictly prohibited. Fraud, such as image manipulation, data fabrication, or falsification, will lead to immediate rejection.

Authors should be transparent and responsible when using artificial intelligence (AI). When using AI, authors must include detailed information (name, version, model, and source) about the used technology. When using AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, he production of images or graphics, or the compilation and analysis of data, authors are obliged to make it explicit in the Materials and Methods section. 

When AI is used to paraphrase or improve the author's original content rather than suggest new content, it becomes a similar tool to Grammarly. Scientia Agricola prohibits texts translated by AI.

Authors must disclose the use of AI in the writing process by adding a statement at the end of the main manuscript file before the References section, Declaration of use of AI Technologies.

Authors must disclose potential personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial conflicts of interest. 

The reviewer must inform the editors of any conflicts of interest that could influence the analysis of the manuscript and must declare themselves unqualified to review it. 

Like reviewers, Associate Editors and Editor-in-Chief should avoid making decisions on manuscripts that conflict with their interests.

All submitted manuscripts will be subjected to the journal’s screening policy for plagiarism and self-plagiarism using the iThenticate software. The journal’s Secretariat checks plagiarism and self-plagiarism immediately after submission. When plagiarism is detected, the Editor-in-Chief is in charge to inform the authors by presenting the report generated by the iThenticate and requesting appropriate adjustments. 

Plagiarism and self-plagiarism are checked once more when the manuscript is accepted for publication. 

The Scientia Agricola editorial team and the authors who publish in the journal, should always observe the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines.

Authors must attach a statement of approval from the ethics committee (ex. Environment, Biosecurity, and Animals) of the institution responsible for approving the, research, if applicable. 

The Materials and Methods section must officially state this evidence, describing that the study was evaluated and approved by an appropriate ethical committee (including the process number).

The author maintains the copyright over the published article and grants Scientia Agricola the right to first publish it. The articles are licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 open-access license, so anyone can download and read them. Furthermore, the article can be reused and cited if the original published version is cited. This way, the study will have maximum exposure, and the authors will receive due credit.

Copyright terms applied to content published on Scientia Agricola must be clearly stated and differentiated from those applied to the website itself. 

Opinions and concepts expressed in the articles are the authors’ exclusive responsibility. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reuse of copyrighted materials (tables, figures, and graphs) in their manuscripts.

Unless otherwise specified, all journal content and articles published by Scientia Agricola, are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. Authors retain the copyright of their works, licensing them under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license, which allows articles to be reused and distributed without restriction as long as the original work is correctly cited.

Scientia Agricola encourages authors to self-archive their accepted manuscripts by posting them on personal blogs, institutional repositories, and academic social media platforms. Authors can also post their articles on personal social media accounts if they include the complete citation to the version published on the journal's website.

Scientia Agricola receives accreditation from the USP/Agência de Bibliotecas e Coleções Digitais (ABCD).