Open Access Policy

Open access policy

This policy reflects Terra Latinoamericana’s commitment to strengthening non-commercial Open Access (OA) scientific publishing models and promoting knowledge dissemination through the best practices of Open Science (OS). Through this policy, the journal establishes guidelines and strategies for editorial and peer-review teams, authors, and the local, national, and international communities interested primarily in soil and water sciences.

According to UNESCO, Open Science should be understood as an inclusive construct that integrates various movements and practices aimed at making multilingual scientific knowledge openly available, accessible, and reusable by everyone. Open Science encompasses all scientific disciplines and all aspects of scholarly practice and is based on open scientific knowledge, open science infrastructures, scientific communication, the open participation of societal actors, and open dialogue with other knowledge systems.

Terra Latinoamericana provides immediate and unrestricted open access to all of its published content, based on the principle that free access to scientific research fosters a broader global exchange of knowledge and contributes to the advancement of science and society. The journal supports the dissemination, visibility, accessibility, and responsible reuse of scientific information in accordance with internationally recognized principles of Open Access and Open Science.

As a non-commercial Open Access journal, Terra Latinoamericana is committed to promoting the free circulation of scientific knowledge, encouraging collaboration among researchers, institutions, and society, and contributing to the development of equitable, transparent, and inclusive scientific communication systems. Terra Latinoamericana does not impose subscription fees or access charges on readers, thereby ensuring the unrestricted dissemination of scientific knowledge worldwide

 

Funding policy

Authors submitting manuscripts to Terra Latinoamericana are required to provide appropriate acknowledgment of all sources of financial support received for the research reported in their manuscripts.

Funding information must be disclosed accurately and transparently, including the name of the funding agency, institution, program, project, or grant, as well as the corresponding grant or project number whenever applicable.

The acknowledgment of funding sources contributes to transparency in scientific communication, facilitates the identification of potential conflicts of interest, and promotes compliance with international standards of research integrity and scholarly publishing.

If the research did not receive any specific financial support, authors should explicitly state that no external funding was received for the conduct of the study.

 

Authors' declarations policy

As part of its commitment to transparency, research integrity, and the promotion of best practices in scholarly publishing, Terra Latinoamericana encourages authors to provide the following declarations when submitting manuscripts and essays.

 a) Author contributions statement. For manuscripts prepared by multiple authors, Terra Latinoamericana requires a statement specifying the individual contributions of each author. This statement identifies the contributions that justify authorship and describes the roles performed by each contributor during the research process, knowledge generation, and manuscript preparation.

To ensure standardization, Terra Latinoamericana adopts the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), while recognizing that additional contributions not explicitly described by the taxonomy may also be reported.

For multi-authored manuscripts, a brief paragraph describing individual contributions should be included using the following format:

"Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Validation, X.X., Y.Y., and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation, X.X.; Writing – Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X.X.; Supervision, X.X.; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y."

Authors should consult the CRediT taxonomy for detailed definitions of each role. Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the work reported.

 

b) Conflict of interest statement. This statement is intended to disclose any circumstance that could raise concerns regarding potential bias, subjectivity, data interpretation, research conduct, or other issues relevant to the editorial team, reviewers, and readers. All financial and non-financial competing interests must be declared. If no competing interests exist, authors should explicitly state: "The authors declare that they have no competing interests."

 

c) Ethics statement. Manuscripts reporting studies involving humans, human data, or human biological material must include a statement regarding ethical approval and informed consent, even when formal approval requirements were waived.

The statement must identify the ethics committee that approved the study and, where applicable, the corresponding approval or reference number.

Studies involving animals must include a statement of ethical approval. For experimental studies involving privately owned animals, authors must also provide a statement confirming informed consent from the owner or custodian.

If the manuscript does not involve human participants, human data, human tissues, or animals, authors should state: "Not applicable."

 

d) Funding statement. Authors must disclose all sources of funding that supported the research leading to the submitted manuscript. Whenever possible, authors should identify funding agencies, grants, contracts, awards, donations, in-kind contributions, and other forms of financial support by their official names and identification numbers.

 

e) Research outputs and supplementary material statement. If the manuscript forms part of a broader project, such as a thesis, dissertation, research project, contract, grant, consortium, or inter-institutional collaboration, authors should disclose whether additional outputs derived from the same initiative exist. Authors are encouraged to identify the names, codes, or identifiers associated with these projects. Such disclosure enhances transparency, traceability, and understanding of the broader research context while helping prevent redundant publication.

Examples of supplementary or related materials include: preprints, methodological instruments, cRediT contribution tables, research data and data management plans, audiovisual materials, theses and dissertations, laboratory notebooks, research notebooks, project proposals and reports, algorithms and software, protocols, consent forms, permits, other publications directly related to the submitted manuscript.

 

f) Acknowledgments. This section recognizes technical, administrative, institutional, or other forms of support that contributed to the research but do not meet the criteria for authorship. Acknowledgments may be directed toward individuals, institutions, organizations, or funding entities. Authors should briefly describe the nature of the contribution being acknowledged. Authors must ensure that any individual or institution explicitly named in the acknowledgments has granted permission to be identified. Acknowledgments may include administrative assistance, technical support, in-kind contributions, materials used in experiments, or other forms of support not covered under authorship contributions.

 

g) Consent for publication statement. If the manuscript contains information belonging to an identifiable individual in any form, including personal details, photographs, videos, or other identifiable materials, authors must obtain consent for publication from that individual or, in the case of minors, from their parent or legal guardian. All case reports must include a statement confirming consent for publication. If the manuscript does not contain identifiable personal data, authors should state: "Not applicable."

 

h) Data availability statement. For the purposes of this policy, data refers to the minimum dataset necessary to interpret, replicate, and build upon the findings reported in the article. Data availability statements may take one or more of the following forms:

       i.          The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the (repository name) repository, at (URL).

     ii.          The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

   iii.          All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files.

   iv.          The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available because (provide reason) but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

     v.          Data sharing is not applicable to this article because no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

   vi.          The data supporting the findings of this study are available from [name of third party], but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study and are therefore not publicly available. The data are, however, available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission from [name of third party].

If the manuscript does not contain data, authors should state: "Not applicable."

Appropriate citations to the literature

Terra Latinoamericana requires authors that in all contributions submitted to the OJS platform must grant adequate recognition to the literature that encompasses the subject of the submitted contribution.