About the Journal

Focus and Scope
Peer Review Policy
Open Access Policy
APCs Charges
Digital Preservation Policy
Policy of Screening
Correction and retraction policies
Statement on Ethics and Good Practices
Policies on Conflict of Interest, Human and Animal rights, and Informed Consent
Advertising policy

Focus and Scope

The Colombian Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Revista Colombiana de Obstetricia y Ginecología - RCOG) came to light in January 1950. It is the official periodic publication of the Colombian Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology - FECOLSOG (previously the Colombian Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology). It is published every quarter in March, June, September and December, authorized by Resolution 218 of the Ministry of the Interior and publishes in accordance with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (ICMJE) Recommendations (see: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/).

RCOG features research papers on women’s health at all times of the life cycle, emphasizing the fields of obstetrics and gynecology and their various subspecialties, public health, and issues pertaining to gender and violence. It also publishes articles on medical education and the history of medicine. Priority is accorded to research of interest in national, regional and Ibero-American areas of influence.

The Colombian Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Revista Colombiana de Obstetricia y Ginecología - RCOG) publishes an average of 25 peer-reviewed scientific articles per year in the following categories: original research articles of including randomized controlled studies, observational studies and qualitative studies; systematic review articles that follow repeatable and verifiable methodologies; opinion or reflection articles and case report and case series studies. The Journal also publishes Clinical Practice Guidelines, clinical management protocols and evidence-based consensus. The Journal will not publish narrative reviews of the literature though exceptions are made if they are of special interest for the editorial board.

For details on how to submit manuscripts, please refer to Instructions to the Authors.

RCOG is cited in the following systems: Index Medicus/Medline of the National Library of Medicine, SciELO Colombia (Scientific Electronic Library Online), LILACS (index of Latin-American Health Sciences Literature), Publindex (Colombian Colciencias National Index of Science and Technology Series), Imbiomed (Mexican index of Latin-American Biomedical Journals), EBSCO, Scopus, and RedAlyC (Network of Scientific Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal.

Peer Review Policy

All manuscripts submitted for publication to the journal will be reviewed by the Editorial Board and sent for peer review to at least two external experts. 

RCOG ensures that all material submitted for publication will be considered as reserved and confidential while going through the review process.

Once the original manuscript is received in accordance with the Journal’s requirements, and following check-list verification, the paper shall be assessed by a member of the editorial committee who will determine whether the topic falls within the scope of the Journal; the next step is to send it for peer review within the next eight days. Assessment is anonymous in all cases.

The RCOG uses the double-blind method to perform evaluations of all manuscripts.

Peers are selected based on their leadership in the topic of the submission, judged on the basis of the number of publications in the relevant field or prior local or international training in the specific research field at a specialty, subspecialty, masters or doctorate degree level (two reviewers). When warranted, a third reviewer will assess specific aspects of the manuscript such as statistics, measurement, qualitative research, relevance and methodology.

Open Access Policy

RCOG provides immediate open access to its content, pursuant to the principle of contributing to greater exchange of knowledge globally through free access to research.

All the content of this journal is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

APCs Charges

 The journal Revista Colombiana de Obstetricia y Ginecología, does not charge any fee for sending, processing, edition or publication of articles. It only suggests to authors who wish to do so, to translate the article into English with a percentage of funding from the Colombian Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Digital Preservation Policy

The RCOG is committed to the digital preservation for long term, for that reason preserves all its content in Portico.

Policy of Screening

RCOG rejects plagiarism and uses iThenticate as software of plagiarism detection tools.

Correction and retraction policies

Statement on Ethics and Good Practices

The RCOG editorial team believes it is the duty of every scientific journal to foster knowledge transfer and dissemination, always ensuring scientific quality and accuracy, as well as a strong ethical commitment.  The Journal abides by the Code of Conduct and good practices for editors of scientific journals of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), of which we are members since 2016. RCOG rejects plagiarism and uses  plagiarism detection tools.

Editor Duties and Responsibilities

Having the primary responsibility for the Journal, the editors commit to do everything in their power to meet the needs of authors and readers alike, constantly enhance the journal, ensure the quality of the material they publish, protect freedom of expression, maintain the academic integrity of its content, prevent commercial interest from compromising intellectual parameters. They must also be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, withdrawals and apologies when necessary.

Relationship with Readers

Readers must be informed about the sources of funding of the research and the role played by the funding organization in the research.

Relationship with Authors

RCOG is committed to securing the quality of the published material, clearly emphasizing Journal objectives and rules, as well as its various sections. Editorial decisions to accept or reject a submission for publication are based only on the relevance of the work, methodological quality, originality, clear presentation, as well as relevance of the study as relates to the Journal’s editorial line. The Journal includes a description of the processes followed as part of the peer review assessment to which each paper is subjected, and commits to leave a written record and justification of any significant deviation from the processes described (should they occur). To this end, RCOG provides authors with a guideline explaining everything that is expected of them. This guideline is updated regularly and contains a link to this ethics statement. The authors are recognized their right to appeal editorial decisions. Editors shall not revise their decision regarding submission acceptance, unless abnormal or special situations are identified. Changes in the membership of the editorial team will not affect decisions already made, unless an exceptional case is created by serious circumstances.

Relationship with Reviewers

RCOG provides reviewers with a guideline explaining what is expected of them. This guideline is updated regularly and contains a link to this code of ethics. Reviewer identities are protected at all times in order to ensure anonymity.

Complaints

RCOG commits to provide prompt reply to all complaints received and to ensure that all dissatisfied claimants are allowed to submit further complaints. In any event, should claimants not feel satisfied with the result of their complaints, they are recognized their right to bring their appeal to other levels.

Should a party wish to appeal any RCOG editorial decision, they must send a petition to rcog@fecolsog.org indicating the name of the article, date of submission to RCOG, full names and surnames of the authors, and a description of their petition. A reply will be delivered within eight working days.

Fostering Debate

Critique articles regarding papers published in RCOG are welcome. In those cases, the authors of the papers that are subject matter of the critique will be given the opportunity to rejoin. Studies reporting negative results shall not be excluded.

Fostering Academic Integrity

RCOG makes sure that all published material adjusts to internationally accepted ethical standards.

Personal Data Protection

RCOG ensures confidentiality of all personal information (e.g., information about professors or students who participate as collaborators, or study subjects included in reported research).

Authors are ultimately/directly responsible for obtaining all required authorizations for the publication of any images (personal photographs, commercial brands, etc.), and other information (age, gender, socioeconomic bracket, etc.) of individuals or commercial products.

Investigating Bad Practices

RCOG is responsible for taking appropriate action in case of suspected bad practices or unacceptable actions.   This obligation is applicable to published as well as unpublished papers.

Editors will not only reject manuscripts that create doubts regarding potential misconduct but are also ethically bound to report all suspected misconduct cases.

RCOG will take every reasonable action to ensure that papers submitted for review are accurate and ethically appropriate.

Integrity and Academic Accuracy

Whenever there is evidence of important inaccuracies, deceptive or distorted statements in any published paper, such deviations shall be addressed immediately. In the event fraudulent content is identified, the paper will be removed immediately and both readers as well as indexation systems will be notified.  The following are considered unacceptable and reportable practices: simultaneous submission of the same paper to several journals, duplicate publication (or with irrelevant changes) of the same paper, or artificial fragmentation of a paper into several articles.

Relationships between editors, publishers and owners are often complex, but they must always abide by the principle of editorial independence. RCOG will ensure at all times that all articles are published on the basis of their quality and relevance for the readers, and not for the purpose of political or financial benefit. In this regard, the fact that the Journal is not ruled by financial interest and advocates access to free, universal and gratuitous knowledge is conducive to that independence.

Conflicts of Interest

RCOG shall enable/accommodate the necessary mechanisms to avoid/resolve potential conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers or the editorial team itself.

Complaints/Accusations against the Editors

Any author, reader, reviewer or editor may forward complaints to the relevant competent bodies.

Policies on Conflict of Interest, Human and Animal rights, and Informed Consent

The Revista Colombiana de Obstetricia y Ginecología adheres and complies to the ethical general principles promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/)  regarding publication of case reports, series studies, observational, qualitative and controlled studies regarding but not limited to individual cases, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research involving animals, human subjects, tissues or genetical information, handling of confidential or sensitive data and ethical business/marketing practices and specifically requests authors to submit documents that support that the study protocols or case reports were submitted and approved by the individuals or institutional review boards during the submission process. The authors must have signed informed consent from patients (or guardians) before submitting to Revista Colombiana de Obstetricia y Ginecología. Authors, reviewers and editors are reminded to verify and fulfil of these requirements along the publication process and to declare any potential or actual conflict of interest related to every single manuscript submitted to the journal.

Advertising policy

The Revista Colombiana de Obstetricia y Ginecología advertises women's sexual and reproductive health products and those related to the exercise of general practice and Obstetrics and Gynecology. All advertising material must be approved by the editorial committee before its publication in the journal. The advertising displayed in the journal does not affect in any way the decisions made by the editorial committee. The editorial committee reserves the right to reject any type of advertising material that it considers inappropriate and contrary to the philosophy of the journal and good clinical and ethical practice of medicine and its specialties. Once any advertising has been implemented on the journal's page, it will be withdrawn by decision of the editorial committee or at the request of the Federación Colombiana de Obstetricia y Ginecología (FECOLSOG). Editorial decisions are completely independent of and cannot be compromised by any type of sponsor or marketing decisions.