The academic peer review of the manuscripts submitted for publication in scientific journals of different kinds has been a fundamental procedure to assess the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support the research groups.

Articles received may be rejected by the Executive Editor before being submitted for evaluation if the format does not conform to what is indicated in the rules for authors or if the subject is outside the editorial line of the journal. This will occur within a maximum period of two weeks after being received. Authors will be able to submit their article as a new manuscript once the format issue and focus on the objectives and scope of the journal have been addressed.

Once the article is received in the format and with the focus of the journal, the Editor-in-Chief will assign the articles received to an Associate Editor, who will select two external reviewers specialized in the matter, who will review it according to the double-blind procedure, guaranteeing the confidential nature of the process.

The RA undertakes to notify the author of the decision taken within a maximum period of six months. The Editorial Committee will make the decision considering the external reports on the publication or rejection of each article.

The manuscripts received will be subject to the editorial process mentioned above, which takes place in several stages:

 

a) Initial review:

• Manuscripts will be submitted to a preliminary evaluation by the Editor, to see if they correspond to the publication topics of the journal and are adjusted to its objectives and scope.
• The works must be original and will be reviewed with an anti-plagiarism software to verify their originality. If not, they will be rejected.
• In a first stage, works that are insufficiently original, have serious scientific errors, have poor grammatical or use of language, or are outside the objectives and scope of the journal are rejected.
• Manuscripts must comply with the format requirements according to the authors guide. In case of not complying with them, they will be returned to them for correction, and they will have to submit it again for review (as a new article).
• Authors of manuscripts rejected at this initial stage will be informed within two weeks after receipt.

 

b) Peer review:

• Those texts that meet the minimum editorial and originality criteria are sent to at least two experts for review.
• Before assigning reviewers to the manuscript, it is verified that the reviewers do not belong to the country or institution where the work comes from.
• Manuscripts are subjected to a double-blind evaluation process, in which the authors do not know the evaluators and vice versa. The result of the academic opinion process is final.
• Generally, the peer review process takes about 3-6 months.

 

c) Selection process:

• Manuscripts that are conditioned to make minor or major changes must comply with the reviewers' recommendations before being considered for publication.
• Authors must submit a reply letter, where they respond to each of the comments made by the reviewers, explaining in detail what they did to correct the comments received, demonstrating what was done in the corrected version, marking each change in a color different from the rest of the text (preferably red).
• The estimated time for sending corrections is one month (30 days). By not complying with this time, the work will be terminated immediately.
• If the decision is reevaluable, the work returns to the reviewers who evaluated it in the first round for a new opinion (this would be round two).
• There is no charge for the review and publication process.

 

Decision types:

 Peer review type

The RA employs a double-blind review, where the referee and the author remain anonymous throughout the process.