Scientific evaluation policy

• Arbitration system: external evaluation, double blind by pairs and anonymous

All articles undergo an editorial review (relevance evaluation) and ethical review by members of the General Editorial Board (Editor and/or Associate Editors and Production Team) who will verify that the article complies with the style and content standards indicated in the instructions for authors on the submission of originals, including the correct wording and observance of formal requirements.  They also check: -that the article is the product of a scientific research process, -the level of bibliographic updating, -the analytical density and -the scope of the results and findings obtained. Likewise, the observance of copyright regulations and the ethical norms of the journal are reviewed. 

In a favorable case, it is sent to be evaluated by two anonymous review experts from the Arbitration Commission, made up by academics and researchers from Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the “double-blind model”. These evaluators are external to both the Editing Entity and the General Editorial Board. In the case of certain articles, specific methodological reviews will be used.

Reviewers are provided with a form containing criteria to be considered in the article evaluation process and are shown a link to https://my.plag.es  as a free tool to detect plagiarism.

The positive evaluation of each work will depend on the adaptation of the theme to the Journal’s lines, the interest of the article, its contribution to the knowledge of the topic, the novelties provided, the correction of the established relationships, the critical judgment developed, the bibliographic references handled, discussion and indication of recommendations, if any, for possible improvement.

In case of discrepancy, the General Editor may request the review of a third evaluator.

Evaluation outcome. Once the external arbitration process of the article is finished, the Editorial Board will communicate the results of the evaluation, as well as the reviewer’s comments and observations, to the authors by email, to the address they used to send the article and that they registered in the ESS website through the Open Journal System (OJS). Depending on each case evaluated, the reviewers will issue one of the following rulings:

• Accept the publication.
• Accept the publication after suggested comments have been incorporated.
• Reject the publication.

Final verdict. Each evaluator’s opinion will be discussed at a meeting of the Editorial Board, which will issue the final verdict. Any final decision on the publication or not of the manuscript is communicated to the authors exclusively in writing.

Final adjustments. If the manuscript has been accepted with modifications, the authors should forward a new version of the article, attending to the demands and suggestions of the external evaluators. These articles will be sent to the Editorial Production Team to verify the validity of the modifications made by the author. Considering the degree of compliance with the modifications requested by the arbitrator, the Editorial Production Team will rule on whether or not the article is to be published. This decision will be communicated to the author by the Journal’s editors.

- Estimated time of the evaluation and publication process

Since it is expected that there will usually be at least 1 or 2 rounds of prior evaluation until the article is SUITABLE for publication, the evaluation process time span is estimated to take from two to four months. Both the evaluator and the author have a period of approximately 30 days per round to carry out their task. (This period is an estimate, since it depends exclusively on the authors and reviewers involved in each article.)

Once the article is SUITABLE for publication, the editing process (which includes the correction of syntax, translation and layout of the article) takes approximately from one to two months.

These periods are always subject to the publication dates of the Journal, which is published every six months.