ISSN 2739-0071
online versión

ISSN 0798-1015
Print version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and editorial policy
• Form and preparation of manuscripts

The mission of Revista Espacios is to disseminate original works that present results of research, studies, and literature reviews in areas such as management, technological management, social studies of science and technology, as well as education and related technologies. Through publication in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, it seeks to facilitate access to specialized knowledge and promote academic and professional exchange at an international level. Additionally, it is committed to maintaining an open access model, ensuring that all its content is freely available to individuals and institutions, in line with the Budapest Open Access Initiative Declaration.

The journal aims to establish itself as a reliable and high-quality source in the dissemination of scientific and academic knowledge, contributing to the advancement of the thematic areas it addresses and strengthening its impact on the global community of researchers, academics, professionals, and students. To this end, it focuses on the originality of the works, the interoperability of its contents, and the broad and free dissemination of knowledge.

Revista Espacios is a bimonthly publication, meaning it is edited and published every two months, starting from July-August 2023.

When an article arrives at Revista Espacios, it goes through different stages to ensure quality control. The registration, peer review, production, and promotion of the article are carried out with a high professional and academic level.

Academic Editor

The academic editor conducts an initial review considering the following primary selection criteria:

• the topic is appropriate for the journal
• compliance with the format required by the journal
• the scientific solidity of the submitted document, its originality, timeliness, and impact.

At this stage, it is decided whether the article is sent to an academic peer selected according to the topic addressed in the article.

Reviewers (Evaluators-Arbitrators)

The journal relies on the collaboration of external reviewers. The review process is conducted through a single-blind modality for all manuscripts corresponding to research articles, case studies, and reviews. The process of obtaining reviewers and the evaluation itself takes less than 6 weeks. This time may increase in cases of opposing, contradictory, or controversial evaluations among reviewers.

The reviewers, academic peers, evaluate the content to ensure that the article:

• Uses the corresponding Word® template for the chosen language (templates here)
• Is an original article (use of anti-plagiarism software)
• Contains the basic elements (title, abstract, keywords, introduction, objectives, methodology, results, discussion, conclusions, and references)
• Complies with the ethical guidelines of the journal and international academic quality standards.
• Constitutes a contribution to universal knowledge with social relevance.
• Is correctly written in the chosen language (Spanish, Portuguese, or English)
• Follows the recommendations regarding texts, figures, tables, and bibliography (APA standards) for the correct presentation of the document.

The reviewers submit their evaluation results (approval, corrections, or rejection) to the Academic Editor using an online template. The Academic Editor is responsible for responding to the author, ensuring the premise of a single-blind review.

Controversies

In case of controversy among reviewers, the Academic Editor will appoint a third reviewer and, based on their opinion, will send the necessary corrections to the authors. After that, the Academic Editor will make a final decision. This decision may be:

• The text is publishable without modifications
• The text is publishable with minor modifications
• The text requires major modifications and a new evaluation
• The text is not publishable

Observations/modifications

In the case of articles requiring modifications, the authors must send the corrected version of their article through the digital platform, and in a separate email (info@revistaespacios.com), a response letter to all the reviewers' comments, indicating the section of the document where the changes were made or, if necessary, the arguments explaining why the suggested changes were not made.

The corrected version of the article and the response letter will be sent to the reviewers for a second round of evaluation to obtain a final verdict.

Article approval

The Academic Editor approves the publication of the article once the final evaluations of the peers have been assessed, and it will be published in the next issue.

The website team

The technical team responsible for the approved document's layout performs the following actions:

• Prepares the cover of each article in HTML format, incorporating: Title, authors, abstract, affiliations, references, DOI identifier, and link to access the full version in PDF and HTML.
• Establishes the necessary tags and meta-tags, codes for search engines of databases, repositories, and indexers where the journal is referenced to perform their work. The inclusion or not, as well as the time of inclusion in these databases, repositories, and indexers, is at the discretion of the organizations that govern them. Revista Espacios has no influence on this.
• Generates a PDF file with the complete article, adapting texts, figures, graphics, tables to comply with the editorial style of Revista Espacios.
• Deposits the DOI of each article on the CrossRef platform
• Places the Google ID in each document so that the article is immediately in its database, taking advantage of the high visibility of the journal for its rapid visualization by our users.

Editorial Espacios has joined the Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA), so the abstracts of the articles published in Revista Espacios are openly available.

The payment of 95 US$ for Article Processing Charges (APC) is to guarantee the minimum operation for the reception, evaluation, layout, and publication of the article, as well as platform costs, application updates, and equipment, as well as administrative expenses. The staff of Grupo Editorial Espacios works voluntarily to maintain this cost and continue providing users with a quality journal, with high visibility and great importance for Latin American academics.

Once the author has submitted their article, the stages of the editorial process will be as follows:

1. Article submission

   Pay 95 US$ for Article Processing Charges using the following PayPal payment button (Copy transaction number).

   Pay Now

   Use the following link to fill out the article submission form to our editor: https://forms.gle/BmMdz8xwDcTUQHkG8

   Attach Word Document

2. Review process stage (evaluation)

   All articles will be reviewed by senior specialists using the single-blind peer method.

   The acceptance response of the article or request for changes and improvements will be made within no more than 4 weeks after receiving the manuscript.

3. In case of rejection

   If an article is rejected, no payment will be refunded as this amount covers the minimum administrative expenses for the operation of the Revista Espacios portal.

4. Publication

   The approved article will be published in the next issue of the journal.

5. When is an article withdrawn?

   An article will only be withdrawn from the journal if the Editorial Committee:

   • Has clear evidence that the reported findings are unreliable, either as a result of a major error (e.g., calculation or experimental error) or as a result of fabrication, falsification, or manipulation of data or images.
   • Considers it constitutes plagiarism or fraud.
   • Detects that the article has been previously published in another journal.
   • Identifies that the article contains material or data without authorization for use.
   • Recognizes that copyright has been infringed or there is another serious legal issue (such as defamation or privacy violation).
   • Receives verified information that it is research that does not comply with ethical standards.
   • Determines that the authors did not disclose the existence of conflicts of interest.

   In no case will any amount be refunded

   In any of these cases, only the DOI will be notified that the article is withdrawn, placing the word Withdrawn preceding the article title. The author or authors must manage their withdrawal from databases, repositories, and indexes with the organizations that carry them out. Revista Espacios has no influence on this and does not commit to doing so in any way.

Revista Espacios maintains, as a general policy, the continuous improvement of its editorial and administrative processes to ensure the quality, originality, and impact of the scientific articles it publishes exclusively in electronic format, offering its readers and other users simple and direct navigation, as well as providing agile and effective procedures for receiving, evaluating, accompanying, and improving the manuscripts it receives, following internationally accepted ethical guidelines.

Authors' obligations

Authors who sign an original research article must have significantly contributed to its preparation, agree with the final results presented, and agree to submit the work to the journal for evaluation and subsequent publication.

Authors must respect the publication standards of Revista Espacios (see standards).

Authors must avoid fragmenting research articles and refrain from submitting manuscripts that essentially describe the same research to other journals unless it is the resubmission of a rejected or withdrawn manuscript from a previous publication.

Conflict of interest

A conflict of interest arises when, in a given manuscript, any of the actors involved in the editorial process, whether authors, reviewers, or editors, have links with activities, people, or institutions that may inappropriately influence the opinions, arguments, or judgments of any of these.

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any financial or other conflicts of interest that may inappropriately influence the results or interpretation of a manuscript early on.

Editors' obligations

Editors of a peer-reviewed journal have the responsibility and authority to accept or reject an article based on the recommendations of their support team and peer reviewers. Editors reserve the right to withdraw any received, accepted, or already published manuscript in case of proven plagiarism or scientific fraud. They will also facilitate the publication of corrections or retractions in case of other detected errors. In cases where editors consider that the received manuscript deviates from the journal's areas of interest or scope, lacks adequate content depth, or is not written in an accepted language, they may reject the manuscript before sending it for external review.

Editors will review received manuscripts solely for their intellectual content without considering other aspects such as race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual preferences, religious beliefs, or political philosophies of the authors.

Editors must preserve the anonymity of reviewers.

Editors must be attentive to possible conflicts of interest, whether academic, financial, or commercial, or among the actors involved in the publication (editors, reviewers, authors, and related institutions).

Reviewers' obligations

Peer review is an essential component of scientific communication; therefore, Revista Espacios adopts the single-blind external peer review modality in its editorial process and uses the figure of a Reviewer Coordinator to facilitate communication between editors, reviewers, and authors.

Reviewers must respect the intellectual independence of the authors.

Reviewers will receive the necessary recommendations from the Editorial Committee to conduct a fair and objective evaluation of the manuscript's quality, its supporting information, and the maintenance of scientific and literary standards. For this purpose, they have an evaluation form to facilitate their review of the entire document, declare their observations, and make a final decision (see evaluation form).

Reviewers must treat manuscripts received for evaluation as confidential documents and, therefore, not discuss or show them to others.

The reviewers' evaluation not only supports the editors' decision-making but also, as particularly requested by Revista Espacios, should help authors improve their articles with their observations and suggestions.