Peer Review process

Peer Review process

Contents are peer reviewed, in accordance with the publication standards established in the APA 7.0 (American Psychological Association) manual. Compliance with these requirements facilitates indexing in the main databases of international journals in this field, ensuring the dissemination of published papers and therefore improves the profile of the authors.

The corresponding or submitting author submits the paper to the journal. This is usually via our OJS3.

The editor checks the paper’s composition and arrangement against the journal’s Author Guidelines to make sure it includes the required sections and stylizations, and checks that the paper is appropriate for the journal and is sufficiently original and interesting. If not, the paper may be rejected.

The editor sends invitations to reviewers. As responses are received, further invitations are issued, if necessary, until the required number of acceptances is obtained. Commonly 2 reviewers. Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their own expertise, conflicts of interest and availability. If they accept, manuscripts are reviewed scientifically and anonymously by 2 experts in the field. The reviewer sets time aside to read the paper several times. The review is submitted to the journal, with a recommendation to accept or reject it and with comments. In view of these external evaluations, a decision will be made whether to accept or reject the articles for publication, as well as the possible introduction of stylistic changes and/or the need to trim texts that exceed the maximum length permitted, always respecting the original content. The editor considers all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the reviews differ widely, the editor may invite an additional reviewer so as to get an extra opinion before making a decision.

The editor sends a decision email to the author including any relevant reviewer comments. If accepted, the paper is sent to production. If the article is rejected or sent back for either major or minor revision, the handling editor should include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. At this point, reviewers should also be sent an email or letter letting them know the outcome of their review. If the paper was sent back for revision, the reviewers should expect to receive a new version, unless they have opted out of further participation. However, where only minor changes were requested this follow-up review might be done by the handling editor. Papers that are evaluated positively, requiring modifications (both minor and major), are returned within 14 days at the latest.