About the Journal
Approach and Scope
Revista Med is an open access peer-reviewed scientific journal whose aim is to serve as a channel for knowledge dissemination on Health Sciences in general, with a particular emphasis on medicine.
Its main objective is to become a platform, in which different research communities contribute to the medical field, both in the Colombian and Ibero-American contexts, for the construction of development models that respond to a multiple and complex reality.
The journal issues unpublished articles that meet criteria of relevance, originality, and thematic significance, written in Spanish, English, and Portuguese. It addresses professors, researchers, students, doctors, and organizations involved in the research or application of knowledge in the various areas of health sciences.
The frequency of publication is semi-annual; the first edition is issued in the January–June period while the second corresponds to July–December, in electronic format. The print version is available on request, for promotional purposes only.
Submission and Summary of the Release Cycle
Articles are submitted to the journal in accordance with the calls published online, for its miscellaneous or monographic issues (thematic), without article processing charges incurred by the author. Article publication is subject to the order of arrival and the results of the article’s evaluation, considering submission and release cycle.
Submission
● Articles will be submitted strictly through the current editorial management system (Scholar One). Under no circumstances will submissions be accepted through a different system. This approach seeks to ensure traceability, transparency, follow-up and quality of the editorial and scientific process the articles are subjected to.
● Articles must be submitted by the author after reviewing the requirements described in the “Instructions for Authors” section.
● The article will be submitted without any data that may serve to identify its authors. The metadata corresponding to the authors must be directly recorded in the platform: ORCID iD, institutional affiliation, city, country, and institutional e-mail address. No other biographical information corresponding to the author, such as qualifications, multiple affiliations, awards or memberships, should be included. This information is reported in the profile (ORCID iD) that can be checked online.
Release Cycle
● Receipt of article and editorial filter. Once the article is received, the journal will conduct a preliminary review, that is, a filter, which will take approximately seven calendar days. All articles will be checked in relation to their degree of formality in accordance with the “Instructions for Authors,” and a tool will be used to check for copyright compliance.
● Filter result. If any issues are found during this stage, the journal team will communicate with the authors either to request corrections or to inform them that the potential publication of the article was rejected.
● Peer-review. If the article passes the editorial filter, peers will be selected and called under the “double blind” method. Authors will receive the official response from the journal within a quarter, in accordance with the number of articles being evaluated.
● Corrections and evaluation result. Articles can be approved without making changes, approved with minor changes (mostly stylistic choices), approved with major changes (which involve a substantial correction of the article, and, occasionally, a new evaluation cycle) or rejected.
Based on the result of the concepts, the publisher will make a final decision on the article’s publication. For example, if the article was approved subject to major changes, the publisher may opt not to accept it, terminate its process in the journal, and, later, reevaluate it to perform a full peer-review cycle. Likewise, if the peer reviewers suggest changes to be made in the article, the publisher will ask the authors to send a cover letter of the corrected version or a letter of reply, in which they must explain each change made as well as the ways in which the recommendations made by peers were addressed, either on academic or scientific grounds. The corrected versions will be reviewed by the publisher or, once again, by the peers. Later, the final notification on the approval or rejection of the article will be sent.
● Copyediting. The articles approved by the publisher in the peer review will be subject to a professional editing process beginning with copyediting. This consists of a revision of the text’s writing, syntax, and spelling, in addition to checking for compliance with editorial standards and the use of references and citations. When the authors are informed of these corrections, they will have seven calendar days to approve and supplement the correction. After this period, if the authors fail to submit their response, the journal will assume all corrections sent were approved and will proceed to the layout stage.
● Text finalization and layout. The final version resulting from the article copyediting will be adjusted to the journal’s layout design, a process known as layout. The author will have a maximum of five days (upon receiving the notification) to review and approve the layout test.
● Artwork review and approval. The journal’s chief editor and the authors will conduct a final review to make final comments, if necessary, and approve the article for publishing. The authors bear the primary responsibility for checking and approving this final version. They will have a maximum of five calendar days to give their consent. After this, no claims or requests for adjustments can be made. This last review will result in the final version for publication.
● Publishing. Once the editorial process is complete, the articles will be published online.
● Post-publication. The content published in the journal will be subject to the necessary technical processes (html, xml mark-up, etc.), ensuring their online visibility and incorporation into indexing and abstract systems. Similarly, a dissemination strategy may be agreed upon with the authors for their article to reach the main audience of their specific area and facilitate its consultation, reading and refuting in professional, scientific training processes or other researches.
Aspects of the Journal’s Editorial and Political Structure
Editorial Structure: Publisher, Committee, and Evaluators
The journal comprises a publisher, who has an editorial team (assistants, associate editors), as well as an editorial and scientific committee. The editing process is directly followed by Editorial Neogranadina for its editorial structure and planning aspects and, externally, by reviewers, previously selected by the publisher.
Selection of Members and Criteria
● The publisher, the committee members, and the evaluators need to have a verifiable academic and scientific background, with current publications (in the last five years) in indexed journals found in the main international indexing systems (Web of Science, Scopus and Scielo Citation Index), and a Masters or PhD level education in the knowledge field.
● Tenure of members of the journal’s editorial team is subject to regular evaluations by Editorial Neogranadina in order to determine their contribution to the journal’s management, scientific quality, and visibility.
● For the purposes of avoiding potential conflicts of interest and endogamy, the journal, with the advice of Editorial Neogranadina, reserves the right to admit members affiliated with the publisher (Nueva Granada Military University) on its committees.
Roles
Editing Board and Scientific Committee. Body responsible for the journal’s strategic decision-making in aspects related to publishing policies and those that have an impact on its scientific quality. It is responsible for defining the journal’s thematic trends, positioning strategies and guidelines as well as ensuring compliance and implementation of editorial quality standards in publication.
Publisher. Responsible for the reinforcement of the editorial policies as well as management and decision-making on each article published in the journal. The publisher leads the article’s evaluation and editing process, requesting the authors to provide the revisions needed to achieve a publishable version of it.
The publisher carries out the selection, evaluation and follow-up of the reviewers who are part of the peer-review process, ensuring transparency and efficiency to achieve optimum scientific and editorial quality.
As part of the journal’s positioning and visibility within the field’s academic and scientific context, the publisher and publishing team will be in charge of the indexing, dissemination, and diffusion processes of the content published with their involvement in scientific events and the journal’s incorporation or updation in international systems and databases, assisted by Editorial Neogranadina.
Reviewers. These are researchers specializing in the lines that make up the thematic scope defined by the journal, who have the capacity to evaluate the articles in a critical and scientific way to identify contributions to the field based on the criteria set forth in the review process and its guidelines.
Ethical Standards Followed by the Journal
The ethical standards adopted by the journal arise from the following organizations which suggest concepts, guidelines and procedures that are widely used across the globe:
● Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): benchmark in ethical aspects of publishing practices at the author, publisher, committee member, and reviewer levels.
● Council of Science Editors: an organization aimed at addressing integrity issues of scientific publications, conflicts of interests, licenses and authorship, among others.
● International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: a committee mainly devoted to issues related to anonymity, informed consent, and protection of individuals who take part in research published by the journal.
Likewise, the journal adopts the principles of transparency and best practices in scholarly publishing, defined and endorsed by DOAJ, OASPA, and WAME[Editor1] , which were published in January 2018. In addition, it advocates for the proper use of citation metrics, along the same line of recommendations recorded in the document known as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment.
In this regard, the journal has defined the main ethical principles, in line with the roles of its main collaborators, as indicated below.
● Authors
a. The authors who submit articles to the journal are committed to ensuring respect for the copyright, the protection of data and other aspects related to research development and publication.
b. The authors undertake to present the research in a clear and honest way, avoiding the fabrication, falsification or inappropriate manipulation of data.
c. The researcher will meet the formal aspects of submission, guaranteeing the originality of the research, avoiding plagiarism and previous publication by any other means. Salami publication, including self-plagiarism and simultaneous submission to other journals, will be rejected.
d. Conflicts of interests need to be duly and promptly declared in the article.
e. The authors who are part of the research will take full responsibility for its content and any resulting actions.
f. Researchers are required to acknowledge the involvement of authors who have truly contributed to the article, without resorting to false authorship or the incorporation of authors who did not contribute to the research development. In this regard, they will indicate the specific contribution made by each co-author in the letter attached in the article submission.
g. Authors adhere to the assessment model defined by the journal; therefore, they undertake to provide a timely, professional and respectful response to the comments made by the publisher, the peer reviewer, and the production editor throughout the various stages of the process.
h. The submission of articles to a review process without the actual purpose of remaining involved in it is regarded as misconduct. The withdrawal of an article after its approval and during the editorial process must be duly justified. If authors are ascertained to be making use of the journal to improve their articles through the peer-review process without the intention of publishing them, the authors will be penalized for engaging in this practice. The journal will not process any new articles submitted by these authors.
● Publisher
a. The publisher undertakes to ensure the proper development of the various journal processes in an ethical way, assuming responsibility for publication.
b. The publisher will make fair and impartial decisions regardless of the context, guaranteeing a fair and proper peer-review process for the authors.
c. The publisher will adopt editorial policies which ensure maximum transparency and honesty during the article’s evaluation, editing, and publication.
d. The publisher protects the journal’s integrity by correcting and removing any content arising from the editorial process or reviewing questionable ethical practices that are detrimental to the scientific quality.
e. The publisher will follow up in a timely manner to inappropriate behaviors by reviewers, authors or committee members, based on continuous monitoring.
f. All studies involving the participation of humans or animals must be critically assessed according to compliance with international ethical standards that have defined the corresponding guidelines and must be accompanied by a letter of approval from the Ethics Committee.
g. The authors, reviewers, and committee members must have prior knowledge of what is expected from them, based on the editorial policies, guidelines, and formats defined by the publisher, in order to ensure proper content use and management.
h. The publisher will declare potential conflicts of interest that may arise when an article is received and evaluated, in order to make a management decision that will not jeopardize any journal process.
● Evaluators
a. The evaluator will be selected by the publisher and the editorial staff, based on compliance with criteria, such as academic training, number of publications in reputable sources, and the impact of its production in the area.
b. The evaluator undertakes to read an article only if when having the suitable level of expertise, knowledge and current commitments to allow for making a well-argued judgment in a timely manner.
c. The evaluator takes responsibility for ensuring an adequate review that allows authors to understand the reasons of the evaluator’s idea and to include the assessment of methodological, content and structural aspects.
d. Identity theft during the review process is considered an inappropriate practice. The individual assuming responsibility for the assessment process is the researcher who has been called to serve as an evaluator. Under no circumstances will third parties be accepted to be part of the process (e.g., research assistants, doctoral or postgraduate students, teachers, other colleagues) without the publisher’s prior consent.
e. The evaluator will be responsible for and committed to declaring any conflict of interest that may arise during the evaluation of an allocated article in a timely manner. Conflicts may be personal, financial, intellectual or professional.
f. Using the material included in an article under evaluation is considered inappropriate behavior by the evaluator. Under no circumstances will evaluators be authorized to use data from the research assigned for review, either fully or partially. Similarly, it is not appropriate for evaluators convened to accept reviewing very active research similar to any that they may be developing at the same time.
g. The evaluator is responsible for providing a timely response to the requests related to the article being read, in accordance with the timeframe agreed upon with the journal. Otherwise, the evaluator will need to inform the editor of the changes in the delivery schedule, so that the authors or the journal are not affected by any change in the process.
h. The evaluator has read, understands, and follows the editorial policies established by the journal.
i. The evaluator will inform the journal of any inappropriate behavior identified in the article under evaluation and will provide the arguments and basis for this presumption i.e., plagiarism, fabrication of data, manipulation of results, publication duplication, among others.
j. The evaluation process will be carried out in accordance with the instructions provided by the journal, on its platforms and formats.
k. Evaluators must refrain from recommending that the authors cite them or their colleagues in order to lead to an increase in citation. If this suggestion is made, it shall be based on duly justified academic, scientific or technical reasons.
l. If corrections are suggested, the evaluator will remain active in the evaluation process, in such a way that the editor may use personal judgment and advice to check that the article assessed was sufficiently and coherently adjusted. However, given that the arbitration process is a space of academic interaction, the evaluator must be in a position to expand on some aspects of this opinion, so that the publisher or the authors are able to resolve queries or better understand the recommendations.
It is worth noting that, to handle cases that may arise from the presumption of ethical problems or improper practices in the article and to make corrections and retractions, the procedures described on the website for the COPE will prevail.
If evaluators would like to report inappropriate practices or a problem identified in any article that has already been published as well as to refer to the difficulties or disagreements with the editor, the editorial team or throughout the journal process, they can send an e-mail to the following mail address: <editorial.neogranadina@unimilitar.edu.co>.
Evaluation System
All articles received will be evaluated, starting with an editorial filter to determine the level of compliance with its formal aspects and anti-plagiarism software. If the article is approved at this phase, it will undergo the “double blind” review process.
The evaluation criteria for this stage considers the following aspects: compliance with the guidelines set forth in the “Instructions for Authors,” the scientific quality of the content, and the thematic relevance. Articles that fail to comply with the presentation rules, those that were previously published, either fully or partially, or simultaneously included in other publications as well as articles misusing texts protected by copyright or whose content does not match the journal’s thematic scope, will be rejected.
● Peer review. Articles that have passed the initial stage will be evaluated by external peers, who will conduct the corresponding review of its content, methodology, novelty, and contribution to the field. On average, this process lasts a trimester, during which the evaluator will provide a judgment of acceptance, rejection or approval with changes, and will check the corrections made by the authors, if needed.
In case of disagreement between judgments made by the peers, a third evaluator will be assigned. In addition, there is a possibility that the journal’s publisher or committee may give their perspective to resolve an opposing result by peers.
The general criteria followed to evaluate an article are as follows:
● Scientific quality. This relates to the contributions made to the research, the consistency between aim, results and conclusions, the veracity of the data, the object of study established, the research’s methodological rigor and originality as well as its relevance and contribution made to its area of knowledge.
● Linguistic quality. This refers to compliance with grammatical, orthographic, and typography aspects as well as its discursive consistency and use of high-quality bibliographic sources.
● Ethical aspects. This involves the authorization of publications that comprise human or animal experiments, the declaration of conflicts of interest, the responsibility of presenting true data and results, the need for the proper use of sources protected by copyright, and others.
The evaluation process is based on quality, on the external evaluation, on the selection of evaluators with scientific experience, and on the objective feedback to the author. The following aspects are taken into account to select evaluators for the journal:
● The preselection of suitable arbitrators, in accordance with the journal’s subject areas and with the specific subject of each article submitted for evaluation.
● The verification of each evaluator’s academic degree (preferably, with a PhD), publications, and impact as researcher over the last five years.
● The balanced participation of national and international researchers, contributing to the consolidation of scientific networks of knowledge, avoiding conflicts of interest due to regional proximity.
● The quality of the evaluation made by the arbitrators, which must be professional, strict, focused on scientific arguments, and must provide authors with useful guidance.
Article acceptance and rejection statistics will be published periodically with their respective percentages, so as to guarantee a transparent review process to the interested community.
Self-Archiving and Digital Preservation
The journal uses the Pórtico system to create a permanent archive backup, with the purpose of preserving and restoring published content.
Per the Sherpa Romeo classification, the self-archive policy includes the possibility to deposit the postprint (latest version of an article subsequent to the peer-review process) and the editor’s version and is marked in blue.
