About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Approach

The Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales is a scientific journal that publishes high quality articles, product of interdisciplinary researches in social sciences, interested in studies that address contemporary problems with a sense of social benefit. In this way, it hopes to contribute to the development of social sciences through the national and international discussion on current epistemological, disciplinary, and professional challenges.

Target audience and scope

The journal is aimed at the national and international public who study the social sciences, aiming to contribute scientific knowledge on complex contemporary social problems from disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives.

Characteristics of the articles

Articles must be original and unpublished, written in Spanish, English or Portuguese, as long as their structure corresponds to one of the types described by the Administrative Departamento de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (Colciencias), which are cited in this section:

• Original scientific article. A complete document that presents in detail the original results derived from completed research or technological development projects. This generally presents within its structure the following parts, Title, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Conclusions, Discussion, Acknowledgements and Bibliographical references.
• Reflection article.  Shows the findings of a completed research from an analytical, interpretative or critical perspective of the author, on a specific topic, using original sources.
• Review article. Product of a completed research in which the results of published or unpublished research are analyzed, systematized and integrated, in a field of science or technology, in order to account for the advances and development techniques. It is characterized by presenting a bibliographic review of at least 50 references.
• Case report. A document that presents the results of a study on a particular situation, in order to release the technical and methodological experiences considered in a specific case. It includes a systematic review of the literature on similar cases.

Each number will be headed by:

• Presentation. Document written by the editor; It gives an account of the purposes of the journal and the articles that make up the number.
• Editorial. Text that includes guidance and reflections on the thematic domain of the journal written by a member of the committees or a guest researcher.

Exceptionally, book reviews will be published, which must be written by a recognized author-researcher and must be related to texts that are considered important for the disciplines covered by the journal. By decision of the Editorial Committee, the reviews may take the place of the editorial. 

Peer Review Process

Editorial review, anti-plagiarism and article evaluation

1. Thematic evaluation, structure and citation rules. The pertinence of the text with the thematic axes of the journal and the fulfillment of the criteria described in the guidelines and the guide for authors is evaluated. If the article does not meet these parameters, it is returned to the author; if the formal or substantive presentation should be improved, the author is asked to make corrections and make a new submission within a time frame adjusted to the editing schedule; if the article meets the aforementioned conditions, the second stage of the process will follow.

2. Anti-plagiarism policy.  In order to identify if the paper is original and unpublished and avoid possible plagiarism, all papers must undergo a technological revision which compares the manuscript with others published in digital media and Crossref academic publications. The technological system reports the similarity level, if it is over 25% the paper is discarded, if it is below 25% the paper is sent to the third step. The report also points out errors in citation and reference as well as primary sources and information credibility and avoids plagiarism.

3. Peer revision. All papers will be assigned referees under the double-blind review model. That is, both the author's and reviewers' identities and decisions regarding the paper are confidential. Once this review of the paper has begun, the author commits to seeing it through and not withdrawing the paper. The estimate time between the reception of the article and the evaluation process is about 3 months. This period may vary according to the order of arrival of the articles, the subject matter and other editorial processes.

Referee selection. The journal has a group of national and international research scholars, with wide experience and publications in the field of social sciences. Each paper is assigned two referees that hold a masters or preferably a doctoral degree in the field and have no conflict of interests; that are not part of the editorial or scientific committees, nor are they affiliated to Universidad Católica Luis Amigó, Colombian scholars must be recognized as researchers by Colciencias, international peers must have graduate education or an h5 index above 2. 

Paper review: the director of the journal provides the referee with the paper, author guidelines and an assessment rubric which focuses on the following formal and topic based elements:

• Relevance of the paper for the journal´s fields of interest.
• Coherence between title and topic.
• Validity of the topic.
• Usage of concepts and terminology of the discipline.
• Relevance of graphics, tables and figures.
• Appropriate use of citation and reference.
• Up to date references
• Novelty of the paper
• Theoretical and methodological thoroughness
• Coherence

4. Decision. The rubric has three alternatives regarding the final decision: 1. “Accepted to publish with content unaltered” 2. “Accepted to publish with minor changes”; 3. “Rejected”. If both referees, consider that the paper should be “Rejected” the Director of the journal informs the authors and provides the result of the peer review. If both referees agree that the paper should be “Accepted to publish with content unaltered”, the author is notified and the paper is sent to edition. If one referee considers that the paper should be “Accepted to publish with content unaltered” while the other one “Accepted to publish with minor changes”, the author is notified about the required changes and the due date. If one of the referees considers that the paper should be “Rejected”, while the other one is under the opinion that it should be published, a third referee will be appointed by the editor (under the double-blind review model) in order to settle the situation. Once the third evaluation is received the author will be notified of the decision.

Publication Frequency

The Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales is a semiannual publication serial publication; it publishes an annual volume, that is, two issues per semester. The issue corresponding to the months of January-June is published in December (of the year immediately preceding the new volume) and the issue corresponding to the months of July-December, in June (of the year of the current volume).

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate free access to its content under the principle that making research available to the public free of charge supports a greater exchange of global knowledge.


License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
 
Under the following terms:

• Attribution - You must give credit appropriately, provide a link to the license, and indicate whether changes have been made. You may do so in any reasonable way, but not in a way that suggests that you or your use have the support of the licensor.

• NonCommercial - You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

• NoDerivatives - If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

• No additional restrictions - You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Plagiarism detection policy

In order to identify whether the articles are original and unpublished and to avoid possible copies and plagiarism, professional technology is used to compare the manuscripts with others already published in different digital media, including the academic publications participating in Crossref. The technological system generates a report and similarity index; if the latter is higher than 25%, the article is discarded; if, on the contrary, the index is up to 25%, the article continues in the third stage of the process. The report identifies errors in the handling of citations and references, proper use of primary sources and credibility of the information, in order to prevent plagiarism.

CrossMark Policy

The Universidad Católica Luis Amigó uses Crossmark to keep its readers informed about the changes and the history of the articles published in its journals, in such a way that its contents are reliable.

CrossMark is an initiative of CrossRef that allows to control the versions and the state of the document. Thus, the Luis Amigó Catholic University demonstrates that
recognizes the importance of maintaining the integrity of the articles, as these are academic and investigative records.

Ethics policies and best practices

Responsibilities of the editor. The editor of the Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales is in charge of select the articles that will make great of the annual of the journal. For this, it is ridged by the conduct code that this publication has. The selection of the articles will have guided for their level and their thematic pertinence, and in this since the gender discrimination, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnic, or religious inclination or politics of someone who postulates their manuscripts never will be considered as a selection criterion. However, the editor has the possibility to discuss the decisions regarding the article’s selection that other members of the publication take, always under the quality text criteria in the field of social sciences publication. Regarding the authors, the editor is committed to maintaining the decisions’ confidentiality concerning his / her articles, in this sense, only the authors will be informed of those decisions. Finally, the editor will avoid expressly manage articles that derive in interests’ conflicts with the result of any possible connection with those conflicts, with the objective of maintaining the transparency of the edition and publication process.

The referees will be responsible for. As a fundamental part of the publication process, the reviewers should maintain the confidentiality of the manuscripts that they receive, in this sense, they should avoid sharing with foreign people the material to evaluate. Is fundamental that the referee maintains the objectivity and neutrality when is time to formulate their article critics, especially, they should be supported by reasonable arguments. The evaluators are in freedom to support the editor and the author to elevate, with their suggestions, the academic quality of the articles that they are evaluated. Also is a responsibility abstaining for using for their benefit the material, and in the same line, avoid belong processes that could derive any interest conflict. Finally, the journal aims that evaluators accomplish with the assigned times for the evaluation process and inform the editor about their possibility of review in a timely and suitable way the text that is invited to evaluate.

Authors will be responsible for. Authors should be regulated according to the publication guidelines and the ethics code that our journal embrace. According to this, the manuscripts must be originals, unpublished, and cannot be in the process of publication in another journal. As members of a research community, their texts should be regulated for the procedures that allow the development of the discipline in the scientific order, that is to say, their texts should provide verified and reliable data, complete references and sources, and the well development of the themes with the objective that other authors should confirm, discuss, or support the ideas that the author presents. Therefore, fake and wrong statements will not be tolerated by our journal. The manuscripts presented should give recognition for the authorship to the persons that participated on its construction and redaction, and in this sense, the main authors and coauthors should be included on the texts, should have approved the information that is going to be presented by the journal. Authors must respect the integrity of the communities that are participants of their research exercises and give guarantee presenting the formats that show the voluntary and worthy participation of the participants. Moreover, the data of the financial sources must be transparent. Finally, the author has the compromise to inform and notify the editor immediately any kind of mistake, inaccuracy, or imprecision that the manuscripts could have.

Procedure for settling disputes arising from unethical behavior. Anyone making a complaint is requested to identify, before claiming to engage in behavior that contravenes the ethics of our publication, the nature of the misconduct and the evidence to prove it, and then proceed to elevate his or her complaint to the editor of our journal.

Claims

• If once the article is published: 1) the editor discovers plagiarism, adulteration, invention or falsification of content and author's data or substantive errors that threaten the quality or scientificity, he/she may request its withdrawal or correction. 2) A third party detects the error, it is the obligation of the author to retract immediately and proceed to the withdrawal or public correction.

• During the editing process, authors should report to the editor any error or inaccuracy they identify in the material submitted; if the article is published with such errors, they should request the journal to correct or retract it immediately.

• The opinions contained in the articles are exclusively attributable to the authors; therefore, Universidad Católica Luis Amigó is not responsible for what they may generate.

• All complaints will be received in writing by e-mail (revista.csociales@amigo.edu.co). The maximum response time will be five working days from the receipt of the disagreement.