See the Note from the Editorial Committee on the peer review process: https://doi.org/10.56294/saludcyt2023264

 

 

 

doi: 10.56294/saludcyt2023213   

 

SPECIAL ARTICLE

Version 2; Peer Review - Approved

 

How do editorial processes work in Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología? An article of dynamic questions [Version 2; Peer Review - Approved]

 

¿Cómo funcionan los procesos editoriales en Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología? Un artículo de preguntas dinámicas [Versión 2; Revisión por pares – Aprobado]

 

 

Adrián Alejandro Rojas Concepción1 *, Adrián Alejandro Vitón-Castillo1 *, Carlos Alberto Gómez Cano1 *, Carlos Canova Barrios1 *, Carlos Oscar Lepez1 *, Felipe Machuca-Contreras1 *, Javier Gonzalez-Argote1 *, Mabel Cecilia Bonardi1  *, Patricia Alonso Galbán1  *, William Castillo-González1  *

 

1Editorial Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina.

 

Cite as: Rojas Concepción AA, Vitón-Castillo AA, Gómez Cano CA, Canova-Barrios C, Lepez CO, Machuca-Contreras F, Gonzalez-Argote J, Bonardi MC, Alonso Galbán P, Castillo-González W. ¿Cómo funcionan los procesos editoriales en Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología? Un artículo de preguntas dinámicas. Salud Cienc. Tecnol. 2023;3:2013. https://doi.org/10.56294/saludcyt20232013

 

Received:  30-12-2022     Revised: 08-01-2023     Accepted: 14-01-2023     Published: 02-01-2023 (Version 1); 17-01-2023 (Version 2); 25-01-2023 (Version 2 - English)

 

Guest Editor: Wileidys Artigas  *, High Rate Consulting (Estados Unidos)

 

Peer-reviewed article by Guest Editor.

 

CONTEXT

Open peer review

Open peer review (OPR) is a scientific-article-quality-evaluating process carried out by experts on the area of the article, the identity of the reviewers being public. This means that both the author and the reader can see who have reviewed the paper as well as their comments and suggestions.(1,2)

OPR provides more transparency in the peer review process as it allows authors and readers to see who have participated in the process and how they have influenced the paper. It can also help to avoid partiality and bias while reviewing.(1,2)

 

Post-publication peer review

Post-publication peer review (PPPR) is a scientific-article-quality-evaluating process carried out by experts on the area of the article after it has been published. Its goal is to guarantee that the scientific paper is both strict and high-quality and ethically and transparently carried out.(3,4)

PPPR is carried out in a similar way to the peer review conducted prior to publication, in which experts evaluate and give their opinion about the quality and contribution to scientific knowledge of the respective manuscript.

However, unlike the review prior to publication, the goal of PPPR is not to decide whether a paper should be published or not but to provide feedback and improvements to the already published paper.(3,4)

Due to the above, PPPR has increasingly gained more relevance in the last years because of the need to guarantee quality and integrity of scientific knowledge.

Previous editorial review makes it possible to evaluate some basic elements of the formal aspects of the article, the reality is that peer review is the one that makes it possible to guarantee the quality of publications (though it is not infallible). Since a rather large number of articles are published and then corrigenda or retractations are made for any reason, post-publication peer review leaves open the possibility of correcting and “reopening” the review process at any time as well as having as many review rounds as needed either close to the moment of sending or after its acceptation. This element is not possible in other kinds of review where, once the article is accepted, no further evaluations are made.

 

FREQUENT QUESTIONS

1.    Will the journal become a predator due to the new publication system?

This is one of the main questions arising among editors, researchers, academicians and authors. Said question springs from the concern that our journal may reduce its editorial quality and have a  predating behavior. Nevertheless, the reality is that editorial quality will be given by the management of our editors and the peer review process.

In this sense, though articles are initially “published with errors”, said errors can and will be corrected in the successive rounds of the peer review process, which is the main way to guarantee the quality of the manuscript, though it is not an infallible process, in addition to being an alive, transparent and totally open process. It is valid to make it clear that the initial editorial review makes it possible to guarantee that not everything that arrives at our journal is published, which is one of the big differences regarding pre-print repositories.

 

2.    If I am a reviewer working for this journal, will my name appear in the section of comments and remarks of the editorial process?

The reviewer´s remarks will always be visible, aligned with the open review. The reviewer can decide that his/her name and/or institution is not mentioned. It does not affect transparency and the reviewer´s privacy will always be respected.

 

3.    Will the editorial comments made by authors and editors be set exactly as they are written?

No, the reviewers´ remarks and authors´ answers will have a spelling and typographic correction; besides, offensive or inadequate comments will be removed.

 

4. Should I always provide my Twitter user?

Sharing the Twitter profile of the authors is not compulsory, though we recommend it for the purpose of increasing the altmetric visibility of the article and thus generate spaces for academic debate derived from the article.

 

5. What differences are there in the versions of the article?

It is important to differentiate that the article in this editorial process is alive and will undergo modifications that will be public in several stages of the process.

The first published article will be reviewed by the head editor and the editor who will manage the editorial process. When complying with the formal aspects according to the typology, this first version of the article will be published but the editorial process is not closed with this action since it will be sent to the evaluating peers for them to conduct the review, recommend and suggest any changes according to the opportunities for improvement of the original article. 

The assigned editor receives the suggestions or remarks made by the evaluating peers, sends them to the authors for their correction, the authors send the corrected article, the editor reviews the corrections and answer by the authors about the adoption or rejection of the remarks and makes the first editorial decision, where the editor can decide on accepting the article (with or without remarks) or having a new round of review; after this step the second version of the article comes out. This second version will be published too. If new rounds of review are needed, the same procedure takes place: from the reviewers to the editor, from the editor to the author, it returns to the editor and the editorial decision is made. This generates Versions 3, 4, 5, X.

New versions of the article could be generated in the future through post-publication review, which is spontaneous by experts on the area and will be sent to the authors by the editor assigned to the article.

 

6. When is a new version of an article generated?

The versions of an article can be generated in different ways:

·         Initially, when the editor accepts that the article goes to peer review (Version 1).

·         After the peer review and when the author sends the article with the suggested modifications and the answer to the reviewers and/or editor´s comments (Version 2, 3, …).

·         When a reader decides to review the latest published version of the article and to send his/her remarks, the editor reviews them and requests the author to send the article with the suggested corrections and the answer to the remarks that were made. This kind of review is proper to the post-publication peer review and should be differentiated from the Letter to the Editor (scientific criticism) where a reader makes a criticism to the published article. We deem it advisable to stress that our journal does not accept Letters to the Editor since it is open to this kind of review (Version 2, 3, …).

·         It is valid to point out that the editor is always the one who chooses which remarks by the reviewers are appropriate and which ones are not, and the author will justify which remarks are out of the scope of the article. Finally, the editor is the one who makes the final decision of accepting/rejecting the published article.

 

7. Is the article published in its version 1 or any other before being accepted a preprint?

No, the articles in all their versions are published journal articles; however, only the article accepted after a peer review is indexed in Scopus.

 

8. Why are only the articles accepted after a peer review indexed in Scopus?

Though our journal is aligned with the open and post-publication peer review, it is committed to guaranteeing the editorial processes, so it will manage only the indexing of those articles that have been accepted after the peer review process.

 

9. Does the journal accept any changes of authorship?

Though our journal accepts changes of authorship, it has its reserves to avoid purchase/sale of authorship. Therefore, if one or more authors are added/removed, the authors must explain the reasons for this change in a letter that must be signed by all authors and it will be published at the end of the mock-up, this will not occur with the change of order or contribution. Any changes of authorship can become effective only in a new version and not in previous versions; this procedure is established even in COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and is an internationally accepted process.

 

10. Why did the journal increase its Article Publishing Charge and what are these funds earmarked for?

After being included in Scopus and deriving from remarks by the Content Selection and Advisory Board (CSAB), our journal decided to reform its editorial process and improve the editorial standards. In this sense, new services were contracted for digital preservation and collaborative work of the editorial staff (Dropbox, Google Workplace, Trello, Zoom), anti-plagiarism tools (Turnitin, iThenticate) and services for content management in social media with their respective tools. As regards layout, articles now will have an XML marking process intended for future indexing in Pubmed/PMC, besides, since there will be several versions of an article, they will have a double or triple layout. We currently have an area specially assigned to translation and style correction for our journal to be bilingual. Finally, it should be taken into account that the expenses of our journal were previously proportional to the editorial standards existing in 2022.

 

11. Will the published articles have a unique DOI or will a DOI be assigned to each version?

Our journal will assign a unique DOI to the article; however, thanks to Crossmark, the versions of the published articles can be followed to know which the latest existing version is.

 

12. How much time do I have to answer the reviewers?

The authors of the published article take on responsibility to answer the reviewers´ remarks and to apply, inasmuch as they agree or not, the reviewers´ remarks. It is valid to make it clear that the function of the author does not end when the article is published in its initial version but, instead, it begins at that moment. Therefore, it is essential that authors be attentive to any future editorial communications about their article.

The time available to answer reviewers depends on the complexity of the requested corrections and the necessary changes in the scientific article; in addition to having the consent of all the authors of the article. The Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología Team encourages authors to make any changes based on the editors and/or reviewers´ remarks as soon as convenient and thus make editorial processes more dynamic.

If, after at least 6 attempts to get in contact with the authors within the 12 months following reception of the reviewers´ remarks, no answer from the authors have been received, the article will be rejected.

 

13. Is the corresponding author the only one who must provide his/her email?

In order to foster academic exchange and editorial transparency, our journal encourages all authors of the article to make their email, either personal or institutional, public. It facilitates communication among the members of the editorial committee and the authors as well as any future communications from a reader to some specific author.

It should be stressed that authors must design a corresponding author, but this element will remain as metadata and not necessarily shown in the galley proof unless specifically decided by the authors.

Our journal fosters authorship contribution in the format Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT),(6) so in this space authors can delimit which authors are the most relevant in the development of research and/or writing of the article.

 

14. What happens if I choose to withdraw my article during the Editorial process?

If the article has been published and is in the peer review process or has been rejected, the authors can request that their article be retracted by sending a letter signed by all authors, which letter will be attached to the manuscript and the review process will be discontinued. The articles will continue being visible in the platform, with their respective notification of retracted article. The journal Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología does not restrict the possibility of sending the article to another journal if the other journal accepts to publish it.

 

15. What happens with the articles rejected after a review round?

There are three options for unaccepted articles:

·         Option A: improve the article until it is accepted.

·         Option B: remain unaccepted and therefore non-indexed in Scopus.

·         Option C: retraction due to non-ethical causes or due to ethical causes.

 

16. Which is the role of the assigned editor?

As in any scientific journal, the role of the editor is to control and coordinate the peer review process and make a report on the rejection or approval of articles in the journal. Editors´ decisions are not appealable and editors cannot be open to challenge. They are recommended to read the list of executive and associate editors in order to prevent any potential conflicts of interest (if any, they must be declared). If there is any irregularity in the peer review process, the Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología Head Editor (jargote@saludcyt.ar) must be notified.

 

17. Which is the role of an Invited Editor?

The Invited Editor is a researcher or academician external to the Editorial Staff who is transitorily designated as editor to manage supplements, articles or sections of the journal either due to their technical specificity or because it is so required. The role of the Invited Editor is the same as that of the other editors, but the Invited Editor will always be accompanied by an Executive or Associate Editor, as the case may be, to clarify any doubt or to support the Invited Editor´s decisions. Only in the case of the editorials, the Invited Editor will be in charge of all management of the article.

 

18. Which is the role of the reviewer?

“Reviewers evaluate the articles sent to the journals based on the requirements of the journal, on predefined criteria and on the quality, integrity and accuracy of the piece of research that has been submitted. They make comments about the article, suggest improvements and make a recommendation to the editor about whether to accept, reject or request changes in the article. The final decision always rests with the editor, but reviewers play an important role in determining the result.”(5)

Our journal provides neither a “guide for reviewers” nor a “checklist” since we consider that it could limit or restrict the evaluation made by the reviewers because they might adjust only to what is stated in that document, which has negative repercussions on review quality. Our journal will suggest some key (though not exclusive) elements to approach the review, giving reviewers the opportunity to freely express their remarks about the article. We request reviewers to be as exhaustive as possible with their remarks, since the quality of the final version of the article and its future contribution to science depend on it to a large extent.

Having sent their article with their remarks, all reviewers will have a supporting certificate and, thanks to the integration with Web of Science Reviewer Recognition Service, they can prove the validity of their reviews in Publons™. Likewise, reviewers will have discounts on article processing charges that they can use to get articles both for themselves and for their department/institution.

 

19. How can I send a post-publication suggestion?

After the peer review and once the article has been accepted, it remains open to comments by the academic community and can receive comments or remarks by readers. Our readers can send suggestions to the editor in charge of the article and/or to the email of our journal, who will evaluate the appropriateness of remarks, taking into account a priori that those are opportunities for the article to be improved, then the editor will send the suggestions to the authors for their consideration, adjustment and generation of a new version of the article.

 

20. How will the members of the editorial staff get in contact with the authors and/or reviewers?

The editorial processes are performed through the platform Open Journal System (OPS) of our journal and/or via email. In the case of communications via email, they will be sent with the domain of our publishing house, ie, @saludcyt.ar or sub-domains such as @revista.saludcyt.ar.  An editor or another member or our publishing house will never contact the authors/reviewers via a personal email for purposes of editorial management. If you receive any emails about our journal from an email other than that of our domain, you should assume that it is a supplantation of identity.

 

21. Why is there a “parallel” OJS platform for editorial management?

It should be understood that the articles with post-publication peer review have several published versions (See question 4), so the sent article can neither be followed by the reviewers nor its publication be cancelled by the editors to carry out the editorial process. Even reviewers cannot download the article or make recommendations once the article is published.

Though the section “Emailing” includes the information that “Our journal is not accepting any emailing at this moment”, we are telling authors that this is due to the fact that emailing to our journal will take place in another OJS platform: https://envios.saludcyt.ar/index.php/sct/submission/wizard

Figure 1 shows a graphical abstract of the journal's current publishing process.

 

 

Escala de tiempo Descripción generada automáticamente

Figure 1. Abstract of the editorial process in the journal Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología.

 

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

Any change is a dynamic learning process; we hope we are on a par with open high-level science and editorial standard. As an editorial staff, we consider that the journal Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología is an “incorrect journal on the correct way”; therefore, we thank authors, reviewers and readers for their trust and dedication.

If you have any question about the editorial processes in Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología, send it to revista@revista.saludcyt.ar and we will include it in future versions of the article.

 

REFERENCES

1.    Ross-Hellauer T. What is open peer review? A systematic review. F1000Res 2017;6:588. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.11369.2.

 

2.    Schmidt B, Ross-Hellauer T, van Edig X, Moylan EC. Ten considerations for open peer review. F1000Res 2018;7:969. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.15334.1.

 

3.    Hunter J. Post-Publication Peer Review: Opening Up Scientific Conversation. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience 2012;6:63. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2012.00063.

 

4.    Kriegeskorte N. Open Evaluation: A Vision for Entirely Transparent Post-Publication Peer Review and Rating for Science. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience 2012;6:79. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2012.00079.

 

5.  Elsevier. Role of a reviewer. Elsevier BV 2; 2022. https://www.elsevier.com/reviewers/role.

 

6. Allen L, O’Connell A, Kiermer V. How can we ensure visibility and diversity in research contributions? How the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) is helping the shift from authorship to contributorship. Learn Publ 2019;32:71-4. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1210.

 

FINANCING

There is no funding for this work.

 

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors of this article are members of the Editorial team of Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología; however, peer review was performed by a guest editor external to the editorial board.

 

AUTHORSHIP CONTRIBUTION

Conceptualization: Javier Gonzalez-Argote.

Research: Javier Gonzalez-Argote.

Original writing-drafting: Javier Gonzalez-Argote.

Writing-revision and editing: Adrián Alejandro Rojas Concepción, Adrián Alejandro Vitón Castillo, Carlos Alberto Gómez Cano, Carlos Canova-Barrios, Carlos Oscar Lepez, Felipe Machuca-Contreras, Mabel Cecilia Bonardi, Patricia Alonso Galbán, William Castillo-González, Javier Gonzalez-Argote.

 

 

 

 

 

SECTION NOT TRANSLATED

Note: In order to avoid misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the reviewers’ and/or editors’ comments, this section was not translated.

 

 

Observaciones de la Revisión por Pares

 

Revisor 1/1: Wileidys Artigas  *. High Rate Consulting (Estados Unidos).

 

Las observaciones realizadas por la editora que realizó la revisión por pares fueron en forma de comentarios, por lo que se han colocado los párrafos o frases donde se han colocado los comentarios con la finalidad de contextualizar la observación:

1.      En la frase: “A raíz de lo anteriormente comentado, la RPP ha cobrado cada vez más relevancia en los últimos años debido a la necesidad de garantizar la calidad y la integridad del conocimiento científico.” ¿Esta necesidad no se cubre igualmente con la revisión previa? Para reflexión.

2.      En el párrafo “En este sentido, si bien los artículos son inicialmente "publicados con errores", estos pueden ser subsanados en las sucesivas rondas del proceso de revisión por pares, que es la forma principal de garantizar la calidad del manuscrito, a pesar de no ser un proceso infalible; además de ser un proceso vivo, transparente y totalmente abierto.” Creo que es importante aclarar que los artículos que son publicados son sometidos a una revisión inicial por parte de los editores que es lo que garantiza que NO TODO LO QUE LLEGA SE PUBLICA que es lo que podría confundirse.

3.      En el párrafo “Las observaciones del revisor siempre se harán visibles, alineadas con la revisión abierta. El revisor puede decidir que su nombre y/o institución no aparezca expuesto. Ello no afecta la transparencia y siempre se respetará su privacidad .” Si el revisor decide no aparecer, ¿la revisión abierta es válida?

4.      En el párrafo “No, los artículos en todas sus versiones son artículos de revista publicados, sin embargo, solo el artículo aceptado por revisión por pares será indexado en Scopus .” ¿Qué pasa si el artículo no es aceptado? ¿SIGUE SIENDO UNA OPCIÓN? O ya todos los que aparecen son aceptados.

5.      Sobre la frase “Los cambios de autoría sólo podrán hacerse efectivos en una nueva versión y no en versiones anteriores.” Es importante señalar que este procedimiento incluso se establece en COPE y es un proceso aceptado internacionalmente.

6.      Sobre la pregunta “¿Cuánto tiempo tengo para responderle a los revisores?” ¿Después de cuánto tiempo de no responder el artículo se descarta? ¿O nunca se descarta?

7.      En la frase “Por último  es el editor el que toma la decisión final de aceptar/rechazar el artículo publicado.” Colocar “,” luego de “Por último”.

 

Respuesta a los revisores por parte de los autores:

 

1.      Respuesta Observación 1: Se agregó el siguiente texto “La revisión previa permite evaluar algunos elementos básicos de los aspectos formales del artículo, la realidad es que es la revisión por pares la que permite garantizar la calidad de las publicaciones (aunque no es infalible). Dado que un volumen no menor de artículos se publica y luego se realizan erratas o retractaciones por cualquier causa; la revisión por pares pospublicación deja abierto la posibilidad de corrección y de “reabrir” el proceso de revisión en cualquier momento, así como tener tantas rondas de revisión como sean necesarias ya sea cercanas al momento del envío o con posterioridad a su aceptación. Este elemento no es posible en otros tipos de revisión donde una vez aceptado el artículo no se realizan evaluaciones posteriores.

2.      Respuesta Observación 2: Se agregó la frase “Es válido aclarar que la revisión editorial inicial permite garantizar que no todo lo que llega a la revista se publique, que es una de las grandes diferencias respecto a los repositorios de pre-print.”

3.      Respuesta Observación 3: Se debe tener en cuenta que la revisión es abierta siempre que se hagan públicas las observaciones del revisor, que es lo relevante en este tipo de revisión. La revista prefiere que los autores realicen una revisión sincera y profunda, respetando la privacidad del revisor, antes que la exposición pueda afectar (por cualquier causa) la profundidad o calidad de la revisión. Existen revistas registradas en DOAJ con revisión por pares “abiertas”, donde en ninguna parte del artículo aparece el nombre o comentarios de los revisores. Ej: Figuras Revista Académica de Investigación: Normas editoriales (https://revistafiguras.acatlan.unam.mx/index.php/figuras/opr) y Ejemplo de artículo: (https://revistafiguras.acatlan.unam.mx/index.php/figuras/article/view/244/549);  o Environmental Research: Climate: Normas a los autores (https://publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org/journals/environmental-research-climate) y Ejemplo de artículo (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2752-5295/aca8c4/pdf)

4.      Respuesta Observación 4: Los artículos no aceptados tiene tres opciones: Opción A: mejorar el artículo hasta su aceptación. Opción B: quedar como no aceptado y por tanto no indexado en Scopus. Opción C: la retractación por causas no éticas (ejemplo otra revista https://f1000research.s3.amazonaws.com/manuscripts/140270/f178c53f-87df-411a-a6b4-8b52a9ed1584_blank.pdf?doi=10.12688/OfBrowsableCollections=90&numberOfBrowsableInstitutionalCollections=4&numberOfBrowsableGateways=49) o por causas éticas (https://f1000research.s3.amazonaws.com/manuscripts/79849/574fe1e6-617f-46fc-80c1-def4d57f2e89_blank.pdf?doi=10.12688/h.75912.1&numberOfBrowsableCollections=90&numberOfBrowsableInstitutionalCollections=4&numberOfBrowsableGateways=49). Cabe destacar que este aspecto fue respondido en la pregunta “¿Qué pasa si durante el proceso Editorial deseo retirar mi artículo?”.

5.      Respuesta Observación 5: Se mantuvo la frase “Los cambios de autoría sólo podrán hacerse efectivos en una nueva versión y no en versiones anteriores.” fue cambiada por “Los cambios de autoría se harán efectivos en todas las versiones anteriores del artículo.”

6.      Respuesta Observación 6: Se agregó la frase “Si luego de al menos 6 intentos de comunicación con los autores en los 12 meses posteriores a la recepción de las observaciones de los revisores, sin que haya respuesta de los autores, el artículo será rechazado.”

7.      Respuesta Observación 7: Se corrigió el signo de puntuación.

 

Además de estas respuestas, se han agregado nuevas preguntas y una figura que resume el proceso editorial en la revista.