Editorial_Procedures

Initial reviews

All manuscripts submitted to and received by the RIEMAT Journal will be reviewed by the Internal Editor to determine if they are adequately prepared and if they follow the ethical policies of the journal. Manuscripts that do not conform to the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the journal's standards will be rejected prior to peer review. Manuscripts that are not adequately prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Editor will determine whether the manuscript conforms to the scope of the journal and is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the paper will be made at this stage. Rejection decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief. Revista RIEMAT is committed to communicate to the authors the acceptance or rejection of the manuscripts within 3 months.

The number of authors or signatories should not exceed eight authors, considering the first as the main author of the article. The manuscript will be a formal, public, controlled document and must comply with the key editorial criteria.

Plagiarism detection

The RIEMAT editorial board has the function of identifying the levels and percentages of similarity of the texts submitted for consideration for publication, compared with available open access information. For this reason, before sending for peer review, submissions are screened for plagiarism using the Compilatio anti-plagiarism system, in which the editor verifies that the article has not been published previously, that the content is self-authored and that the intellectual property of other authors has been correctly referenced. Articles that exceed 10% similarity may be rejected or returned to the authors for correction. This process is licensed on the Compilatio platform.

Peer review

Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it will be assigned to two external experts for peer review. Double-blind review is applied, where the reviewers do not know the identities of the authors and vice versa. Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with the express agreement of the reviewer.

Editorial decision and review

All articles, published in the RIEMAT journal go through the peer review process and receive at least two headings. The editor will communicate the decision of the peers, which will be one of the following:

Accepted without corrections

The article is accepted once reviewed by the two peer reviewers and the authors are notified, a letter of acceptance of the article is issued indicating the volume and publication number.

Acceptance after minor corrections

In principle, the paper is accepted after revision based on the reviewer's comments. Authors have 15 days for minor revisions.

Reconsider after major corrections

Acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author should provide a point-by-point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer's comments cannot be revised. Generally, only one round of major revisions is allowed. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised article within an appropriate time period, and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.

Reject

The article does not belong to the subject area of the journal or does not meet the publication standards or has serious flaws and/or does not make a significant original contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is offered.

All reviewer comments should be responded to point by point. When authors disagree with a reviewer, they should provide a clear response.

Author Appeals

Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the RIEMAT Journal at riemat@utm.edu.ec. The appeal should provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewer's and/or editor's comments. The editorial board consulted will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, additional peer review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A rejection decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.

Production and publication

Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo professional proofreading, editing, author review, final corrections, pagination, and publication on the journal's website according to periodicity.