Innova Research Journal performs an external arbitration through the double blind peer review process where anonymity between authors and peer reviewers is guaranteed and the quality and scientific rigor of the research is verified. The Editorial Board of the journal is the last instance responsible for the final decision for publication and it does not guarantee the acceptance of the manuscript submission.

The procedures to select and review the articles has two phases:

1) Initial selection

Papers are submitted through the Open Journal System (OJS), where the author must upload the following information: a) Anonymized manuscript; b) Letter of originality and copyright and c) Biography of the authors. When the submitting is completed, the author will receive automatically an email confirmation.

Before submitting the article, the authors must review the submission checklist (see here), the Authors Guideline will help you prepare your manuscript and the Manual to upload the article to the platform will guide you in the process of registration (available here).

Once the information is received, the Editorial Committee will check that the information complies with the guidelines established in the Authors' Guide. With the support of the thematic coordinators, it will be verified that the research is within the thematic areas and scope of the journal (see here), that it is an original and unpublished work and that it complies with the format and style formats. The magazine has the participation of external professionals and experts in the areas of Education and Business and Innovation.

Similarity detection

All articles are reviewed using the TURNITIN automated text similarity detection system, which ensures that the works are unpublished. The system produces a report showing the percentage of similarity and marks the compromised paragraphs. This information is relevant because it allows the Editorial Committee to identify citation errors that can be corrected or possible plagiarism or self- plagiarism behavior. This report is communicated to the authors and, if necessary, clarifications are requested to determine the final result of this process. Up to a maximum of 7% similarity is accepted.

Possible reasons for rejection of the article by the Editorial Committee are the following: 1) The topic does not cover the thematic areas and scope of the journal; 2) there is not enough progress or impact in the investigation; 3) does not present the requested documents and in an established format; 4) articles that are not original and unpublished; 5) lack of adequate structure; 6) exceeds the limit of text similarities according to Unicheck software; 7) does not meet the standards of bibliographic references and citation style.

This review phase may last up to 30 days, authors will be notified if the paper is rejected or preliminarily considered for evaluation by external reviewers.

 

2) Double-blind peer review

Articles that approve the first selection phase, are evaluated by the double blind peer review process, where anonymity between authors and reviewers is guaranteed. The Editorial Board will assign the original article to two peer reviewers who have experience in the subject matter presented and do not belong to the authors' institution and the publishing institution. 

 

Profile of peer reviewers: tThe journal has the collaboration of external reviewers to the publishing institution (Universidad Internacional del Ecuador). The reviewers have a master's degree or higher, have experience in the topics of the journal and, in addition, have indexed publications. The recruitment of new reviewers is carried out by a call to experts in the subject matter; the authors cannot recommend reviewers, the recruitment is carried out by the Editorial Committee.

Peer reviewers do not receive remuneration, in recognition of their work, an arbitration certificate is issued. See review committee.

 

This evaluation is carried out through the OJS platform, the peer reviewers receive a notification by email and a maximum period of 4 weeks is established to complete the evaluation. The reviewers have access to the anonymized article and the evaluation form (see here) where they will make their judgment on the publication or not of the article. The form is anonymous, that is, it does not include personal information that allows the identification of the reviewer, it is sent directly to the author. 

The peers must conclude with one of the following results:

• * Publish without modifications
• * Publish once the authors fulfill the recommendations provided by peers and editors
• * Do not publish.

Based on these external reports, the editorial committee will decide whether to accept or reject the manuscripts for publication. If there are discrepancies in the arbitrations, a third evaluator will be assigned, who will have a period of two weeks for the review.

External reports will be sent anonymously to the authors. The approved papers, which require modifications according to the recommendations of the reviewers, will be returned to the authors and a maximum period of 2 weeks will be set according to the type of amendments to the text. The corrected version of the manuscript will be evaluated to confirm that the recommendations have been met. If necessary, peers could review the full text again and it will take a week.

When the evaluation process is finished, the editorial committee will send the authors a communication on the acceptance or rejection of the texts and will indicate the date of publication. Authors will be able to access the final article through the INNOVA Research Journal website (subsequent publication).

The journal reserves the right to make style corrections to improve the work, a proofreader will be assigned which will adjust the writing style to the editorial standards, improve the quality and clarity of the text, and correct any grammatical errors, which will leave the shipment ready for conversion to a publication format. Authors will receive this edited version by email, prior to final editing, so they can confirm the authors' information and suggest minimal content corrections.

 

TIME FOR EVALUATION

The maximum evaluation period between submission and acceptance of the article is 12 weeks.

Due to the four-monthly periodicity of the publications and the permanent call for papers, the maximum period between submission and publication of the article could reach 24 weeks.

If there are delays in response, authors are informed of the reason and are offered the option of withdrawing the manuscript from the journal.

 

DISSEMINATION OF THE ARTICLE

When the article is published, the author must self-archive his/her work in academic networks (ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.), profiles such as Google Scholar, ORCID, ResearchID, etc., institutional or thematic repositories, among others, in order to give greater visibility and dissemination of the article.