Editorial Process

Submission of articles

All contributions that want to be evaluated by RHSM, must be entered through the Open Journal System (OJS) platform of the University. To do this you must first be registered. Create a username and password with an email address you use, and start with "Submit": the system will guide you through the process.

Do not forget to fill in all the requested information. If you have any doubts, check the Guide for Authors.

Preliminary assessment

Submitted articles undergo an editorial quality review: structure, format, content and Modern Language Association (MLA) citation standards. This evaluation is carried out by the journal's Editorial Advisory Board [Pre-assessment guidelines]. Within ten (10) days, it will be notified through the OJS system whether it is accepted or rejected to be evaluated by the blind informants. In the event that the text has minor flaws, the author will be informed so that he/she can make the necessary adjustments within one week. 

If the deadline is not met, the document will be removed from the platform.

At this stage, a similarity-plagiarism check is also carried out to ensure that the article is original and unpublished. The review is accompanied by the [letter of originality and assignment of rights] and [a brief CV].

Peer or referee review

Each contribution is evaluated by two (2) experts in the field. They are in charge of certifying the scientific quality of the article from the double-blind mode, which consists of the anonymity of the authorship and the informants.

The referees must have a degree equal to or higher than a Master's degree, and comply with the [ethical responsibilities] of the position. The editor, in conjunction with the Advisory Board, is responsible for appointing them.

The referees will use the online [evaluation guideline], which includes the following criteria: relevance of the article to the journal, formal aspects of the article, aspects of content or substance of the article, and general assessment.

The evaluators will indicate whether the article is: accepted with minor changes, accepted with major changes and not accepted. The result is communicated to the authors via the OJS platform.

Once the manuscript is accepted, it will be sent to the authors so that they can make any modifications to the document. Together with the manuscript, a letter will be sent to the authors stating the adjustments requested by the reviewers and the Editorial Committee. In the event that the authors do not fully comply with the requested adjustments, they should indicate their arguments in this same letter.

In case of a controversy (for example, where one referee accepts and another rejects), a third peer reviewer is requested to settle the conflict. In any case, it is the general editor of the journal who has the final decision of rejection or acceptance of the article. This process lasts approximately four (4) to twelve (12) weeks.

Final validation and adjustments to the manuscript

Once the authors have made the adjustments indicated by the expert reviewers and the journal's Editorial Committee, they will be notified via the OJS platform that their article has been accepted for publication. The general editor is responsible for reviewing the metadata of the article in the three languages (Spanish, English and Portuguese) in the OJS platform, assigns DOI and distributes the article to those in charge of: proofreading, layout and repository.

The published articles will be in the OJS and [databases] where the journal is indexed. This process takes approximately one week.

Once the layout of the article is finished, it is sent to the authors for the final approval (VºBº). Once it is returned to the general editor, it is added to the next issue of the journal in the OJS platform.

After publication, the editor-in-chief proceeds with the metadata deposit and activation of the DOI and Crossref, as well as sending the metadata record to the different information systems and the bulletin where the journal is indexed.