Revision guidelines

Evaluation Protocol for External ESS Reviewers

Introduction

In the ESS Journal of UNESCO IESALC, the evaluation of manuscripts by international experts is extremely important, since it is a guarantee of the excellence of our academic journal. For this reason, we highly appreciate this function performed by the external reviewer, who becomes part of the Board of External Reviewers of our journal.
At ESS, our premise is that the evaluation of manuscripts by international experts is the key to selecting the articles with the greatest impact for the academic community. All reviews undergo internationally standardized double-blind peer review that guarantees the anonymity of the manuscripts.

Criteria for acceptance/rejection of reviewed manuscripts

The Journal ESS requests the collaboration of external reviewers to facilitate communication with the authors of manuscripts. In all cases, acceptance of manuscripts is linked to consideration of several issues:
-Availability of reviewers' time. We understand that evaluation requires time and implies a deep reflection on many aspects.
-Knowledge and experience that the reviewer has in the field. Acceptance of the evaluation process is given under the responsibility that he/she is qualified in the field of the manuscript.
-Conflict of interest. Reviewers must declare any conflict of interest and decline an invitation from the editors to review a manuscript when, for example, they identify the authorship of the manuscript, have an academic or family relationship with the authors, belong to the same university, department, research group, thematic network, research project, have joint publications or any other type of academic connection.
-Confidentiality agreement. Receipt of a manuscript for evaluation requires an express confidentiality agreement.

Review task
A reviewer has the function of critically and constructively analyzing the content of the manuscript, with the objective of judging whether the submitted work is of high academic quality and meets all the parameters required by this publication to be accepted and edited.
Reviewers should appreciate the originality and excellence of the content presented, indicating the probability that the article will be published.

General criteria for manuscript review

To develop this significant task, we ask reviewers to take into consideration the following general criteria:
Relevance of the topic. The topic of the manuscript should be of profound interest to the international academic community.
Originality. Originality and appropriateness are essential criteria for the manuscript to be selected. Examining whether it is an article constructed from a result of scientific research or is the product of a process of theoretical reflection with an empirical basis.
Writing, structure and organization of the manuscript should be clear and concise. Manuscripts should include the main elements of an academic journal: abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion and conclusions.

Evaluation dimensions

Our external reviewers analyze the manuscript in depth, checking the information provided, reviewing the research literature that justifies the document, and informing the editors quantitatively and qualitatively on whether to accept the work. To do so, they use the evaluation form that includes the following dimensions:
-Title (analysis of the title, focus, length, etc.)
-Abstract/abstract and keywords (clarity and structure)
-Introduction
-Methodology
-Data analysis and interpretation
-Results of the research. Advances
-Discussion and conclusions
-References (Relevance and topicality)
-Overall evaluation
- Ethics (Both reviewers and editors must comply with the ethical obligations of the journal, see here).

Evaluation report
The referees specify by means of comments and arguments expressed in a respectful and constructive manner, without including personal data, the partial evaluations on the aspects of content and form, taking into account the following evaluation criteria:

Content aspects:
Degree of interest and topicality of the topics.
Adequacy and timeliness of the sources.
Relevance of the theoretical statement.
Clarity in the presentation of the objectives of the work.
Adequacy of the research design to the objectives of the work.
Adequacy and adequacy of the data analysis procedures (if applicable).
Interest of the empirical data provided (if applicable).
Relevance of the results, discussion and conclusions.
Relevance for professional teaching (if applicable).

Formal aspects:
Organization and structure.
Balanced length of sections and adequate content.
Writing and style.
Presentation of tables and figures.
Bibliographic references (APA style and correspondence of textual citations with the reference list).

Manuscript evaluation results
The results of the arbitration are expressed according to the following parameters:

Publishable: Accepted without further revisions.
Publishable with modifications: Accepted with conditions. In this case, reviewers should clearly identify which revisions are necessary, listing the comments and specifying which paragraphs and pages they suggest should be modified.
Re-evaluate: The manuscript is not accepted at the time of revision, but with the possibility of rewriting and resubmission. The reviewers identify deficiencies and inaccuracies, which should be filled in, and the article resubmitted for revision.
Unpublishable: Deficiencies detected, justified and reasoned with a qualitative and quantitative evaluation, indicate that the publication should be rejected.

In the execution of this evaluation protocol for ESS external reviewers, our reviewers have two types of evaluation forms, downloadable here: 1. Evaluation form for research articles and 2. Evaluation form for reflection or theoretical articles.