Scientific evaluation policy

At ESS we believe that the purpose of peer review practice is to ensure quality scholarly publications. Therefore, our referees play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of UNESCO IESALC publications and our journal's own, so all manuscripts are peer-reviewed following the procedure described below.

Initial evaluation of the manuscript (relevance assessment)

All articles undergo an editorial (relevance assessment) and ethical review by members of the General Editorial Board (editor and/or deputy editors and production team) who check that the article complies with the style and content standards indicated in the guidelines for authors on the submission of originals, including the correct wording and observance of formal requirements.  Likewise, it is verified that the article is the product of a scientific research process, the level of bibliographic updating, the analytical density and the scope of the results and findings obtained. Also, the observance of copyright regulations, the absence of conflicts of interest and, in general, the adjustment to the ethical standards of the journal are reviewed.
Manuscripts that meet the minimum criteria are sent to at least two experts who will review them, thus initiating the process of anonymous scientific evaluation by those who make up the international external arbitration committee.
The criteria for which manuscripts may be rejected at this stage are: for not being original, presenting serious scientific defects, having serious writing deficits or not corresponding to the objectives and scope of the journal.
Authors will be informed of manuscripts rejected at this stage within 4 weeks of receipt.

Type of peer review

The ESS refereeing system is an external peer review and doubly anonymous; that is, an evaluation in which both the referee and the author remain anonymous throughout the process.

Selection of referees

Referees are selected on the basis of their expertise. Our database is constantly updated. We accept referee suggestions from the author, although these recommendations may or may not be used.

Referee Reports

Referees are asked to evaluate whether the manuscript:
— Is original
— Is methodologically sound
— Follows appropriate ethical guidelines
— The results are clearly presented and support the conclusions.
— Relevant previous work is properly cited in the manuscript.
— Reviewers are not expected to proofread or style review manuscripts. Linguistic editing is not part of the peer review process.

Please refer to the Guidelines for Revision for further information.

Evaluation results

The reviewers rule, as appropriate, issuing one of the following decisions:
Publishable: Accept submission or accept for publication as is or with slight modifications, without further revisions.
Publishable with modifications: In this case, they will indicate to accept its publication with modifications; this that the publication will be conditioned to the realization by the author of all the required changes; that is to say, after the suggested observations have been incorporated. The deadline to make the changes will be one month and must attach a brief report explaining the changes made and how they meet the requirements of the editor. If this deadline is exceeded, the article will be filed as "unpublishable".
Re-evaluable: Refers to an article that at the time of review is not publishable, but with the possibility of rewriting and resubmitting the work.  In this case, the resubmission of a new version will not imply any guarantee of publication, but the evaluation process will start again from the beginning. The deadline for sending a new version of the article will be three months and must include a brief report explaining the changes introduced and how they meet the editor's requirements. If this deadline is exceeded, the article will be archived as "unpublishable".
Unpublishable: Refuse publication. Deficiencies identified in the manuscript, which are justified and reasoned with a qualitative and quantitative evaluation, indicate that the publication should be rejected.

Decision report and final adjustments

The reviewers report to the editors, who are responsible for the final decision to accept or reject the article. This decision is communicated to the author in writing, along with the recommendations and literal comments of the reviewers.

The decision of the editors is final

If the manuscript has been accepted with modifications, the authors must resubmit a new version of the article, taking into account the demands and suggestions of the external evaluators. These articles will be sent to the Editorial Production Team to verify the validity of the modifications made by the author. Depending on the degree of compliance with the modifications requested by the referee, the Editorial Production Team will decide whether to publish the article. This decision will be communicated to the author by the editors of the journal.

Estimated time of the evaluation and publication process

It is estimated that the time span of the manuscript review process is two to three months, since it is expected that there are usually at least one or two rounds of pre-evaluation until the article is APPROPRIATE for publication. After this review, the authors will be informed of the editorial decision. The authors will receive the reviewers' evaluation reports, anonymously, so that they can make the pertinent corrections or responses.
Both the reviewer and the author have a period of approximately 30 days per round to perform their task (this period is an estimate, because it depends exclusively on the authors and reviewers involved in each article).
All submissions that are reviewed and receive a positive evaluation, but require modifications (minor or major), will be returned within a maximum period of 15 days.

Editorial Process

Once the article is ready for publication, the editing process (including syntax correction, translation and layout of the article) takes approximately one to two months.
These periods are always subject to the publication dates of the ESS.
Authors of accepted articles will receive by e-mail, in PDF format, proofs for correction before final publication. Corrected versions should be returned to the journal's editorial team by e-mail within 72 hours of receipt. The Editorial Board (production team) will only accept corrections related to spelling or punctuation of the content of the original manuscript previously evaluated. Once the manuscript has been accepted, the final version should be returned for publication with all the proposed changes.