Research article

EDITORIAL PROCESS

Articles will be submitted through the website of Acta Universitaria (www.actauniversitaria.ugto.mx). The author must register on the website of the journal to obtain a username and a password to access and upload the article. Also, through this platform the author will be able to monitor and receive mail about the status of the article and, if necessary, about the editorial process.

If there are multiple authors, the corresponding author (who shall fulfill this role throughout the process) should register the co-authors from the beginning of the submission, including the code Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) of each. Articles will not be received by any other means, either printed or electronically.

Incomplete submissions to which the author does not reply will be rejected after two months.

Editorial revision

The articles received by Acta Universitaria will undergo an initial evaluation performed by the Editorial Office, comparing the received manuscript with the checklist for submissions (downloadable on the website), in order to verify that they fulfill the guidelines established in the editorial policy. Additionally, they will be subjected to a revision through the tool CopyLeaks to evaluate the originality of the manuscript.

In this sense, the articles must meet the basic grammatical conventions of the target language as well as the inherent requirements of research papers; otherwise, the submitted articles will be rejected.

If an article is approved in the first evaluation, it will be sent to the Area Editor, who evaluates the article’s profile. Then, providing that the article is approved at this stage, it will be sent to two thematic experts in the area.

 

Peer Review

Acta Universitaria follows a peer-review process where the names of the authors are not revealed to reviewers and vice versa. This type of evaluation prevents both authors and reviewers from bias. Each article is sent to two reviewers who can either accept it without revision, accept it with minor revision, or reject it. When there is controversy between verdicts by reviewers, a third assessment of the manuscript is requested.

The article can be rejected, accepted, or accepted with observations and suggestions given by the reviewers. In this latter case, the author will have two weeks (during working periods) to do the necessary changes and will send an additional anonym document listing the observations received on the verdicts along with their corresponding answer, including the original document with highlighted changes. If there is no response at this stage, the article will be canceled. This version is revised by the reviewers and the Area Editor, who is responsible for selecting the reviewers of each article.

During the evaluation and edition processes, the editors of the journal may request additional changes to the manuscript, or they may question the author about relevant aspects of format and content.

If the article is approved, it will be revised by the copyeditor. At this point, the author will have five calendar days to attend the comments derived from the style revision.

In the same way, once the galley proofs are sent, the author will have two working days to revise and send back the document signed by the corresponding author; if no response is received, the article is canceled. In the event that, at any stage of the process, the author needs additional response time, they will have to request it to the Editor of the journal.

ARTICLE FORMAT

The documents must adhere to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) 7th Edition and must be submitted using the template for submissions provided by the journal, in a .doc (Word) file, with Arial 12 pt font, double-spaced, on letter size sheet (21.5 cm × 28 cm), with 2.5 cm margin on each side and left side justified. All pages should be foliated and should have lines numbered consecutively from the first page. Paragraphs should be easily differentiated, and, from the second paragraph of each section, they must be indented by 1 cm. The text, including the acknowledgements, should be written in an impersonal style.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

The manuscript should include the following elements:

1) Title page

It must have an informative and concise title in English and Spanish. On the next line, the author’s full name should be written (first name followed by last name). If there are multiple authors, they should be introduced comma-separated (the order of the authors will remain as it was when submitted from the beginning, even if the article is accepted to be published). On the next line, the affiliation/s, address/es of the author/s, email and telephone of the author/s should be included (if the authors have different affiliations, this should be indicated with a superscript number after each author’s surname). The corresponding author (responsible for submitting and monitoring the article) should be identified by an asterisk at the beginning of his/her name.

2) Main document

  1. a) Title in English and Spanish: The same title that appears in the title page should be presented again without the author’s name, institution of affiliation, and address.
  2. b) An abstract of less than 150 words in English and Spanish: Each work must be preceded by an abstract, that is, a paragraph comprising an introduction, objectives, methods, results, and conclusions offering a general overview of the study.
  3. c) Keywords in English and Spanish: Below the abstract, three to five words (not phrases) derived from the topic of the manuscript should be listed.
  4. d) Abbreviations: Abbreviations must be defined the first time they are mentioned. When they are used in the abstract, they need to be defined once more in the main text; afterwards, the acronym or abbreviation can be used in the following expressions. Measurements and values must be presented using the International System of Units (SI).
  5. e) Introduction: The purpose of the research must be stated here, along with a brief review of the relevant literature. The main objective of the work will be clearly stated at the end of this section.
  6. f) Materials and Methods: This section must follow the introduction and should include enough information to allow replication of the work under similar conditions.
  7. g) Results: The results of the work must be clearly described. Data should be presented as concise as possible and in the form of figures and/or tables when necessary.
  8. h) Discussion: This should be an interpretation of the results and their significance, supported by other studies.
  9. i) Conclusions: Relevant aspects derived from the research.
  10. j) Acknowledgements: Recognize, as brief as possible, sponsorship of the Project. Total or partial sponsorship that requires the gratitude of the author must be mentioned.
  11. k) References: The list of references must only include the works that are cited in the text, following APA 7th References must be presented alphabetically, without numbering or bullets. If there is more than one reference of the same author/s, references should be recorded chronologically.

If possible, thesis, congress talks, and technical reports should not be referenced or cited so that the works included in the reference list can be retrieved electronically, including the original Digital Object Identifier (DOI) (when available), and on the next line -after each reference- a link of the webpage where the article was found should be included.

  1. i) Tables and figures: These should be included at the end of the text on separate sheets. The author will indicate in the text where the tables and figures should be put. To ensure the highest image quality possible, images must be included with a resolution of 300 dpi and a minimum size of 16 cm per side. Figures must be clear and readable.

Figures need to be numbered in Arabic numbers and followed by a title at the bottom, and they should be mentioned in the text in ascending order. Sources of figures should be precisely recorded, even when created by the author.

Tables need to be smaller than 17 cm × 20 cm, must be listed in Arabic numbers, and should include an explanatory title heading at the top. Abbreviations must be explained when used in tables. As in the figures, sources of tables should be included. Tables must be sent in editable format.

Tables and equations should be made in Microsoft Word so that they can be edited.

CITATION

For long quotes in a text (40 words or more), the quote should be separated from the rest of the text and the font should be reduced by one point. Also, the left margin should be increased 1 cm and the reference used (author, year) should be placed after the quote.

REFERENCES

Precision regarding references cited in the text is the exclusive responsibility of the author. The article will be rejected from the first revision when a lack of intext citation-reference list correspondence is detected. Citation and referencing in the journal Acta Universitaria must follow the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA).

Intext citation should be presented in parentheses, including the author’s last name and the year of publication. When two or more references are cited, they should be included in alphabetical order.

Example: An analysis of over two hundred studies revealed a correlation between teaching social skills and an improvement in school performance (Viadero, 2007).

If the sentence includes the author’s last name, only the date should be written in parentheses.

Example: Viadero (2007) reports that an analysis of over two hundred studies reveals a correlation between teaching social skills and an improvement in school performance.

When the cited work has three or more authors, simply write the first author’s last name followed by et al. and the year of publication.

Articles

Last name, A. A., Last name, B. B., & Last name, C. C. (year). Title of the article. Name of the Journal, volume(number), pages xx-xx. doi: xx.xxxxxxx

Example: Cabanach, R., Fariña, F., Freire, C., González, P., & Ferradás, M. (2013). Diferencias en el afrontamiento del estrés en estudiantes universitarios hombres y mujeres. European Journal of Education and Psychology, 6(1), 19-32. https://doi.org/10.1989/ejep.v6i1.100

Books

Last name, A. A. (year). Title of the book. Publisher.

Example: Cardenosa, G., (2004). Breast Imaging (1st ed.). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

 

Book Chapter

Last name, A. A., & Last name, B. B. (year). Title of the chapter. In A. A. Last name (ed. / coord. / comp. / etc.), Title of the book (pages xx-xx). Publisher.

Example: Picó, F. (2004). Arecibo, sol y sereno. En F. Feliú Matilla (ed.), 200 años de literatura y periodismo: 1803-2003 (pp. 129-134). Ediciones Huracán.

 

Institutional Source

Name of Institution. (date of publication). Title of report. URL https://

Example: Diario Oficial de la Federación (DOF). (2020). Reglas de operación del Programa de Precios de Garantía a Productos Alimentarios Básicos. Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (Sader). https://www.dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle_popup.php?codigo=5609037

 

General considerations:

Costs: There are no costs for publication.

Permits: It will be the author’s responsibility to obtain written permission from other authors to cite unpublished material (even when the material is found in theses and technical reports).

Conflict of interests: Authors must state from the beginning if there is a conflict of interest that is likely to influence the article’s publication process. This should be included during the submission process in the section “Comments to the Editor” as well as in the structure of the article, right before the reference section.

Ethical considerations and copyright

Acta Universitaria reserves the right to corroborate the authenticity and originality of the manuscript using an antiplagiarism software. In the event that the authors commit plagiarism, the article will automatically be rejected.

The information regarding co-authoring, order of the authors, and corresponding author must be defined from the beginning of the submission process. Therefore, the corresponding author is the one who submits the text onto the platform, and this information must coincide with that indicated in the extensive file. No changes will be allowed in this regard.

The authors are responsible for uploading the information correctly during the submission process. In cases of force majeure, the authors will be allowed to make a modification request and submit evidence; however, approval of this request shall be subjected to the journal Editorial Office’s judgement. If the request is rejected, the authors shall determine whether they keep the article as it was submitted or withdraw it from the journal; if the latter is the case, the manuscript can be submitted again, and the process will be restarted.

Authors own the original copyrights to the articles published in Acta Universitaria.

Acta Universitaria adheres to the open access principles of the Berlin Declaration and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practices in Academic Publications of DOAJ. All published articles are freely accessible to readers, and their reproduction, distribution, and use are permitted under the conditions established by the Creative Commons license.

Downloadables

Checklist for submissions

Template for submissions

Grant of publishing rights letter