Focus and Scope

«Retos» is a bilingual scientific publication by the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana de Ecuador, which has been edited on a bi-annual basis since January 2011. The journal focuses on Development and transdisciplinary issues including Business, Management and Accounting, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management and Marketing

It is an arbitrated Scientific Journal that uses an external evaluation system known as peer-review, employing double-blind review, following the American Psychological Association (APA) style. By using this system, the authors have access to an objective, impartial and transparent review process, which facilitates their publication being included in databases, repositories, and international indexed references.

«Retos» is indexed in Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) form web of Science, LATINDEX catalog, Regional Online Information System for Scientific Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal, is part of the Directory of Journals of Open Access -DOAJ, belongs to the Ibero-American Network of Innovation and Scientific Knowledge, REDIB, Network of Scientific Journals of Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal, REDALYC, besides is part of the Information Matrix for the Analysis of Journals, MIAR and is being evaluated in medium term to become part of important International Index SCOPUS.

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts must be submitted through the Open Journal System (OJS), which guarantees the electronic and auditable interaction interactions between the publication and the authors. Once set, the Board of Editors checks that the originals comply with the purpose and scope of the publication, as well as with the authors' guidelines.

The texts that pass this first sieve, continue with the editorial process. All manuscripts are reviewed by the "double-blind peer-review" arbitration system, the experts of the subject do not belong to the institution of the authors. This process guarantees the anonymity of the documents, authors and reviewers, certifying the transparency, objectivity and impartiality of the review process. The review report and evaluationis used by the external reviewers can be consulted here for studies (critical review of the literature, reports ...) and here for empirical research.

The process of complete revision, from the moment of the deposit of the manuscripts through the OJS until the completion of the reviews takes an average time of 8-10 weeks, except incidents. Reviewers, in turn, must also comply with reviewers'guidelines and the code of ethics.

Once the opinions of the external reviewers have been obtained, the decision may be:

• Accepted: In which case the mock-up and publication of the article will be carried out for the next issue.
  
• Accepted with minor changes: The authors will be notified of the changes proposed by the reviewers, sending them the completed revision protocol (model for studies) and  (model for research). In this case the reviewers will have a maximum of 7 continuous days to send the manuscript with the changes requested.
  
• Accepted with major changes: Authors will be notified of changes proposed by reviewers, remitting the completed revision protocol (model for studies) and  (model for research). In this case the reviewers will have a maximum of 7 continuous days to send the manuscript with the changes requested.
  
• Rejected: In which case the authors will be informed in a motivated manner, explaining the reasons for rejection and the protocol of revision completed (model for studies) and (model for research). Authors may always exercise their right to a written complaint to the Journal's Board of Editors.

In case there is a disparity between the opinions of the reviewers, a third reviewer will be delegated to resolve the divergence.

Open Access Policy

«Retos» is an open access journal entirely free for readers and authors that favors the reuse and self-archiving of their articles in international databases, repositories, directories and information systems. In this sense, «Retos» has a Creative Commons 4.0 License ofAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 and is included in the directory of Open Access DOAJ. The magazine only retains the rights to publish the works, both in print and digital.

1. Copyright
The articles published in «Retos» are subject to the following terms:
1.1. Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (RUC: 0190151530001) preserves the copyright of the published works, and favors and allows the re-use of the same under the Creative Commons 4.0 License ofAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0, which it could be copied, used, disseminated, transmitted and publicly displayed provided that:
1.1.a. Cite the authorship and original source of their publication (journal, editorial, URL and DOI of the work).
1.1.b. Do not use for commercial or costly purposes.
1.1.c. The existence and specifications of this license are mentioned.
1.2. The publication will grant each item a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Example: Valdés-Pérez, D. (2016). Incidencia de las Técnicas de Gestión en la mejora de las decisiones administrativas. Retos, 6(12), 199-213. https://doi.org/10.17163/ret.n12.2016.05

2. Open Access Policy
2.1. «Retos» is an open access journal, available in open access with no time restrictions, and is included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
2.2. Self-archiving conditions: Authors are allowed to re-use published works, ie post-print (or the final post-peer review or PDF version of the publisher) may be archived for non-publication purposes Commercial, including their deposit in institutional repositories, thematic or personal web pages. Color Sherpa / Romeo: Blue.

3. Right of readers
3.1. Readers have the right to read all of our articles for free immediately after publication. This publication does not have any economic charge for the publication or for access of the material.

4. Automatic publishing
«Retos» makes your articles available in reliable repositories of third parties (eg: Redalyc, Latindex, institutional repositories ...) immediately after its publication.

5. Archiving
This journal uses different national repositories such as Redalyc, Latindex, Dialnet, REDIB ... The Portico repository and the Institutional Repository Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (Ecuador) are digitally archived and indexed.

6. Machine readability and interoperability
Full text, metadata, and citations of articles can be tracked and accessed with permission. Our open social policy also allows the readability of the files and their metadata, facilitating interoperability under the OAI-PMH protocol of open data and open source. Files from both full-length publications and their article targeting are available in open HTML, XML, but also PDF, E-Pub and ISSUU formats, making it easy to read on any device and platform computing.

Code of ethics

«Retos» as a publication that seeks the highest international excellence, is inspired by the ethical code of the Committee of Ethics of Publications (COPE), aimed at both publishers and reviewers and authors.

Authors' commitments

• Originality and fidelity of the data: The authors of originals sent to «Retos» attest that the work is original and unpublished, that does not contain parts of other authors or of other fragments of works already published by the authors. In addition, they confirm the veracity of the data, that is, that the empirical data have not been altered to verify hypotheses.
  
  
• Multiple and / or repetitive publications: The author should not publish articles in which the same results are repeated in more than one scientific journal or any other non-academic publication. The simultaneous proposal of the same contribution to multiple scientific journals is considered to be an ethically incorrect and reprehensible practice.
  
  
• Attributions, quotations and references: The author must always provide the correct indication of the sources and contributions mentioned in the article.
  
  
• Authorship: The authors guarantee the inclusion of those people who have made a significant scientific and intellectual contribution in the conceptualization and planning of the work as in the interpretation of the results and in the writing of the same. At the same time the order of appearance of the authors has been ranked according to their level of responsibility and involvement.
  
  
• Access and retention: If the members of the Editorial Board consider it appropriate, the authors of the articles should also make available the sources or data on which the research is based, which can be kept for a reasonable period of time after publication and Possibly becoming accessible.
  
  
• Conflict of Interest and Disclosure: All authors are required to state explicitly that there are no conflicts of interest that may have influenced the results obtained or the proposed interpretations. Authors should also indicate any funding from agencies and / or projects from which the research article arises.
  
  
• Errors in published articles: When an author identifies an important error or inaccuracy in his article, he should immediately inform the editors of the journal and provide them with all the information necessary to list the relevant corrections at the bottom of the article (always in Note to the margin, not to alter the publication).
  
  
• Responsibility: The responsibility of the content of the articles published in «Retos» is exclusive of the authors. The authors also undertake to carry out a review of the most current and relevant scientific literature on the subject analyzed, taking into account the different currents of knowledge in a plural form.

Commitments of reviewers

• Contribution to editorial decision: Peer review is a procedure that helps publishers make decisions about proposed articles and also allows the author to improve the quality of articles submitted for publication. The reviewers undertake a critical, honest, constructive and unbiased review of both the scientific quality and the literary quality of writing in the field of their knowledge and skills.
  
  
• Respect of review times: The reviewer who does not feel competent in the subject to review or who can not finish the evaluation in the scheduled time, must notify the publishers immediately. The reviewers undertake to evaluate the manuscripts in the shortest possible time in order to respect the deadlines, since in «Retos» the limits of custody of the waiting manuscripts are limited and inflexible due to respect for the authors and their works.
  
  
• Confidentiality: Each assigned manuscript must be considered confidential. Therefore, these texts should not be discussed with other people without the express consent of the publishers.
  
  
• Objectivity: Peer review should be done objectively. Reviewers are required to give sufficient reasons for each of their assessments, always using the review template. The reviewers will submit a complete critical report with appropriate references according to «Retos» revision protocol and the public regulations for the reviewers; Especially if it is proposed that the work be rejected. They are required to advise editors if substantial portions of the work have already been published or are under review for another publication.
  
  
• Text Display: The reviewers undertake to indicate precisely the bibliographic references of fundamental works possibly forgotten by the author. The reviewer should also inform editors of any similarity or overlap of the manuscript with other published works.
  
  
• Anonymity: To ensure that the review process is as objective, impartial and transparent as possible, the identity of the authors is deleted before the papers are submitted for peer review. If, for any reason, the identity of the authors, their institutional affiliations or any other information that jeopardizes the anonymity of the document has been compromised, the reviewer must notify the publishers immediately.

Commitment of the publishers

• Decision of publication: The editors will guarantee the selection of the most qualified reviewers and specialists scientifically to express a critical and expert appreciation of the work, with the smallest possible biases. «Retos» chooses to select between 2 and 3 reviewers for each work in order to ensure greater objectivity in the review process.
  
  
• Honesty: Publishers evaluate articles submitted for publication on the basis of scientific merit of the contents, without discrimination of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, nationality, political opinion of the authors.
  
  
• Confidentiality: Publishers and members of the working group agree not to disclose information relating to articles submitted to the publication to persons other than authors, reviewers and publishers. The editors and the Editorial Committee commit themselves to the confidentiality of the manuscripts, their authors and reviewers, so that anonymity preserves the intellectual integrity of the whole process.
  
  
• Conflict of interests and disclosure: publishers undertake not to use in their research content of articles submitted for publication without the written consent of the author.
  

• Respect of the times: Editors are responsible for compliance with the time limits for revisions and publication of accepted papers, to ensure a rapid dissemination of their results. They commit themselves to complying with published times (maximum of 60 days in the estimation / rejection from receipt of the manuscript in the Review Platform) and a maximum of 150 days from the beginning of the scientific review process by experts).

«Retos» adheres to the Code of Conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE):

http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct

Anti-Plagiarism

All manuscripts submitted for review in «Alteridad» are inspected by a disciplined anti-plagiarism policy that ensures the originality of the articles. To do this, different special services are used, such as the Urkund system, which analyzes the texts for grammatical and ortho-typographical matches, which ensures that the works are unpublished and ensure compliance with the standards of editorial quality that guarantee their own scientific production.

Also, «Alteridad» makes available to authors and reviewers, as well as the scientific community, a set of specific tools in the detection of plagiarism: Grammarly, Plagium, Copionic, WriteCheck, PaperRater, Plagarisma.net, Viper Plagarism Scanner or CrossCheck . It is a set of interfaces of free access and of payment, that supervise the originality of any manuscript and allow to control the plagiarism.

Sponsors

Universidad Politécnica Salesiana from Ecuador contributes to the scientific excellence of the national and international academic community, sponsors maintaining six periodical scientific publications in various areas and disciplines of knowledge:

Journal History

The journal "Retos" appears in 2011 with the support of Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (Ecuador) in order to promote research and development in the social and administrative sciences.