About the Journal

Focus and Scope

«Universitas-XX1» is a bilingual scientific publication of the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana of Ecuador, published since January 2002 in an uninterrupted manner, with a semi-annual periodicity, specialized in Social and Human Sciences and its interdisciplinary lines such as Communication, Political Science and Sociology.

It is scientific journal, which uses the peer-review system, under double-blind review methodology, according to the publication standards of the American Psychological Association (APA). Compliance with this system allows authors to guarantee an objective, impartial and transparent review process, which facilitates the publication of their inclusion in reference databases, repositories and international indexing.

«Universitas» 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, 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.

The journal is published in a double version: printed (ISSN: 1390-3837) and digital (e-ISSN: 1390-8634), in English and Spanish, each work being identified with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier System).

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts must be submitted through the Open Journal System (OJS), which guarantees the electronic and auditable recording of the 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, including Author 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 experts of the subject that 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 used by external reviewers can be found here.

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 the ethical code of reviewers.

After the quantitative-qualitative evaluation of the manuscript under review, the reviewer may make recommendations to improve the quality of the manuscript through the protocol manuscript evaluation. However, the manuscript will be graded in three ways:

a) Acceptance without review

b) Conditional acceptance and therefore review (greater or lesser). In the latter case, it is necessary to clearly identify which review is necessary, listing the comments and even specifying paragraphs and pages suggesting modifications.

c) Rejection due to detected deficiencies justified and reasoned with quantitative and quantitative assessment. . The report should be longer if a score of less than 40 of the 50 possible points is obtained.

In case of a disparity between the reviewers' evaluations, the manuscript will be sent to a third reviewer to resolve the divergence. The decision of this third reviewer will be final and not subject to appeal.

Between the formal receipt of the manuscript through OJS and publication, an approximate time of 15 weeks is estimated, depending on the double-blind peer review process.

Open Access Policy

«Universitas» Is an open access journal entirely free for readers and authors that encourage the re-use and self-archiving of articles in databases, repositories, directories and international information systems. In this sense, «Universitas» has a Creative Commons 4.0 License ofAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 The journal only retains the rights to publish the works, both in print and digital formats.

1. Copyright

The work published in the «Universitas» Journal are subject to the following terms:

1.1. The Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (RUC: 0190151530001) Preserves the copyrights of the published works, and favors and allows their re-use under the Creative Commons 4.0 License of Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 for which they may be copied, used, distributed, transmitted And publicly display, provided that:

1.1.a. the authorship and original source of their publication is cited (magazine, editorial, URL and DOI of the work).

1.1.b. Do not use for commercial or onerous 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. Universitas, 6(12), 199-213. https://doi.org/10.17163/ret.n12.2016.05

2. Open Access policy

2.1. «Universitas» Is an open access journal, available in open access with no time restrictions.

2.2. Self-archiving conditions: Authors are allowed to re-use published works, that is, post-print (or the final post-peer review or PDF version of the publisher) may be archived for non-commercial purposes, 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 to the material.

4. Automatic publishing

«Universitas» Makes its articles available in trusted third-party repositories (i.e. Redalyc, Latindex, institutional repositories ...) immediately after publication.

5. Archiving

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

6. Machine readability and interoperability

Full text, metadata, and citations of articles can be traced 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 segmentation are available in open HTML, XML, but also PDF, E-Pub and ISSUU formats, making it easy to read on any device and computing platform.

Reviewers Guidelines

«Universitas» has a team of international reviewers, experts in different area which is public the following year of its activities to guarantee its anonymity. All the reviewers must operate in accordance with the Guidelines for reviewers and the Code of Ethics of the publication.

Code of Ethics

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

Authors' commitments

Originality and fidelity of the data: The authors of originals sent to «UNIVERSITAS» attest that the work is original and unpublished, which does not contain parts of other authors or 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 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 it. 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/her article, he/she 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 a Note to the margin, not to alter the publication).

Responsibility: The responsibility of the content of the articles published in «UNIVERSITAS» is exclusive of the authors. The authors also commit themselves to a review of the most current and relevant scientific literature on the analyzed subject, taking into accounts in a plural form the different streams of knowledge.

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 cannot finish the evaluation in the scheduled time must notify the publishers immediately. The reviewers commit to evaluate the manuscripts in the shortest possible time in order to comply with the deadlines, since in «Universitas» the limits of custody of the waiting manuscripts are limited and inflexible due to respect of the authors and their work.

.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 the «Universitas» revision protocol and the public guidelines 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 visualization: The reviewers commit 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, unbiased and as 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 publishers

Decision of publication: The editors will guarantee the selection of the most scientifically qualified reviewers and specialists to express a critical and expert appreciation of the work, with the least possible biases. «Universitas» chooses between 2 and 3 reviewers for each work so as 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, and political opinion of the authors.

Confidentiality: Publishers and members of the working group agree not to disclose information relating to submitted articles for 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 commit not to use in their own research content of articles submitted for publication without the written consent of the author.

Respect of the review times: Publishers are responsible for compliance with the time limits for revisions and publication of accepted manuscripts, 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).

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

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

Anti-Plagiarism

All the manuscripts under review in «Universitas» 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.

«Universitas» also 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 plagiarism.

Journal History

Universitas UPS, Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas from Universidad Politécnica Salesiana del Ecuador was released in 2002 with semiannual periodicity.

UNIVERSITAS: REVISTA DE CIENCIAS HUMANAS Y SOCIALES http://universitas.ups.edu.ec/	«Universitas» is a bilingual scientific publication of the Salesian Polytechnic University of Ecuador, published since January 2002 in an uninterrupted manner, with a semi-annual periodicity, specializing in Social and Human Sciences and its interdisiplinary lines: Sociology, Anthropology, Social Psychology, Social Development , Communities, Latin American Studies, Sociopolitical Processes, among others.
RETOS: REVISTA DE CIENCIAS ADMINISTRATIVAS Y ECONÓMICAS http://retos.ups.edu.ec/index.php/retos/	«Retos» is a bilingual scientific publication of the Salesian Polytechnic University of Ecuador, published since January 2011 in an uninterrupted manner, with a fixed semiannual period (1 April and 1 October), specialized in Development and its transdisciplinary lines as Public Administration, Social Economy, Marketing, Tourism, Entrepreneurship, Management, Administrativeand Economic Sciences, among others.
ALTERIDAD: REVISTA DE EDUCACIÓN http://alteridad.ups.edu.ec/index.php/alteridad/	The goal of «Alteridad» is to contribute, from the Ibero-American context, to the socialization and debate of academic production in the field of Education, in the following lines: Curriculum and Cultures, Educational Policies and Teacher Training, Educational Evaluation, Education and Technologies, Special and Inclusive Education, and Education in relation to the other Social Sciences.
SOPHIA: COLECCIÓN DE FILOSOFÍA DE EDUCACIÓN http://sophia.ups.edu.ec/index.php/sophia/	Sophia's goal is to theorize education from a philosophical point of view, with data from individual and collective psychology, teaching-learning experiences, sociology, culture and the development of empirical sciences, to renew, update and better articulate the conceptual, procedural and experiential level of education sciences.
LA GRANJA: REVISTA DE CIENCIAS DE LA VIDA http://lagranja.ups.edu.ec/index.php/granja/	«La Granja» (pISSN: 1390-3799, eISSN: 1390-8596) is an international, physical, electronic, bilingual and bimonthly journal dedicated to the publication of original scientific articles with acceptance and review by academic peers or scientific referees. La Granja is a journal dedicated to studies related to chemical, biological, environmental, health, agronomic, livestock and veterinary sciences.
INGENIUS: REVISTA DE CIENCIA Y TECNOLOGÍA http://ingenius.ups.edu.ec/index.php/ingenius/	Publication dedicated to studies related to the sciences of Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Computer Sciences, the contributions are also integrated in what is now known as Mechatronics.