Evaluation Process

All articles will be submitted to fraud or plagiarism detection by the Turnitin tool. If the result is high (more than 22%), the article will not start the evaluation process, the author will be notified and will have access to the analysis result of the tool.

Manuscripts will not begin editorial process, or will be returned to their authors for modifications if:

  • The subject does not correspond to the thematic field of the journal.
  • The author does not use the reference and citation type American Psychological Association (APA) seventh edition.
  • The paper is not sent in the required format (Microsoft Word format).
  • The author(s) have published an article in the journal in the last year.
  • The author(s) did not send the authorization and guarantee of first publication form.

 

First step: basic guidelines for the application evaluation

The evaluation process begins with the review of the guidelines and their thematic relevance by the Editorial board. If the document complies, it will be sent for peer review. For this, the following format is used.

If the submission does not meet these criteria, the author will be notified and will have access to the results of this first evaluation in PDF format and will have four (4) calendar days to correct the shortcomings found. Once that time has elapsed, if the shipment has not been completed satisfactorily, the item will be rejected.

 

Second step: evaluation by external peers - double blind modality

Once the review of the basic guidelines and thematic relevance by the Editorial Committee have been passed, the document is sent for evaluation by external academic peers. The latter are professionals who have a minimum education degree of master's degree and particular expertise on the central theme of the postulated manuscript.

  • Selected papers will be sent to two evaluators for review.
  • In case of conflict in the evaluation, a third evaluator will be designated.
  • From the moment of acceptance, the evaluators have fifteen (15) calendar days to submit their concept.
  • At the end of this time, the evaluator sends his/her concept to the editorial team. The peer reviewer may approve, suggest modifications or reject the document. In case of suggesting modifications to the article as a condition for publication, the concept will be sent to the authors and once he or she sends the corrected version, the editor will be responsible for verifying and reviewing if the modifications were made.
  • The editorial manager is responsible for informing the author(s) about the corrections, for which the following format is used (which presents the same form used by the peer evaluators to issue the evaluation concept through the RCP Open Journal System), and he/she should adjust the manuscript in the time established by the editorial team.
  • Once the editorial team has contrasted the changes, the article will be approved for publication and the author will be notified.
  • Finally, the article will undergo the process of style correction and subsequent layout, where it will be assigned a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), to later be published.

 

Estimated time of the evaluation process

The estimated average time for the refereeing process and final verdict is 45 calendar days from the submission of the document through the RCP Open Journal System.

Acceptance rate

In 2022 (issues 15.1 and 15.2), the RCP accepted to publish 33% of the total number of articles submitted for external peer review.