Submissions

Author Guidelines

GUIDELINES FOR THE PRESENTATION OF ARTICLES

The Questionar: Investigación Específica is a peer-reviewed of scientific-academic nature published every year, edited by the Faculty of Permanent and Advanced Education and the Academic and Postgraduate Vice-chancellor of the Fundación Universidad de América (Bogotá, Colombia).

Its objetive is to disseminate scientific articles result of research projects on topics associated with bussiness management, quality systems, social responsability, competitiveness, productivity, international business and economic integration.

The journal aims at researchers, teachers, students, entrepreneurs and professionals interested in knowing the results of recent research in the area.

Typology of articles accepted

The Questionar: Investigación Específica privileges the publication of articles resulting from scientific and technological research, articles on reflection, review articles and case reports, which can be characterized by their rigorous research methodology with significant contributions to the engineering area.

The format for the presentation of articles

The articles sent to the journal must be unpublished works written in Spanish. The articles are presented in Microsoft Word and should follow the following indications:

• A4 or letter size, 1.5 spacing, one column, symmetrical margins of 2.5 cm on all four sides using 12 points Arial fonts.
• Maximum 20 pages.
• The paragraph must have 1.5 line spacing and have a 5-character tab spacing. No space between paragraphs.
• The graphic material must be in TIF or PDF (editable) format with a minimum resolution of 300ppi. In case the authors use photographs and/or images taken from other works, they must process and remit the respective permissions for their use and publication. The figures and tables should be according to the sixth edition of the Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA).

Structure of the article

Title

It must be concise, clear, strictly correspond to what it represents in the article, of a maximum of twelve words and written in Spanish (with its corresponding English translation).

Information about authors

Indicate full name and surnames of the author or authors, in the order in which they wish to appear. Also, in a paragraph, should include information about the author, academic background and current institutional affiliation.

Summary

Spanish written, should not exceed 120 words, no tab spacing and should reflect the structure of the article. The structure of the summary must briefly state the objectives of the research, the methodology, the main results, and conclusions. Must include an abstract in English.

Keywords

Five words in Spanish suitable for the thematic classification of the article, arranged alphabetically and whose origin is a Thesaurus dictionary. Must include the English version of these words.

Main Text

Must meet on a mandatory basis with the aspects set forth below:

Structure of scientific and technological research articles

1. Introduction
2. Methodology
3. Results
4. Conclusions
5. Bibliographic references

Can include an additional section for acknowledgments

Review articles structure 

1. Introduction
2. Methodology
3. Development of the topic
4. Results
5. Conclusions
6. Bibliographic references

Introduction

In this section, the author provides a summary and concise view of the problem object of the investigation, the scope of the problem and the previous work and research done on the subject.

 Methodology

Here, describes in detail each of the procedures used to conduct the investigation.

Results

Short and concise presentation of the results obtained. This section includes tables, graphs, and figures that, by themselves, express the results.

Conclusions

Synthesis of the interpretation and implications of the results.

References

APA (sixth edition) is the style of citation and reference adopted by the Questionar: Investigación Específica. The quotation system of the article should not use footnotes for bibliographic references (footers are used only to clarify or expand concepts). Must enclose literal quotes in quotation marks; if they exceed 40 words and presented indented and separate. For more information on citation, refer to the APA standards (sixth edition in English and third edition in Spanish).

 Submission of articles

The article must be submitted together with a cover letter addressed to the Editorial Committee of the journal, in which the author declares that the content of the article is original and unpublished and has not been published in another scientific journal, nor has it been or will be submitted to another journal for publication during the evaluation and acceptance process in the journal (Letter of presentation of articles format).

Authors should submit their documents through the OJS platform  entering the Portal de Revistas of the Fundación Universidad de América  https://revistas.uamerica.edu.co/.

The journal is open access, does not charge processing fees and article editing.

Peer Review Process

Peers will receive the articles  until the maximum date established in each call and submitted to the following process:

Before starting the process of peer assignment, the editor will perform a prior evaluation of the articles received to verify that the article complies with the criteria established in the guidelines for the presentation of articles of the journal, as well as to verify the originality through specialized software. In case of finding similarities that reveal that the work was already published or has problems in the citation of sources, the author of the contact will be informed and asked to review the article. It performs this review within a maximum period of three weeks.

For articles that do not comply with the presentation standards, the editor will ask the authors to make modifications to the article before its submission to the peer evaluation. For this purpose, the authors will have a maximum extension of fifteen days to adapt the article to the format defined by the journal in the presentation guidelines and send it to the editor again for its consideration. Once the editor verifies compliance with these criteria, the articles may initiate the peer evaluation process.

The decision whether or not to continue with the evaluation process will be communicated to the authors within no more than four weeks.

The articles that met the criteria defined in this first filter will be submitted to the evaluation of two anonymous expert peers in the subject, meaning that, the authors do not know the identity of the evaluators, and vice versa (dually blind evaluation).

The editor, with the support of the members of the Editorial and Scientific Committee, assigns the peer reviewers according to the specific theme of each article. Then, the editor sends the invitation to the evaluators and once accepted the participation of the peer reviewers, send them the article and the evaluation format. In this application, it notifies that the deadline for such review is approximately three weeks from the date of acceptance. However, the review times depend on its availability.

Regarding the concept, Peer Reviewers must complete the evaluation format, in which the editor received the recommendation whether publish or not the article. The result of the evaluation process will be the input that the editor and Editorial Committee will use to decide if the article is: publishable, publishable with minimum adjustments, publishable with significant adjustments and not publishable.

In case of receiving a favorable and an unfavorable concept, the article will be sent for evaluation by a third evaluating pair.

Once the peer evaluation is available, the editor communicates the decision to the main author, indicating whether the article will continue or not in the process, or if it requires adjustments. The author has four weeks to adjust the article and send it back to the journal. Subsequently, the editor reviews the article and makes the final decision about the acceptance of the corrected version, considering the concept of the evaluators and the corrections made by the authors.

If the article has the approval for publication, the style review process will proceed; Once the final version of the article is available, it will be sent to the author for approval before beginning the process of diagramming the journal.

Download here the Instructions for Peer Reviewers 

Criteria for the evaluation of articles

The Editorial Committee will decide on the publication of the articles received, considering the following evaluation criteria: compliance with the conditions of presentation, conceptual and methodological rigor, originality, relevance and scientific quality.

Transfer of rights and dissemination of published material

The authors must sign the transfer of rights before the publication of the article; This letter authorizes the editorial team of the Questionar: Investigación Específica to disseminate it through the media considered relevant, whether printed or electronic. For this purpose, the authors should send the letter of assignment of rights duly completed and signed through the OJS platform by entering the Portal de Revistas of the Fundación Universidad de América https://revistas.uamerica.edu.co/. 

Creative Commons License

The Questionar: Investigación Específica uses the Creative Commons Attribution - Non-Commercial - No Derivate 4.0 license; in such a way that the texts of the journal are freely distributed and published, if the authorship is recognized, and the text is not modified.

Open access policy

The Questionar: Investigación Específica is an open-access publication and can download the files of the articles through the Open Journal System (OJS) platform in PDF format. It has no cost for authors and readers.

Ethical declaration and good editorial practices

The editorial team of the Questionar: Investigación Específica, committed to the scientific community, guarantees the ethics and quality of the articles published. The editorial practices of the journal have its basis on the code of conduct and good practices that the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) defines for editors of scientific journals, as well as the ethical and editorial standards established in the sixth edition of the Publications Manual from the American Psychological Association (APA).

All parties involved in the publication of the Questionar: Investigación Específica (editor, committees, authors and peer reviewers) must accept and respect the ethical principles expressed in the Code of Ethics and Good Practices.