Revista Chapingo Serie Agricultura Tropical

peer review

ISSNe: 2954-3886

The scientific review of manuscripts is carried out under the double-blind modality through the Open Journal System (OJS). This system allows detailed monitoring of this process and offers special formats for the assignment of Assistant Editors and reviewers, as well as the required formats for the issuance of decisions and communication with the corresponding author.

Once the manuscript has been approved in the initial review and the reference key has been assigned, the Editor-in-Chief will invite an Assistant Editor (subject matter expert), who will, in turn, invite at least two reviewers to evaluate the manuscript. The reviewers must be peer experts on the manuscript’s subject and not be affiliated with the authors' institution. If a reviewer declines the invitation, does not complete his or her assignment within the indicated period, or the opinion is not well-founded, the Assistant Editor will invite another reviewer or ask the same reviewer to explain his or her decision until at least two reviews have been completed.

At the end of the review of the manuscript, the reviewers' decision can be:

  • Acepted: This implies that the manuscript will be published as submitted.
  • Minor review. This type of decision is based on grammatical, technical, and formatting deficiencies.
  • Major revision. This criterion includes suggestions for changes in the methodological design, the presentation of results, clarification of techniques or experiments, or inclusion of data that give scientific validity to the results and conclusions of the manuscript.
  • Rejected This opinion indicates that the manuscript cannot be considered for publication in the way it was presented.

Based on the comments made by the reviewers and the Assistant Editor’s own comments, the latter will issue a single assessment, which will be considered by the Editor-in-Chief to send a response to the authors via email.

If the manuscript is accepted, an email will be sent to the authors with the decision. If the manuscript is designated for a minor or major review, the authors will be notified by email, which will include the time the authors have to address the reviewers' comments. If the authors do not agree with any suggested change, they must fully justify the lack of attention to said comment. Once the author has made the proposed changes, he or she must upload the new version of the manuscript into the Open Journal System (OJS) along with a response sheet, which must include a detailed response to each observation and the part of the article (section or line) where the change was made. Authors must make sure not to include their names on the response sheet to continue with the double-blind review.

If there is no response from the author within the period established for addressing the observations, the article will be rejected; if the authors wish, they could start the submission process again. If the authors require more time to make corrections, the corresponding author must send an email through the Open Journal System (OJS) specifying the requested time.

Upon receipt of the corrected manuscript, the Editor-in-Chief will forward it to an Assistant Editor, who will be responsible for:

  1. Reviewing the second version of the manuscript.
  2. Reviewing and resolving any possibly contradictory aspects between the reviewers' opinions and the authors' well-reasoned assessments.
  3. Issuing an opinion on the second version, which will be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief to verify that an adequate evaluation has been carried out in accordance with the Editorial Policy. If the Editor-in-Chief considers the Assistant Editor's review to be inadequate, he or she may invite another Assistant Editor or carry out the evaluation.

This process (review by the Assistant Editor) is carried out up to two times, at which point the manuscript may be accepted or rejected.

Once the manuscript has been accepted, the authors must send, by email, the copyright transfer letter to initiate the publication process, which consists of editing and style correction, translation, design, and online publication of the manuscript. At each stage, the corresponding author will receive an email for approval.

The Editor-in-Chief has the authority to determine the date on which the manuscript will be published, depending on resource availability.