Preliminary examination of submissions by the Executive Council (desk review)

All new submissions made to the Revista IBERC are subjected to a preliminary analysis, which is carried out by the Executive Committee. The intention is to verify compliance with the Authors’ guidelines and the verification of the manuscript using plagiarism and self-plagiarism identification software. If the guidelines are not met, or plagiarism/self-plagiarism is detected, the article will be archived, without prejudice to the possibility of a new submission.

Once the guidelines have been met, the thematic adherence of the article to the editorial line of the journal is analyzed. This investigation is carried out by the Executive Council, which also investigates the innovative and unprecedented nature of the presentation. In case of rejection, the authors of the decision will be informed and the article will be archived.

Double-blind peer review process

If approved by the Executive Committee in the preliminary analysis, the article is sent to two ad hoc external reviewers for a qualitative evaluation of its form and content, according to the process known as double-blind peer review.

The articles will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

1. Formal aspects, in which compliance with the standards of the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards - ABNT is considered, as well as the precision of the summary and keywords;
2. Methodological aspects, in which the adequate clarification of the problem to be addressed is analyzed, in addition to the text development consistent with the proposed objectives and, finally, the clarity of the methodological options;
3. Theoretical aspects, in which the proper use of the theoretical framework is determined, reflections on the current state of knowledge in the area, containing relevant and updated references;
4. Ethical aspects, in which it is sought to identify inaccuracies in the references, as well as doubtful information in its content or in the cited sources, in addition to the originality and innovation of the working hypothesis.

The evaluators issue opinions with recommendations and the following positioning: (i) acceptance of the publication of the article; (ii) favorable to the publication of the article, provided the suggested changes are made; (iii) rejection of the publication of the article.

Post-evaluation by editors

Once the peer review stage is concluded, the Executive Council analyzes the opinions issued and categorizes the articles as: i) accepted; ii) subject to mandatory corrections; iii) rejected.

The rejected article will be archived, with communication to the author (s).

Accepted or partially accepted articles will be sent to the author(s) for improvement according to the journal’s guidelines. Once the changes have been made, the editors will analyze the article and decide if it needs a new round of peer review or even new changes. This step aims to improve the text in dialogue with editors and reviewers, safeguarding, in all contacts, the anonymity of the latter.

A positive assessment of the article does not imply publication by Revista IBERC.

Final decision

After concluding the previous phase, the editors issue a final decision on the article, which may be (i) accepted for publication or (ii) rejected. In the latter case, the article will be archived and the decision informed to the authors.

The final decision to accept the article, in turn, does not imply automatic publication, which will be subject to the editors' judgment of convenience, based on the current state of the journal's editorial line, the theme of the article and its originality, in addition to the criteria for exogeny and endogeny. In addition, before being considered for publication, the article will be submitted to a new plagiarism and self-plagiarism check.

Exceptionally, there will be invitations to publish articles that will not be submitted to the evaluation process, not exceeding such cases to a total of 25% (twenty-five percent) of the articles published in a given year.