Peer Review
Peer review is conducted using a "double-blind" method, meaning the anonymity of both authors and reviewers is maintained. The managing editor, after the technical review stage, assigns manuscripts that meet the editorial requirements to associate editors based on subject matter; these editors are responsible for inviting specialists to evaluate the proposal and for overseeing the process until an editorial recommendation is reached. The review process requires a minimum of two evaluations and is carried out using a standard review form, the criteria for which can be consulted at the following link: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20721819
The peer review process takes a minimum of two months and may be extended depending on the number of revision rounds deemed necessary by the editor. The editorial recommendation may be for rejection —based on the reviews or following the assessment of one or more revised versions— specifically when reviewer comments are not satisfactorily addressed. Conversely, the recommendation may be for acceptance, either with suggestions that do not condition publication or following minor or major revisions. The editorial recommendation and the final version are submitted to the journal's managing editor, who reviews, requests adjustments if necessary, and issues the official decision. Subsequently, accepted manuscripts proceed to the production stage.
Non-Commercial Open Access
Sociedad y Ambiente is a publicly funded journal with no fees for manuscript processing or publication, or for reading and downloading its content, adhering to the Diamond Open Access (non-commercial) model. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), this is “an equitable model of scholarly publishing, supported by shared infrastructure and open licenses, that makes scientific knowledge available to everyone as a digital public good.” Therefore, we operate under the premise that knowledge is a common good and access to it a human right, and we support the global exchange of knowledge without restrictions or barriers that promote exclusion and inequality.
Copyright and Licensing
In Sociedad y Ambiente, authors retain the moral rights to their work, as established by the Federal Copyright Law (Article 11); they are only asked to grant the journal the right of first publication. The work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). The CC BY-NC-SA license allows for free, open access to the content and permits the use of the published material —provided that the work's authorship and its initial publication by the journal are correctly cited— and that any resulting work is shared under the same chosen license.
Interoperability Protocols and Persistent Identifiers
Interoperability protocols and persistent identifiers are fundamental for the management, tracking, and visibility of scientific output in the digital environment. Therefore, at Sociedad y Ambiente, we consider different types of standards, formats, and identifiers, which is closely related to metadata policy, specifically for the visibility and harvesting of the manuscripts titles, authors, abstracts, keywords, and references.
Regarding interoperability standards, we implement the Open Archives Initiative (OAI 2.0) protocol on the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform, which allows external repositories and search engines to automatically harvest publication metadata (https://revistas.ecosur.mx/sociedadyambiente/index.php/sya/oai). We also re-format manuscripts in the XML-JATS (eXtensible Markup Language-Journal Article Tag Suite) format, an international technical standard that uses tags to structure and describe publication text, enabling interoperability with other platforms and multiple formats.
Regarding persistent identifiers for digital resources, we implement the Digital Object Identifier (DOI: 10.31840), a code that uniquely identifies publications and ensures their long-term traceability. We also request the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID), a unique code for authors that eliminates ambiguity regarding authorship regardless of name changes or institutional affiliations.
Digital Preservation
In Sociedad y Ambiente, through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) editorial management platform, we have incorporated the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) and CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) systems for digital preservation. The main function of the first system is to allow, through a network of partner institutions, the long-term archiving and preservation of a local copy of our content on their own servers. Similarly, the second system stores a copy in a global network of libraries; however, this copy is not publicly accessible (dark archive). Additionally and complementarily, the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) module is installed and activated in the OJS.
Open Science and Self-Archiving
Sociedad y Ambiente encourages authors to make their research data and other elements publicly available as supplementary material. This practice promotes transparency and facilitates reproducibility. Alternatively, if this information is available in open access repositories, authors should cite it in their manuscript.
In the submission process, the contributions of each author are requested using the CRediT taxonomy (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18421449), which promotes transparency and fairness, and avoids ambiguity in authorship, ensuring that each person receives recognition for their work. Besides, information is requested on scholarships, funded projects, people, organizations or institutions involved in the research process.
The journal accepts manuscripts that have already been preprinted, provided that, when these preprints are published, a reference is made to our website on the platform used. Furthermore, there are no restrictions on self-archiving the published version in personal (e.g., ResearchGate) or institutional repositories.
Verification of Originality
In Sociedad y Ambiente, during the technical review stage, we use the iThenticate program (© Turnitin) to determine the percentage of similarity between the texts and other sources available online, as well as the percentage of text possibly generated by artificial intelligence (AI). The results obtained are used as a criterion for more detailed evaluations and, if necessary, to allow authors to respond. The detection of plagiarism or text generated or manipulated by AI models that is not declared in the submission or that is used in sections of the manuscript where it is not permitted will result in the withdrawal of the proposal.
Public Dissemination of Content
At Sociedad y Ambiente, we recognize the importance of sharing knowledge generated through public funds. Therefore, we have implemented a strategy to disseminate individual publications through our institutional social media channels, with support from the Coordination of Social Communication and Science Outreach. Each manuscript published in the journal is forwarded to our liaison and shared through various digital platforms.