Peer review process

All manuscripts submitted to the Colombian Journal of Gastroenterology for possible publication undergo an editorial evaluation that determines the relevance of the topic they address and their adherence to the quality standards established by the Journal. Said evaluation is carried out as follows:

Once manuscripts are submitted to the Journal, its editors shall review them to verify the general relevance of the topics they address and their compliance with the editorial standards. The results of this revision will be informed to the authors of the article as an initial step in the evaluation process.

Submissions are subject to two parallel review processes: on the one hand, the editorial team reviews the paper and verifies it complies with the editorial standards of the journal. On the other, the article is sent to two peer reviewers to be evaluated using a double-blind review system. In this process, peer reviewers assess the quality of the article as a scientific paper. In case of disagreement between the evaluations of the peer reviewers, the Editor shall make a final decision. Thus, in these cases, the Editor is the only one who shall decide whether a paper can be published or not, and this decision is final.

Evaluations are carried out according to the following criteria:

1. Originality of the contents of the paper.

- The work submitted to the Journal must be original and unpublished.

- Relevance of the topic addressed by the article.

- Potential impact of the paper on the field of knowledge after being published.

2. Reasoning of the article.

- The paper includes a review of relevant and updated literature on the topic addressed in it.

- The article has a consistent and convincing theoretical framework.

- The methodology is flexible and innovative; the way how the understanding of the problem is approached and the context in which the research was conducted is described.

- Conclusions are related to the initial objectives of the research and they summarize the position of the author(s); besides, they are in line with the development of the work.

3. Quality of the writing of the paper

-  The article is presented in a logical order; its contents and development are consistent.

- The writing of the paper allows a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary understanding, being comprehensible beyond the limits of a single discipline. The use of local expressions or acronyms has been avoided or they have been properly explained.

- The paper meets the writing and spelling standards of a scientific work.

- It provides relevant and sufficient graphic content complementing the information presented in the body of the text.

4. References

- Cited references are not outdated.

- High quality and relevant works are cited as references.

5. Formal aspects

- The title is concise, specific and clear.

- The abstract is accurate, understandable and it adequately synthesizes the contents of the paper.

- The keywords provided are the most appropriate taking into account the contents of the article.

After receiving the evaluations of an article, these will be included in a single document and sent to its authors, informing them of the recommendation made by the reviewers regarding the rejection or possible publication of the paper in accordance with the existing options peer reviewers are provided with. In the case a paper is recommended for publication prior to making some adjustments, once it is adjusted and sent back to the Journal, it will be submitted to a new peer review round.

This second peer review round consist of sending the adjusted version of the paper to the peers who initially reviewed it, who shall verify if the comments made by them were considered by the authors when adjusting the paper and, based on said verification, shall recommend its publication or rejection. In case of disagreement, the Editor shall review both, the arguments of each reviewer and the adjusted version of the paper and shall make a decision accordingly. The final result of this second review stage will be informed to authors, stating the reasons that led to the decision that was made.

The Colombian Journal of Gastroenterology publishes a limited number of articles per issue, so once articles recommended for publication are determined, editors carry out a selection process of those that will be included in the table of contents of each issue based on the following criteria:

1. Overall result of the peer review stage (based on the nature of the comments that were made and the quality of the corrections)
2. Originality of the topic addressed by the article.
3. Origin of the article (articles derived from research works will be more highly valued).

Once the table of contents of the issue has been decided, the authors of articles selected will be informed about it.

By making a submission to the Journal, it is implicitly understood that authors know and adhere to the copyright conditions set forth by the Journal.

- Authors are solely responsible for the opinions expressed in their articles, as well as their contents, and they do not necessarily involve the point of view of the Colombian Journal of Gastroenterology.

- The Colombian Journal of Gastroenterology publishes all its contents under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. To see a copy of this license, please go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0.

PUBLICATION MODEL

The Colombian Journal of Gastroenterology publishes articles under an open access model, i.e., accessing and downloading papers published in the journal is free and authors are not charged for making submissions and/or publishing their work.

ETHICS STATMENT

The Colombian Journal of Gastroenterology adheres to the Code of Conduct of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE).

Articles must be prepared according to the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (Vancouver Group), which were updated in December 2019 and are available at http://www.icmje.org/about-icmje/faqs/icmje-recommendations/.