Editorial Process

magis is a peer-reviewed journal. Therefore, all papers are subject to a rigorous evaluation process consisting of different stages and taking two to five months to be completed, depending on the amount of unpublished papers received. The evaluation in magis is carried out under the method of academic opinion by blind peers. The stages are as follows:

1. 1. Receipt of unpublished papers: once magis receives an unpublished paper, the author(s) is sent an e-mail message informing him/her that the checking process is started. It is indispensable to attach the signed Letter of Conditions, the Author’s and Research Info Form and the anonymous file containing the unpublished paper full text, as indicated in number 5 herein, so that the unpublished paper be received by magis.
      
      
   2. Checking of conformity regarding the provisions by magis: in this second stage, the edition team checks that the unpublished paper conforms the formal requirements provided in number 3 herein to prepare the document. To start the process of the first checking, it is a must to submit the three files indicated above. If any of these files is not uploaded to the platform, the process shall not be started and the author shall be notified about it to his/her email. Once the pending file(s) is uploaded to the platform, the checking process shall begin.
      
      
   3. Analysis of the theme relevancy and the basic qualities of the academic writing: firstly, the edition team reads the unpublished paper and determines whether it satisfies the basic criteria of academic writing and whether it deals with a theme appropriate for the field of our journal. If so, then the process goes on. Otherwise, the author(s) is sent a message stating the reason why the unpublished paper was not accepted in magis. During this stage, the Turnitin platform is used to detect plagiarism in the manuscript.
      
      
   4. Review by the editorial committee: Once the editorial team determines that the manuscript corresponds to the thematic field of the journal and meets the formal requirements demanded by it, the editorial committee anonymously reviews the manuscript, determining if the process continues or must be removed by deep adjustments. It is possible that the committee suggests adjustments, which will be annexed to the concepts of the evaluators and have to be made as a condition for the eventual publication of the article.
      
      
   5. First blind evaluation by expert peers: Once the article is reviewed by the editorial committee and this endorses its eventual publication, although adjustments are requested to improve it, the evaluation process begins under the modality of academic review by blind peers. The editor requests some highstanding experts in the specific theme dealt with in the unpublished paper to evaluate it anonymously. The number of experts evaluating each paper may vary. To start the process, magis requires that at least 2 expert peers accept to check the paper; though it is possible to call any additional expert peer. These peer experts are not part of the editorial committee and they usually are from countries other than the author’s one. The editor shall send each peer evaluator (a) the unpublished paper without any information about the author, (b) this Guidelines document, and (c) an Evaluation Form according to the type of paper (reflective article, scientific and technological research article, and review article). Each peer evaluator shall have a deadline of two weeks to process and submit his/her academic opinion.
      
      
   6. Peer evaluators are requested to fill in the evaluation form, where he/she: (a) indicates whether the document conforms or not the formal and content requirements, (b) provides an opinion consisting in a general assessment of the paper and including his/her suggestions, contributions, observations, and (c) recommends to publish or not the paper according to a scale providing the option to suggest that the unpublished paper be published after some amendments or deep modifications (the Evaluation Form for the scientific and technological research articles has been disclosed both printed on paper and online). In addition, the Evaluation Form asks the peer evaluators if they are available to evaluate the new version prepared by the author now based on the peer evaluator’s observations, so as to continue the process until having the unpublished paper in a version deemed suitable for publication.
      
      
   7. Preparation of the unpublished paper second version, based on the observations by the peer evaluators; removal or rejection of unpublished papers: after the editor receives the opinions by the expert evaluators, he/she prepares a document gathering the observations and removes all the information related to the author’s identity. This new document is sent to the author(s) and the editorial team defines whether the author(s) can submit a new version of the unpublished paper after implementing the observations by the evaluators or, otherwise, the unpublished paper is removed from the process. In the case that the author(s) is interested in submitting the new version to go on with the evaluation process, then the editor sets a deadline for submitting it based on how deep the amendments/modifications should be. When the author(s) decides not to continue the process, his/her unpublished paper is removed from our journal database and the evaluators are informed that there is not a new version to be evaluated. In the case that the unpublished paper is rejected outright by the evaluators, the author(s) is informed that the paper shall be removed and the opinions shall be attached to the message. Since some part of the publishing policy in magis is intended to contribute to improve the processes of writing articles, the authors are always provided with the opinions by the evaluators, even so in the cases of the unpublished papers removed or rejected outright.
      
      
   8. Verification by the peer evaluators of the amendments to the second version: after receiving the new version of the paper, the editor forwards it to each evaluator as an anonymous document together with the evaluation each peer expert did on the first version. Each evaluator receives this second version with the evaluation he/she did on the first one, in order to verify whether the suggested amendments were taken into account by the author(s). Based on this criterion, each peer expert evaluates the unpublished paper again and tells the editor either if there is a need to do more amendments or that the paper can be forwarded to the editorial committee for deliberation.
      
      
   9. Preparation of the final version and deliberation by the editorial committee: once the editor receives the new opinions by the peer evaluators, when two/three of them agree on that the unpublished paper is ready, as it is, for publication, the editor shall forward it to the editorial committee so that it can be rigorously examined. The article, the concepts and the history of the manuscript are sent to the editorial committee in order to analyze the rigor of the process. It is possible that in this instance new adjustments are requested, the realization of which is indispensable for the publication of the article. When the evaluators, or either any of them, think that the unpublished paper needs some other amendments, the editor prepares a new document compiling the evaluations while keeping the peer experts anonymous. Then the editor forwards this document to the author(s) and the previous step is repeated until the evaluators deem the unpublished paper suitable for publication. Anonymity shall be kept throughout the process for both the authors and the evaluators. This way the process ends up with a final version.

   Once the paper is approved by the editorial committee, the paper starts the preparation for publication. Throughout this process, the paper is examined in depth to confirm that it is an unpublished work and is then formatted to conform the editorial standards of our journal. Consequently, the authors may be asked to do some changes to the paper. They shall be notified by e-mail about the changes required and the deadline, either 1 or 2 weeks. As this process consists of different stages, the change requests can be send in different time points. In addition, during this process the authors are requested the ORCID code and partial use license signed.

   Sometimes, the author(s) sends answers and meta-observations to the comments by the evaluators in order to either explain or clarify the reasons why the author(s) is not making certain amendments as suggested by the evaluators. In such cases, a blind dialogue is started between the evaluator and the author(s), which is mediated by the editorial committee. This dialogue is intended as a discussion space to deliberate on the amendments/modifications. Though, in any case, the approval or rejection is up to the opinion by the expert evaluator.

   In the case that despite having three evaluators in the process, their concepts are quite dissimilar and contradictory, magis shall resort to a fourth evaluator to resolve the issue. The process to follow by the fourth evaluator is the same as with the other ones.

 

magis follows a diamond open access policy and does not charge for accessing, publishing or processing articles.