About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Scientific Journal Cultura, Comunicación y Desarrollo (RCCD) is a publication edited by UniversoSur Editorial belonging to the University of Cienfuegos "Carlos Rafael Rodríguez". It arises in 2016 with the fundamental objective of contributing to the diffusion of research, experiences, theoretical and methodological works, both academic and professional, which are carried out in our country and internationally, related to three fundamental thematic lines: Culture and Society, Social Communication Sciences and research related to Science, Technology, and Society (STS).

  • Culture and Society: Includes studies on identity, culture, and heritage; research on art and society; studies on religion; historical and sociological studies (local and regional history); anthropological and archeological studies; oratory and linguistics; public socialization practices and spaces.
  • Social Communication Studies: includes historical and theoretical-methodological research on communication; communication and information for development; communication and information in organizations; communication and information for government; studies on discourse and productive dynamics in the media (press, radio, television, cinema, photography, hypermedia communication); communication and interpersonal relations in family contexts and public spaces; and trends and impacts of ICTs.
  • Science, Technology, and Society: includes studies on citizenship, emancipation, citizen empowerment, governance, public policies, participation, and social change; legal perspectives and development; gender studies (masculinities, feminism, inclusion, equity, women's rights, etc.); and environment and sustainable development.

The journal is aimed at professionals, academics, and researchers in the field of Social and Humanistic Sciences.

Frequency of publication

The journal is published every four months: January-April, May-August, and September-December.

Open Access

The Scientific Journal Cultura, Comunicación y Desarrollo is an Open Access publication, so all content is freely available without charge to individuals or their institutions. The publication of manuscripts is free of charge, as long as they comply with the ethics and norms of the Journal, UniversoSur Editorial, and the University of Cienfuegos "Carlos Rafael Rodríguez".

Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of articles or use them for any other lawful purpose, without seeking prior permission from the publisher or the author. These terms are set out under the Budapest Open Access Initiative statement.

The UniversoSur Editorial of the University of Cienfuegos "Carlos Rafael Rodríguez" publishes the content of RCCD under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License, which allows sharing the work with third parties as long as they acknowledge its authorship, its initial publication in this journal and the terms of the license. Derivative works may not be generated or used for commercial purposes.

Financing

The journal is financed with public funds from the University of Cienfuegos "Carlos Rafael Rodríguez", a State University. It receives this economic support from the Cuban State through the Ministry of Higher Education. The university itself approves the editorial team that is responsible for the operation and quality of the publication. These are public policies and therefore have to coincide with the interests of these institutions.

Evaluation process

RCCD is a refereed journal that uses the "Open Peer Review" method by experts in the knowledge of the objects investigated and the methodologies used in the research, to achieve the highest standards of scientific quality in the published works. The article review process is carried out with the Open Journal System (OJS) software, which guarantees the automated and auditable electronic registration of all interactions. It is a transparent process, which enables the improvement of texts when their publication is feasible.

The review process takes an average of 8 weeks, barring incidences. The reviewers receive the review request with a suggested time frame and their commitment is requested to avoid delays. All the specifications of the review process are detailed below.

  1. First phase: preliminary review

Once an original is received in the journal, the author is informed of the receipt submission within 5 days. Then, the editor performs a preliminary analysis where it is evaluated:

  • That the content is appropriate to the lines of research and objects of the journal, and if applicable, to the specific subject matter of a monographic/special issue proposed for publication.
  • That the article complies with the formal requirements established in the section on Submissions.
  • That the article does not incur in plagiarism, applying our Antiplagiarism Review Policy.

Papers that do not meet any of the above requirements may require modification, in which case the authors will be informed to make the indicated changes within 15 days, before starting the external evaluation process. Likewise, they may be rejected, and the authors will be informed of the reasons why their work will not continue to be evaluated by the journal.

The submission must be accompanied by a letter of originality and authorization for publication from all authors.

  1. Second phase: peer review

The articles that have passed the first phase of the review will be submitted to the open external evaluation, which will issue a report by filling out the review form (PDF) that is available on the web platform. In case the author suggests a possible reviewer for his/her article, the journal reserves the right to consider such recommendation or not.

The reviewers have 4 weeks to carry out their work. If the reviser issue conflicting reports, or if deemed appropriate, the article will be sent to a third reviewer. Both the novelty of the results and the methodological rigor of the research and analysis will be evaluated. The reviewers will exchange with the author(s) during the evaluation process, offer suggestions, and assess the criteria issued by the authors.

Based on the external evaluation reports, the Editorial Committee will make one of the following decisions:

  • The original is accepted without changes, in the corresponding issue according to the established periodicity.
  • It can be published with slight modifications, provided that the authors make the minor changes indicated by the reviewers. The author will be required to make the proposed changes within 15 days of receiving the notification. Once the modified article is received, it will be sent to an evaluator to verify the correct inclusion of the requested changes. The editor will subsequently review the article.
  • Re-evaluable. The manuscript will require major changes (rewriting, reorganization, change of focus, etc.) and must be submitted as indicated by the reviewers within 30 days to undergo a new evaluation process.
  • Not publishable. The author will be informed of the decision and the reasons for it.

The evaluation process will take a maximum of three months. The Editorial Committee of the journal will publish the annual list of reviewers who have collaborated in the editorial process.

  1. Proofreading of the article layout and publication

Once the evaluation phase has been completed, authors will be sent a sample of their work already formatted so that they can review it and make any necessary corrections. The author will have a maximum of 7 days to reply and return the corrected work. If no reply is received within this period, it will be understood that the article is ready for publication. No changes may be made to the article after it has been published online.

  1. Participation in the evaluation

Those interested in collaborating with the journal by evaluating papers may request it by e-mail to the main contact person of the journal. They may also request a certificate of their participation in the same way. Reviewers will follow the ethical publication policies and their collaboration will not entitle them to receive financial compensation.

Ethical publication policies

RCCD is committed to the principles of ethics, transparency, and good editorial practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), to ensure compliance with ethical standards and the quality of the work it publishes. It is the responsibility and duty of your RCCD Editorial Board to remind authors and reviewers of the above principles, along with the following set of derived editorial ethics policies and the anti-plagiarism policy.

  1. Authorship and contribution to the work

Authorship rights will be based on the original certificate of authorship attached to the submission at the beginning of the process. Only persons who have made substantial contributions in all of the following sections should be listed as authors or co-authors of the articles:

  • Research: conception and design, data acquisition, or data analysis and interpretation.
  • Original version: critical drafting or revision in terms of important intellectual content.
  • Final version: approval of the final version of the article before sending it for publication.

The number of authors of the paper must be justified by the subject, its complexity, and length. However, it will be limited to a maximum of 6 people. The order of signature, in which all authors will agree, will be that of the degree of contribution. Authors must be clearly identified in the article with their full name, affiliation, e-mail address, and ORCID code updated and visible, which invalidates the publication.

  1. Conflict of interest

Authors must expressly state any personal or economic ties that may be susceptible to influence the conclusions of an original or otherwise declare the non-existence of a conflict of interest. The Editorial Committee will evaluate the information provided and decide on the acceptance of the manuscript.

People assigned to evaluate the manuscript may reject proposals for the review of articles if there is a conflict of interest due to any type of affinity, contractual, or direct collaboration relationship. During the evaluation procedure, the authors must expressly declare that there is no conflict of interest.

  1. Authors' responsibilities

The journal declines any responsibility for possible conflicts derived from the authorship of the papers to be published.

  • The papers should acknowledge all authors who have participated in their preparation.
  • The data used in the article must be real and authentic.
  • The authors assume the obligation to correct and/or retract any errors detected at a later date.
  • Articles must be unpublished and cannot be submitted simultaneously to any other publication.
  • The authors should mention, in the methodology section, that the procedures used with the participants have been carried out after obtaining informed consent, when appropriate.
  • Authors must have permission to publish from the institution that financed the research, when applicable.
  • Authors are responsible for obtaining the appropriate permissions to partially reproduce material (text, tables, or figures) from other publications and correctly cite the source.
  • When describing experiments performed on human subjects, it should be indicated whether the procedures are following the ethical standards of the responsible human experimentation committee (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 as revised in 2000. Names, initials, or other identifying data of the centers where it has been performed should not be used.

 

  1. Editor Staff Responsibilities

The Editorial Committee has the responsibility and authority to accept or reject an article based on compliance with editorial standards and reviews. It will also disclose any relationships or sources of funding that could potentially be considered a conflict of interest concerning the articles it rejects or accepts. At the same time, it undertakes to preserve the anonymity of the reviewers so that they can never be associated with the articles reviewed.

The Editorial Committee reserves the right to withdraw any work received, accepted or already published in case of plagiarism, falsification or duplicate publication, as well as the various cases of scientific fraud. Likewise, it will promote the publication of corrections or retractions in the event of errors detected.

  1. Reports of malpractice, retractions, and corrections

Any person may contact the journal to report possible cases of malpractice, plagiarism, falsification of data, etc., of articles published in RCCD. The Editorial Committee will investigate it and will grant a period of 10 days to the authors so that they can present allegations. If malpractice is found, the PDF file of the article will be removed from the issue in which it has been published, and this circumstance will be expressly stated. At all times the Editorial Committee will facilitate the publication of retractions for any of the above reasons or involuntary errors.

Any person may submit a complaint or suggestion by e-mail to the main contact person of the journal, who will forward it to the Editorial Committee for study and resolution, and the person concerned will be informed.

The Editorial Committee will consider the publication of an erratum to accompany the article if serious errors are detected in articles already published by those responsible for them. Errata will not be considered serious and, therefore, will not be published in the case of spelling or grammatical errors.

Anti-Plagiarism Review Policy

RCCD maintains a policy that guarantees the originality of all its articles through the use of the anti-plagiarism software Turnitin. This tool allows the detection of coincidences or similarities between the originals submitted for publication and works previously published in other sources. The Editorial Committee will submit the proposed articles to an anti-plagiarism review before proceeding to their formal review and external evaluation. In case of detecting a possible plagiarism practice, the article will be discarded for publication and the authors will be informed.