Policies | DIXI

Originality

All articles or reviews subjected to the selection process of DIXI must be unpublished. We request that the authors refrain from sending works that have already been published either partially or whole in other media, except for online publication of working papers, or in translation to other languages. If we detect evidence of similar or identical documents that have already been published the work will be automatically rejected.

Types of Articles

Following the requirements for scholarly quality for the indexation of Colombian journals (National Bibliographical Index- Publindex), DIXI seeks to publish mainly the following kinds of articles:

Scientific and technologic research paper

A document that presents, in a detailed manner, the original results of finished research projects.

Discussion paper derived from research

A document that presents the results of finished research that has been published elsewhere from the analytic, interpretative or critical perspective of the author, on a specific subject and recurring to original sources.

Review paper

A document resulting from finished research where the results of previously published research on a field of science or technology are analyzed, systematized, or integrated seeking to account for the development and tendencies of the field. It is characterized by a thorough bibliographical review with at least 50 references.

Reviews and Student Space

DIXI will receive critical reviews on monographs, articles, and research and scientific diffusion books that make significant contributions to the theoretical knowledge on Law and that may be of interest for the readers of the journal. The journal will have a student space in which papers or essays selected from contests or national scholarly events in which the journal is involved may be published.

Structure of the articles

The basic structure of an article comprises the following elements: title, abstract, keywords, body of the text (which may vary according to the kind of article or the author’s intention) and list of references. The details that an author must take into account to prepare his or her article for DIXI are more extensively described in a template that has been developed for such an end.

Purpose and Coherence

We expect all articles that are submitted to DIXI to have an explicit purpose and to seek for such a purpose a contribution that will be of interest for the public of the journal. Moreover, aside from the possible structure that the author may decide to give to the article (review or paper), we expect texts to follow a coherent scheme in which the three essential elements, introduction, articulated development of the topic and closing, are included.

Languages

DIXI will publish whole articles originally written in Spanish, English or Portuguese.

Extension

We suggest that articles have a maximum extension of twelve thousand (12,000) words. Critical reviews should not exceed fifteen hundred (1,500) words.

Authors

Authors participating in the journal are expected to submit unpublished, original texts created by themselves as a result of rigorous research processes and properly use sources serving as bibliographic support and any other material protected by copyrights. Texts must be thoroughly written considering form and citation requirements pertaining to the journal style.

Profile of the evaluators

The peers of DIXI will have at least a master’s level and published production in the area on which they will be asked to review texts.

Confidentiality

Since the selection is made through a “double blind” system, seeking to warranty the independence of the parts (neither the author nor the reviewers will have access to each other’s identity, profile or origin), this information shall be treated solely by the people in charge of the journal and will not be revealed to third parties. The support of the process for each article will be kept for indexation purposes or for review verification.

Selection system

All the articles presented to the journal shall be submitted to a “double blind” selection process that will be carried out with the help of expert peer reviewers on each subject. The participation of reviewers will be made ad honorem, and we expect it to be assumed as an act of scholarly reciprocity seeking to collaborate in a constructive manner to strengthen (and validate) the research and contributions of other colleagues within the field. In the case of reviews, which are diffusion documents, they may be checked by the editor himself or by other members of the editorial team of the journal. Their publication will be decided based on their thematic and textual coherence, their relevance for the field, or according to the relevance of the proposed discussion.

Evaluators

Journal evaluators are expected to do a detailed and constructive reading of each article they accept to review, seeking to not only give a recommendation of approval or rejection to the editor, but also enable authors, through their comments, to improve their texts and reflect on the scope, possibilities or shortcomings of their writings. Additionally, evaluators must consider that the texts entrusted to them by the editor are unpublished, and any improper or unauthorized use of the information contained therein would imply a serious unethical conduct. Moreover, the responsibility of evaluating a work, once accepted, cannot be transferred to third parties, especially if this has not been justified or previously consulted with the editor. Finally, any conflict of interest identified by the evaluator after receiving a work that may undermine their independence in the preparation of an opinion must be informed.

Exclusiveness

The articles submitted to DIXI cannot be in a selection process in other journals, nor should they be presented at other publications while they are under evaluation.

Ethics

The journal and its editorial board will favor, through their policies and actions, ethics in research processes, appropriate use of contents protected by copyrights and quality of works published, so that the different collaborators (editors, authors and evaluators) interact under principles of academic integrity.

Notice on cases

Should there be any evidence of ethical issues in research presented by the works published by the journal, doubts about their scientific rigor, suspected falsification or data manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, identification of previous publications (“rehashes”), authorship or plagiarism issues, please contact immediately the journal editor in order to delve into the case and take relevant actions. Notices received on ethical issues will be handled with absolute confidentiality, protecting the identity of the person who has detected the problem, where required.

Retractions, corrections and conflict resolution

The journal follows the guidelines and procedures of the Committee on Publication Ethics (cope) for handling misconduct in scholarly publishing. Furthermore, retractions or corrections may be made on already published articles whose contents have errors affecting their scientific quality, whether due to involuntary mistakes in the research or publication process or due to serious ethical issues such as plagiarism, falsifications, data manipulation, etc.

Open access

The journal publishes its contents in open access, without any embargo period. In addition, all published works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, and use must be made under those licensing terms.

Digital preservation of contents

Ediciones UCC will ensure digital preservation of contents published so that authors can always retrieve their articles over time and maintain access to what has been the history and evolution of the journal.

Use of the contents and self-archiving

The journal publishes its contents in open access, without any embargo period. In addition, all works are published under a Creative Commons’ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), and their use must adhere to these licensing conditions. Furthermore, authors can self-archive their works in institutional repositories, in the final version (or editor’s version) of the article that was published, insofar as bibliographic data of the original article publication are provided to give credit to the journal. At the time of self-archiving a published article, it is also advisable that the authors include a link to the article, through its doi, so that it can be consulted on the official website of the journal. An active role by the authors in disseminating their published work among colleagues, graduate and undergraduate students and, generally, the academic community is key to make a more effective contribution to the discipline or produce greater impact on research and academic training processes.

Submission and processing charges

Both submission and processing of articles (in case of approval) are free of charge in this journal; we do not ask for any fee at any stage of the publishing process. The journal is fully supported by the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia Press.

Submission

The article proposals must be submitted in Word format, adjusting the text to the template and only through electronic means. Together with the article, each of the authors must send a fully filled out author card and a letter of originality and ethical commitment.

Quotation style: The Bluebook 19th Edition

Quotation styles allow for an organized presentation of the bibliographic support upon which the text is built (in its antecedents, arguments, methodology, etc.), and they facilitate the location and direct consult of said sources. In the case of DIXI, we have selected the standards designed by The Bluebook. A Uniform System of Citation that are commonly used in Law publications. We cite hereunder some aspects that must be taken into account concerning the use of The Bluebook Rules as well as some particularities incorporated by the journal.

References

The references made within the body of the text will need to be completed at the bottom of the page with Arabic numbers. Also, the list of references must be organized in alphabetical order by the last name of the author, or otherwise, by the name of the title of the publication. Works by the same author should be listed chronologically. Below, we will show the template on how to reference an article from the Constitution, a law, a book, and an article in a journal, with some examples for each case

Political Constitution of Colombia

Official name of the Constitution [abbreviation]. Specific cited article. Date of proclamation (country).
Constitución Política de Colombia [Const.]. Art. 6. Julio 7 de 1991 (Colombia).

Laws

Number and year of law. Subject. Date of proclamation.
Ley 1060 de 2006. Por el cual se modifican las normas que regulan la impugnación de la paternidad y la maternidad (26 de julio, 2006).

Book

Name(s) of the author. Title and issue of the journal in small caps. Publishing House. (Year).
Ministerio del Interior y de Justicia. Guía institucional de conciliación en administrativo. ¡Venga conciliemos! Hablando se arreglan las cosas. Ministerio del Interior y de Justicia. (2007).

Journal article

Name(s) of the author. Title of article. Title and issue of the journal in small caps. Date of publication. Pag. firt page of the article.
Stephen Jagusch & James Kwan. Middle East Overview. The European and Middle Eastern Arbitration Review 3. November 2007. Pag. 311.

Should you need additional examples to quote other kinds of texts please contact the editor at dixi@ucc.edu.co

Graphical aspects and other particularities

Tables, graphs and figures. Each table, figure or graph must indicate its source (or if it is the author’s own creation), listing the reference as appropriate. Graphs figures and tables must always be supplied in an editable format (we recommend Excel). In the case of photographs or images, they must be sent in at least 350dpi, on .jpg file extension and the authors must certify that they have the permission to use them or reproduce them.

Article selection process

As we mentioned before, DIXI follows a “double blind” system to evaluate and decide on the publication of its main articles. We list below the stages of this process in a more detailed manner:

Peer selection

If the article is admitted for the selection process the editor will set to assign reviewers, locating and convoking two expert researchers on the area of the article. The reviewers will then receive the full text of the article and a format that will guide them through the process.

Submission and editorial evaluation

Once the editor receives the submission of the article, a notification will be sent to the author confirming the submission. Afterwards, the editor will carry out a preliminary review of the article to see if it complies with the presentation parameters for the journal and if it corresponds to the editorial and thematic guidelines. The editor holds the power to decide whether the article can be evaluated for selection or if it should be rejected on this first step. In this phase the editor may also return the text to the authors, requesting some corrections or clarifications before it can be sent to the official selection process. In such case, the authors must resubmit the article with the demanded corrections (or the documentation that may be missing such as the author card or commitment letter) if they wish to continue the process.

Selection time

The usual length of a complete selection cycle (location of peer reviewers, invitation and acceptance, reception of the judgments, delivery to the authors) must not exceed a trimester. However, it is relatively difficult to find adequate and willing peers on some topics so the timeframes will be negotiated directly with each reviewer considering their availability (and seeking to carry out the process in the most efficient way possible).

Results

The editor will send a result to the authors based on the judgment of at least two peer reviewers. In case the judgments of both reviewers are in conflict (an acceptance and a rejection) we will call a third reviewer before the editor can inform the authors of the results. The results of the selection process can be: “approved without modifications”, “approved with minor modifications”, “approved with mayor modifications” or “rejected”. The “approved with substantial modifications” is equivalent to “revise and resubmit”, which implies that the authors must be willing to restate their proposal. Should the authors not be willing to carry out the modifications the selection process will be over and the authors will be free to submit their work to another publication.

Corrections

Along with the results, should the editor consider that it is necessary to have a corrected version of the article, he will accord a deadline with the authors for the submission of such a version. This deadline oscillates between 2 and 10 weeks, the last in case a substantial adjustment is needed. If the authors fail to comply with the stipulated deadlines the editor may end the process for the article, thus preventing it from being published. To help with the review of the corrected version authors must use the word change-tracking feature and send a letter to the reviewers explaining the adjustments that were carried out. Without this response the editor will not send the adjusted article for verification.

Verification and final version

The verification will be carried out with the help of the peer reviewers in most cases but the editor can also check the adjustments in case they were minor corrections. Thus, should slight corrections be requested for an article we ask the authors to refrain from incorporating mayor changes or changes that imply conceptual or methodological adjustments that have not been asked by the reviewers. Should the adjustments be satisfactory, the editor will inform the authors of the approval and will request the presentation of the final version of the article in a template that shall be sent to editorial production. Should a significant error, requiring substantial changes, be found in preparing the final version, the editor must be informed.

Publishing process

The articles and the different kinds of texts that might be approved for publication in an issue of DIXI will be subject to a professional publishing process that comprises the following stages: style correction, diagramming, proofreading, verification, and final approval of arts.

Editorial follow-up

The authors must submit the manuscript that was approved for publication in a template that will be provided by the journal, making sure to comply with all the instructions therein. In addition, authors are responsible to attend to the observations, clarifications or corrections that may arise during the publishing process within the concrete deadlines that will be set so as to avoid delays in the publication. It is also the responsibility of the authors to verify de legibility and integrity of the contents of the texts. Once the texts have been approved in their final art for publication any mistakes or omissions will be the sole responsibility of the authors.

Distribution and access

Every author shall receive two copies of the issue in which the article was published. Moreover, the digital version of the article and of the whole issue will be available for the author’s use so that he may support its diffusion among the target audience. DIXI follows an open access policy and will seek as many channels and strategies as possible so that the published issues may be visible by a large (national and international) audience. However, the authors must know that the impact of the diffusion of their articles relies heavily on their active involvement in this process. We expect authors themselves to forward the digital versions of their articles to researchers on the area be it in their countries or abroad, and that they stimulate their use as bibliographic support in research and writing processes in among their colleagues or promoting its reading in class for undergraduate of graduate students.

Reproduction and translations

If you wish to reproduce or translate an article or text published in DIXI, please write an email to dixi@ucc.edu.co addressed to the editor. Nonetheless, texts that are published in the journal do not require special authorization to be viewed, downloaded or linked to the website of the journal from personal or institutional pages, or repositories.

Legal Note

The perspectives or viewpoints expressed in the articles and texts published by DIXI are the sole responsibility of their authors, and do not commit in any measure the Journal, the Editorial or the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia. Moreover, the main purpose of the journal is to provide a service for the academic community and for the advancement of knowledge on Law and thus the selection process for the published material contemplates academic, editorial and legal aspects that are evaluated for every single case to decide about the submitted manuscripts. Since it is dependent on these factors, the journal is not obliged to publish any text and may decline publication at any moment during the process if it deems that the article does not correspond to its guidelines or fails to comply with any of its editorial policies. Similarly, any reclamation made by third parties concerning the use of works or excerpts in an article or text will be the full responsibility of the authors thus exempting the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia.

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