APPROACH AND SCOPE

The Cuban Journal of Geomatics is an open access, peer-reviewed, scientific publication, published every six months, since 2022 by the Scientific and Technical Unit GEOCUBA Research and Consultancy. It publishes articles in Spanish language and its mission is to contribute to the dissemination of the results obtained in scientific research in the field of Geosciences in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The journal's readers and authors include professionals linked to Photogrammetry, Cartography, Geodesy, Remote Sensing, Hydrography, Geographic Information Systems, Geography and other related disciplines.

The thematic lines addressed in this publication are:

• Geodesy and satellite navigation.
• Cartography and geographic information systems.
• Photogrammetry and remote sensing.
• Hydrography

PEER REVIEW

The contributions sent to the original articles section are submitted to a peer review process, using the double-blind system, where neither authors nor reviewers are identified among themselves, which contributes to the evaluation process and to the impartiality of the opinion. The reviewers are experts with a high scientific level and knowledge of the thematic areas covered by the journal.

DECLARATION OF ETHICAL PRINCIPLES AND AUTHORSHIP

The journal embraces as its ethical foundation and good editorial practices the Principles of Transparency and Best Practices in Scholarly Publishing (https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.13) and the Basic Practices defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in 2017 (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices.

The Cuban Journal of Geomatics, requests all authors to describe their contributions in the article submitted for publication. 

As an example, contributions can be described as follows:

• (Name and surnames) and (Name and surnames) designed the study, analyzed the data and wrote the first version of the manuscript.
• (Name and surname) was involved in the collection, processing and statistical analysis of the data.
• All authors reviewed the drafting of the manuscript and approve the version finally submitted.
• All those who contributed to the article but who do not fit into the above-mentioned categories of authorship should be indicated in the Acknowledgments, indicating the type of contribution made. For example, assistance in translation, data collection, etc.

Changes of authorship: Authors are responsible for the correct inclusion of all co-authors in the platform metadata in the order agreed upon by them. This should be done during the submission stage of the original article. Any addition, reordering or deletion in the list of authors must be done before the acceptance of the article and will always be prior authorization of the editor.

To request such a change, authors must send the editor a signed letter confirming that all authors agree with the addition, deletion or reordering. In case of addition or deletion, the added or deleted author must also confirm this action.

The Editorial Board must abide by the following ethical principles:

• It is responsible for the decision to publish or not in the journal the articles received.
• It undertakes to publish the necessary corrections, clarifications and apologies in case it considers it convenient, and not to use the articles received for its own research work without the consent of their authors.

    Guarantees the confidentiality of the evaluation process, which encompasses the anonymity of the evaluators and authors, the content being evaluated, the report issued by the evaluators and any other communication made.

Evaluators/reviewers:

    They undertake to make an objective, informed, critical, constructive and unbiased review of the article. Acceptance or rejection is based solely on the relevance of the work, its originality, interest and compliance with the style and content standards indicated in the editorial criteria.

    They respect the established deadlines (if this is not possible, they should communicate this sufficiently in advance to the journal's management).

    Do not share, disseminate or use information from articles submitted for review without the corresponding permission of the editor and/or authors.

ANTI-PLAGIARISM POLICY

The Cuban Journal of Geomatics uses the Dupli Checker anti-plagiarism tool (https://www.duplichecker.com/) in the manuscript review process to detect bad practices in order to ensure compliance with the quality standards of the publication and to maintain the original and unpublished nature of the published results. To deal with a case of plagiarism, the Cuban Journal of Geomatics follows the workflows defined by COPE (http: //publicationethics. org/resources/flowcharts).

In the case of scientific manuscripts submitted to the journal, it is the reviewers or readers more familiar with the subject who notice their resemblance to another they have read at some point. If they bring the plagiarizing manuscript to the attention of the editors before publication, they will proceed in accordance with the international standards and recommendations that apply to scientific offenses. In addition to this, given the importance of the risk that unfortunately affects editorial processes, particularly in journals, programs available on the Internet will be used that allow transcribing sentences or paragraphs of a text in which the possibility of plagiarism is suspected, the program reviews in the databases the publications that deal with the subject and gives a report of identities or similarities detected in any of them.

In case of plagiarism in a published article:

• The person who notifies us of a plagiarism situation will be informed of the process to follow.
• The articles will be compared to corroborate the level of copying.
• All the editors of the journal will be informed and will issue their criteria on the matter.
• The author who committed the plagiarism will be sent the evidence and will be asked for a response.

In case the authors of the article are guilty of plagiarism:

• They will be informed of the plagiarism by the journal editor.
• The journal will publish an official retraction of the article.
• The online version of the article will be withdrawn from publication.
• The journal will not publish any other article by the authors linked to the plagiarism for a period of 5 years.

EDITORIAL PROCESS

The editorial process will be carried out taking into account the following phases:

• Editorial evaluation
• Academic evaluation
• Proofreading/layout/design
• Publication of the article.

Editorial evaluation

This is the first stage of the review process. It is carried out by the Executive Editor with the objective of verifying that the manuscript complies with the rules for the presentation of articles defined in the instructions for authors and its relation with the thematic lines of the journal. The maximum duration of this evaluation phase is 15 days. The evaluation criteria considered are:

• Relationship of the content of the contribution with the thematic lines of the journal.
• Originality
• The submission includes all the required presentation data as metadata: title in Spanish and English, authors' data (names and surnames, institution, country, e-mail, curricular summary and ORCID registration), abstract in Spanish and English and keywords in Spanish and English.
• The format, structure and length of the manuscript should correspond to the standards defined in the Instructions for Authors.
• Correct use of citations and bibliographic references, in accordance with the APA standard.
• General aspects of the novelty of the work.
• The submission includes as a complementary file the cover letter duly completed and signed by all the authors of the paper, which includes the statements of originality, authorship and conflict of interest.

Academic evaluation

The academic evaluation of the original articles is carried out using the double-blind peer review method and in strict anonymity. Two reviewers are used for this process and in case of contradiction in their decision, the manuscript will be evaluated by a third referee.

Selection of referees

The Cuban Journal of Geomatics has a database of national and international referees, classified by academic category, distributed by disciplinary areas and institutions. In this way, the Editorial Board of the journal guarantees that the referees are external to the publishing entity and to the entity of the authors who send their contributions. The referees are instructed to comply with the Code of Ethics for peer review of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), https://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_Guidelines_For_Peer_Reviewers_2.pdf.

Time of academic review

A contribution can be evaluated up to a maximum of 3 times, according to the complexity of the changes and the referees' suggestions. In a first academic review, the referees will make and issue a first opinion within a maximum period of 4 weeks. If necessary, they will perform two more rounds of evaluation, the time available for the delivery of the second and third academic report is 2 weeks maximum for each case. The total time for the academic review will not exceed 3 months.

Criteria to be taken into account in the academic review

The criteria to be evaluated in this phase and that affect the acceptance or rejection of the work are the following:

• Actuality and novelty
• Methodological quality, reliability and scientific validity of the work.
• Relevance and scientific or practical contribution of the results.
• Organization and coherence.

In all cases, the academic evaluation also includes the verification of ethical aspects in order to avoid conduct such as: redundant or duplicate publication, plagiarism, manipulation and/or invention of data and undeclared conflicts of interest.

To carry out the academic evaluation, the reviewers have at their disposal the evaluation form for original articles where they must express their assessment of the work, as well as the recommendations for authors and editors.

Decisions of the academic review

As a result of the evaluation process, the following decisions can be made:

• Accept the manuscript for publication without modifications.
• Accept the manuscript for publication with modifications (basic, moderate or complex).
• Reject the manuscript.

Some basic modifications can be:

• Ordering bibliographic references.
• Consistent wording of the introduction.
• Adequate keywords.
• Titles of tables and figures.

In this case, the author will have 2 weeks to correct and submit the article. In case the article has been revised for the second time, the author will have one week to submit the corrected article.

Moderate modifications:

• Clarify the materials and methods used.
• Reorganize the structure of the article.
• Redo the introduction (clarify novelty, importance and contribution).
• Synthesize the results.
• Improve tables and figures.

In this case, the author will have 3 weeks to correct and submit the article; in case the article has been revised for the second time, the author will have one week to submit the corrected article.

Complex modifications:

• Clarify the correspondence between: introduction, materials and methods, results and conclusions.
• Improve the presentation of the results, in accordance with the established objectives.
• Improve the discussion of the results.
• Update the bibliography.

In this case, the author will have 4 weeks to correct and submit the article; in case the article has been revised for the second time, the author will have one week to submit the corrected article.

Each of the decisions will be managed and informed by the Executive Editor of the journal to the authors, referees and Editorial and Conducting Committee, as appropriate in each case. In case of rejection of the manuscript, the Executive Editor will inform the author who, for his part, may submit a complaint within 72 hours, to which the editor will respond within a maximum of 5 days.

Proofreading and layout

The article will enter the final editing process. At this stage, the text will be adjusted based on APA international standards and parameters regarding the citation and referential part. Likewise, a semantic and syntactic revision will be made. Then, the article will go to layout. The final version of the article will be reviewed again by the proofreader, the editor and the respective authors.

The article is sent to the contact author so that within a maximum period of 5 days he/she notifies the editor of the journal of his/her agreement to publish the article. The author may only make minor changes in grammar and wording. If the author exceeds the established time, the article will be postponed for publication in subsequent issues of the journal.

Publication of the article

Once the layout of the different publication formats of the article is completed, it will be scheduled for publication in the corresponding issue and the contact author will be informed of the issue number and approximate date on which the article will be published.

The average time for publication will be approximately six months from the date of submission of the article. If the stipulated time for publication is altered, the authors will be notified of this situation and will be given the pertinent explanations.