Peer Review Process 

1. Conformity of the documents sent

First, all submitted manuscripts are passed through a compliance check by one of the editors. The editor verifies that the editorial policies in force are being followed and that the documents sent are in the requested formats (manuscript without contact details, title and author page, etc.).  If these requirements are not achieved, the document will not continue the evaluation process and will be sent to the author for corrections.

2. Initial review

Secondly, a responsible editor is assigned to the manuscript. The editor has the function of performing an initial review of the document. At this stage, it is decided if the manuscript goes to a peer review or it receives an editorial rejection (no peer review). The initial review aims to select studies with sound methodologies and publication potential. That is, if the manuscript passes the initial review satisfactorily and meets the minimum criteria of scientific quality, it is sent for peer review. 

On the other hand, the reasons for editorial rejection could be due to the fact that the manuscript does not conform to the lines of the journal (health psychology, clinical psychology, family psychology), presents serious methodological problems, or has a high index of similarity in Turnitin (plagiarism).  In this stage, the responsible editor is guided by the evaluation of plagiarism through Turnitin.

3. Peer review

Thirdly, studies that move to the peer review stage receive an evaluation by external national and international peers (to the institution) in the double-blind paper review modality. That is, the identity of the author and reviewers will not be revealed during the evaluation. However, if the article is published, reviewers will be given the option of receiving credit in the final section of the article by being designated as reviewers of the manuscript. 

When the evaluation of the manuscript is concluded, the author will receive notification of comments, observations, suggestions, and the opinion (publishable, publishable with modifications, or non-publishable) of the reviewers. If necessary, suggestions and changes will be sent to be resolved before publishing the article. 

Peer reviewers are selected by the responsible editor, the editorial council, and/or the scientific committee. They must be researchers who have previously published on the topic under review. In addition, the editorial board and the editor will jointly evaluate the case if there are problems related to unreported conflicts of interest or ethical misconduct in research during the review process.

Standards from the American Psychological Association's (APA) seventh-edition publication manual will be used throughout the review process. Finally, all peers will use the following rubric to evaluate the manuscripts received: http://ipops.pe/inicio/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Actas-de-evaluación-de-articulos-científicos-v4.docx

4. Response to peer review

Fourth, when the authors receive the comments of the peer reviewers, they will have to send a new document with change control and a letter indicating the solution of the corrections. The letter should contain a detailed response to each review or editorial point. The details should include an exact description of the changes made and where they are found (e.g., Methods section, page 3, paragraph 5).

If the authors disagree with a comment raised by the reviewers, they will have to provide a detailed rebuttal that will help to explain and justify their decision in a convincing and substantive way. On the other hand, if the peer reviewers consider that the manuscript does not yet meet the standards of scientific quality requested by the journal, a re-evaluation will be required. Re-evaluation consists of resubmitting comments in order to improve the quality of the manuscript. This stage should be repeated as many times as the editors consider necessary in order to improve the quality of the manuscript.

5. Acceptance of the manuscript

Fifth, when the new version of the manuscript (with changes) is received, the responsible editor and the other editors decide whether the manuscript should be accepted or not. This decision is notified to the authors.

After the acceptance of the manuscript, it goes to the style editor. When the corresponding edition is made, the article is returned to the author to indicate his agreement within the deadline. The author must precisely indicate if there are any changes that he or she does not accept, in order to make the necessary modifications. In addition, the author and the editors are responsible for all statements made in the published version of their article.

6. Open science options

Sixth, if the article is accepted, the journal Interacciones offers the possibility for authors to jointly publish their database, code (e.g., script or do), instruments and any material they consider relevant to replicate the study. In addition, the authors decide whether or not the communication between the authors, the reviewer, and the editor can be public and presented in the manuscript as supplementary material. 

On the other hand, the journal Interacciones gives reviewers the option to decide whether they wish their name to be noted once the article is published. This is done in order to make the review process transparent and to give credit to the reviewers. Likewise, the names of the editors responsible for the article will be published at the end of the article.

7. Editorial times

Finally, the editorial processes have an average time to provide conformity of the documents sent which is 7 days, the initial review time is 30 calendar days, the peer review has a time of 2 to 4 months and the style and layout review has an average time of 30 calendar days.

It should be noted that for the process of the initial review and peer review, the author will have 30 calendar days to raise the observations (if more time is required it should be noted in writing). Within the published article, the key dates in which each of these editorial processes were carried out (date of submission, review, acceptance, and online publication) will be indicated.

 

The policy of transparency in the review

Through this policy, we seek a more transparent review process. Therefore, we encourage authors to allow communications between reviewers and editors about their manuscripts to be added as supplementary material. In addition, we invite authors to share their databases, codes, and any other tools that allow for replication of their study as supplementary material. This should be specified in the Open Science Form.

Also, the editors responsible for the articles will place their names on the articles they review. Also, reviewers will be given the opportunity to place their names as a reviewer of the manuscript (only those who decide to do so).