About the Journal

About the Journal

Scope and Purpose

Albores, Revista de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales (ISSN 2954-3878), is a biannual open-access publication that does not charge any fees for publication at any stage of the editorial process. The journal focuses on various disciplines within the social sciences. Edited by Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales of Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro (UAQ). The journal employs a blind peer-review process, with external arbitration and plagiarism detection software. The final decision on the publication of manuscripts is made by the editorial board with the support of the scientific committee.

Albores publishes research articles, essays, book reviews, and photographic works. The first two categories undergo blind peer review, while the last two are evaluated internally by the editorial team.

When an author publishes in Albores, they must wait two years before publishing again, except in cases of co-authorship with someone who has not published in the journal during that period.

The objective of Albores is to disseminate social research in disciplines such as cultural studies, communication, sociology, politics, gender studies, local development, international relations, and public administration, among other social sciences. Additionally, it seeks to foster dialogue, exchange, and exposure of work at the local, national, and international levels within the Spanish-speaking academic community of social sciences.

The audience that Albores targets consists of researchers, academics, and students engaged in social research and action research, who wish to share their findings and contributions to knowledge.

The mission of Albores is to serve as a space for discussion, critique, and reflection on contemporary social issues. The journal aims to encourage researchers, academics, and students to conduct social research and action research, and to share their findings as contributions to knowledge, with an impact on solving social problems.

The vision of Albores is to establish itself as an accessible, reliable, and prestigious source for academic dissemination and scientific knowledge with social impact, based on standards, guidelines, and criteria that ensure the clarity, validity, and quality of the published material.

Rights Policy and Publication Conditions

Authors grant Albores the right of first publication of their works, which will be subject to the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This license allows third parties to share the work under the same terms, provided that proper attribution is given to the authors, indicating that the first publication occurred in this journal (including the publisher and URL), and that the work is not used for commercial purposes.

Authors retain their moral rights over the work, including ownership, recognition, and integrity. However, they transfer the economic rights to Albores and the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro for its first publication, open access distribution, reproduction, and dissemination. Upon acceptance of the manuscript for publication, authors will receive a rights transfer agreement form that must be signed. In this context, authors maintain control over the integrity of their works and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited when their works are reproduced or distributed. Furthermore, they are responsible for any claims related to intellectual property, indemnifying Albores and the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro from any liability.

Open Access Policy

The published material may be used to create new articles, as long as proper credit is given to the original author and the journal, in accordance with the Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), which can be accessed at the following link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Repository and Self-Archiving Policy

Albores invites, permits, and encourages authors to deposit their published works in institutional, national, and international repositories to contribute to the dissemination and preservation of academic knowledge. However, it is important that the manuscript is deposited only after its publication in the journal to ensure that the work is considered unpublished and to maintain anonymity during the blind peer review process.

Albores allows the self-archiving of all versions of the manuscript, including:

  • Submitted version
  • Accepted version
  • Published version

Manuscripts should be deposited under the same open access license used by the journal to ensure that the content remains freely and openly accessible to readers. Additionally, it is required that deposited works include complete metadata, such as:

  • Name of the journal
  • Issue number and volume of publication
  • Publication date
  • DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
  • URL of the published version on the Albores website.

Editors’ Ethics

The editor's decision to accept or reject a submission is based on its relevance, quality, clarity, and thematic appropriateness, supported by reviewers' feedback and plagiarism detection software (Turnitin). Through the blind peer review policy, Albores ensures the confidentiality of the identities of both authors and reviewers.

Albores is committed to transparency and to providing information to interested parties about the stages of the editorial process and the status of a submission. Manuscripts are evaluated without consideration of the author's ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, institutional affiliation, nationality, or any other personal characteristics.

Authors’ Ethics

All submitted work must be original, not previously published, and not currently under review or pending publication in any other medium, whether print or electronic. A text will also be considered previously published if it contains substantial portions of material that have been published before or if it is part of published conference proceedings.

Authors agree not to submit their manuscript to another journal for simultaneous evaluation. They also guarantee that the text does not contain any illegal material and that any content derived from other scientific documents (whether their own or others') is properly cited, does not infringe on copyright, and constitutes no more than 30% of the article's content. Plagiarism in all its forms is considered unethical behavior and will result in the removal of the manuscript and its exclusion from the publication process.

As a mandatory part of the process, an originality statement will be signed at the beginning, and a declaration of conflicts of interest and copyright will be signed at the end of the process, both of which will be sent via email. 

Reviewers’ Ethics

Manuscripts sent for review are confidential documents and should not be shown or discussed with others without Albores' authorization. If a reviewer cannot evaluate a manuscript, they should delete all copies of the document (printed and/or digital) that they possess.

Reviewers must notify the journal as soon as possible whether they can review a manuscript. They should report any unethical behavior or irregularities detected during the review process and support any rejection decision objectively, avoiding personal criticism. It is essential that they express their opinions clearly and provide valid arguments.

It is imperative that no unpublished material disclosed in a reviewed manuscript be used for personal benefit without the author's written consent. Privileged information obtained through the peer review process must remain confidential and not be used for personal gain. Reviewers must refrain from evaluating manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest.

Readers’ Ethics

Readers and users have free and unrestricted access to the content published in Albores, as soon as a new issue is published on the platform. They are permitted to cite, share, print, and distribute the material, as long as it is clearly acknowledged that the work was originally published in the journal. The material must not be used for commercial purposes.

Digital Preservation Policy

Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro (UAQ) is committed to ensuring the long-term access and preservation of digital objects hosted on its servers. To guarantee the continuous availability of these resources,  the Office of Periodical Publications, responsible for the Journals Portal (OJS Multirevistas), collaborates with the Office of Information, Technology and Innovation, in implementing the following measures:

  • Regular backups.
  • Constant monitoring of the technological environment to anticipate possible format migrations or updates of obsolete software.
  • Use of DOI (Digital Object Identifier) to ensure document traceability.

In addition, the PKP PN module, integrated into the UAQ Journals Portal, uses the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) program, which provides a decentralized and distributed digital preservation system. This program ensures the preservation of original and authentic content versions, allowing long-term access. Albores also complements these efforts by storing information on internal hard drives and in the drive associated with the journal's official email account.

Use of Interoperability Protocols

Albores manages editorial processes through the Open Journal System and provides an OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative – Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) interface, allowing other portals and information services to access the metadata of published content.

Specifications:

OAI-PMH Protocol Version 2.0
Dublin Core Metadata Element Set Version 1.1

Access address: https://revistas.uaq.mx/index.php/albores/oai