Editorial Policies

Charges for processing and publication of articles

There is no charge for processing or publication of articles in Revista Arquitectura +.

Open access policy

This journal places a priority on the sharing of information through open access, which facilitates transmission of information and debates among the community of scholars, professionals and scientists specializing in architecture and urban planning, both nationally and internationally.

Revista Arquitectura + utilizes the OAI-PMH protocol for metadata sharing: http://www.revistas.uni.edu.ni/index.php/arquitectura/oai

All published material is shared under the Non-Commercial Creative Commons License 4.0, which permits the copy and redistribution of material in any medium or format with explicit credit given to the journal, author, and work, and is utilized without charge and without changes to the contents of the utilized material.

Archival policy

Revista Arquitectura + adopts a digital preservation policy based on the LOCKSS initiative.

  • Authors can self-store or deposit manuscripts once published.
  • Authors can store pre-print and post-print versions in Word and PDF.
  • DOI is used for each article and number for archival.

Authorship policy

Revista Arquitectura + considers that an autor of a published manuscript will have made a significant intellectual contribution to it. Following the indications of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), authors must comply with the following criteria:

  • Substantial contributions to the concept or design of the manuscript, data acquisition, analysis, or interpretation.
  • Editing or critical review of the most relevant intellectual content of the manuscript.
  • Final approval of the version to be published.
  • Assume responsibility for all aspects of the work, guaranteeing the research and resolution of all issues related to its precision and integrity.

Those who do not comply with the above criteria can be only listed in acknowledgments. To avoid the use of fictional or usurped identifies, it is recommended that all the authors agree among themselves on the respective roles and order of listing of co-authors.

About the contributions by author:
To specify the content or contribution of each author of the work, it is recommended to utilize the criteria established in CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy):

Order of contribution:
To determine the order of authors in an article, the authors can utilize any of the three most commonly used practices:

  • First last author emphasis approach (FLAE): The first and last authors are given equal importance. Authors between them are listed in order of decreasing importance.
  • Sequence determines credit approach (SDC): The order indicates the rank of importance.
  • Equal contribution norm (EC): Alphabetical order is utilized among authors of similar contribution to avoid disputes in collaboration groups.

Changes in authorship
Revista Arquitectura + follows the indications of the COPE Flow diagrams, in which any addition, elimination, or reordering of names must be accomplished before the manuscript has been accepted and only with the approval of the journal editor.

Conflicts of interest
Revista Arquitectura + follows the indications of the COPE Flow diagrams in cases of conflict of interest: (a) Conflict of interest not revealed in a submitted manuscript ,and (b) Conflict of interest not revealed in a published artícle.

In the case of conflict of interest declared by the authors regarding financial or personal relationships with any public or private entity that could influence (intentionally) the results of the work, this should be communicated at the moment of submission of the manuscript.

Ethics policy

Revista Arquitectura + aspires to be a leading editorial publisher, following the indications of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).  We are committed to promote the best practices of evaluation of scholarly research.

Editorial Team

The Editorial Team at Revista Arquitectura + is composed of: Director, Editor in Chief, Editorial Assistant, Editorial Council, Dirección – UNI, and the Scientific Council consisting of internationally recognized experts.

The Editor in Chief provides complete names and affiliations of the Editorial Council, including contact information and the journal website. In the Contact section, email, telephone and mail address of the Programa de Arquitectura for purposes of consultation.

Ethics policy

The most commonly violated ethical policies in publications are: plagiarism, authorship, and redundant publication:

Plagiarism: All manuscripts submitted for publication are reviewed using text similarity software (Plagiarism Detector). The proposals which contain substantial copied text or content.

Inappropriate authorship: Participation in authorship and the order of authorship are the responsibility of the authors; the journal does not rule on these aspects. The authors are requested to maintain the authorship and order of authors as in the original submission for editorial evaluation.  

Redundant publication (duplicate or fragmented): The journal will not accept redundant publications, and it adheres to the COPE guidelines for consideration on this policy.   

Equal evaluation criteria

La Revista Arquitectura + evaluates all articles with equal criterio, independently of gender, institutional affiliation, nationality, and other aspects that could result in bias.

Time alloted for evaluation

Referees are committed to complete manuscript reviews within the established intervals. If the referee considers him/herself not capable or competent to review an assigned manuscript, the Editorial Team of Revista Arquitectura + shall be notified immediately.

Double-blind review process

The evaluation system used by Revista Arquitectura + is external, confidential, and double-blind. All the articles and essays received are submitted to a peer-review process;

Reviewers are chosen by the Editorial Committee according to their professional profile, scholarly merits and experience.

Conflict of interest

Authors must formally declare the absence of conflict of interest that could affect the contents of the manuscript. For that purpose, they must accept the included section in the verification list for the preparation of Sent manuscripts.

If the declaration of conflict of interest is not made, the manuscript will be rejected. If a conflict of interest is discovered following publication of a manuscript, Revista Arquitectura + will follow applicable COPE guidelines.

Grievances and appeals

Disputes, grievances, and complaints by readers, authors, and reviewers can be directed to the Editor in Chief at the email address of Revista Arquitectura + (revistarq.mas@uni.edu.ni).

The members of the Editorial Committee will respond promptly, once the presented arguments are analyzed, discussed, and verified.

When the reason for the complaint or appeal implies a breach of the ethical good practices established by Revista Arquitectura + and COPE in its Code of Conduct, the Flow Diagrams of COPE will be followed in each case.

Post-publication revisions

The articles and other types of documents that have been published in this journal will be maintained current, exact, and unaltered to the extent possible. Nonetheless, exceptional circumstances can emerge in which an article will need to be corrected, retracted, or in some cases, eliminated. Such actions will be conducted only after careful consideration on the part of the Editorial Team of Revista Arquitectura +, to guarantee appropriate steps, following the norms recommended in COPE.

In such cases as these, the regime of norms and control mechanisms for scholarly communications has several principal rectification procedures in accordance with the type, seriousness, and the consequences of the detected error. These can be resolved by an announcement of errata or correction, a retraction, or in rare occasions, the elimination an article. The objective of this mechanism is that the changes be transparent and that they provide a guarantee to the integrity of the scholarly registry.  

Errata

An announcement of errata will be published when required to correct an error or omission committed by the journal after the publication of an article or essay whose error may affect the reputation of the authors or of the journal, but where the scholarly work remains unaffected.

All errors will be accompanied by a separate announcement, which provides clear details of the error and the changes which have been made to the document.

In these circumstances:

  • The article will be corrected.
  • A note will be added at the end of the article referring to the announcement of the errata.
  • An announcement of errata or correction will be published separately, in conjunction with the corrected version.
  • The document of errata or correction will be placed in the table of contents and with an individual DOI.

Corrections

A notice of correction will be made when an error or omission committed by the authors has occurred, which may affect the contents of the publication or the reputation of the authors or of the journal, but does not affect the scholarly integrity of the work.

All errors will be accompanied by a separate announcement, which will provide clear details regarding the error and the changes made within the document. In these circumstances:  

  • The article will be corrected.
  • In the article, a note will be placed at the end which refers to the correction.
  • An announcement of errata or correction will be made separately which will be linked to the corrected version of the article.
  • The announcement of errata or correction will be paged in the Table of Contents and will be provided an individual DOI.

Retractions

An announcement of retraction will be published when an important error invalidates the conclusions of an article, or when misconduct has occurred in the research or in the publication of the article. The authors can request a retraction of an article if their motives comply with the criteria given below.

A retraction will be considered:

  • If there is clear evidence that the findings of the article are not trustworthy, whether from misconduct (for example, fabrication of data or manipulation of images) or from error (for example, calculational or experimental flaw).
  • If the findings have been published elsewhere without adequate cross-reference, permission, or justification (for example, cases or redundant publication or duplicate publication).
  • If the publication constitutes plagiarism.
  • If there is existence of fraudulent authorship.
  • If there is proof of impropriety in peer review.
  • If there exist indications of ethical flaws in the research or infractions of professional ethical codes.

When the decision has been made to retract an article:

  • A watermark will be added to the published article stating, “article retracted”.
  • Before the title of the article, “Article retracted” will be placed [title of article]
  • A declaration of retraction of the article will be published separately, titled #Retraction: [title of article]”, that will be linked to the retracted article. This note will be signed by the Editor in Chief of the journal.
  • The declaration of retraction will be paged in the Table of Contents and will be assigned an individual DOI.

Elimination of articles

An article will be eliminated in exceptional, grave circumstances that can not be resolved through a correction or a retraction.

This will occur only:

  • When the article is clearly defamatory, or it infringes on certain legal rights.
  • When the article is the subject of a judicial order.
  • When the article could provoke risks in public health and safety.  
  • In the case of an eliminated article, metadata (authorship and title) will be conserved, and the text will be substituted with a document that indicates the article has been removed for legal or other reasons.

Acknowledgments policy

An acknowledgment section is permitted within articles, in which the author can express gratitude to those that have supported or made substantial contributions to the research to, among others, colleagues, institutions, organizations, financiers, technical collaborators. These contributions do not merit authorship but nonetheless deserve mention.

The authors must state specifically the type de contribution made by each mentioned person or institution. It is important that consent for the mention is obtained from each person and institution mentioned.

Social network publicity policy

With the objective to reach of the articles and essays to a wider audience, Revista Arquitectura + will utilize the Official Social Network sites of the Facultad de Arquitectura in Facebook e Instagram. The following measures will be taken:

Responsible use

  • Use of social networks for responsible publicity of articles and essays, respecting established ethical norms.
  • Avoidance of defamation, harassment, discrimination, or other inappropriate uses which could harm the reputations of the journal or the community.
  • Contents which could infringe upon the rights of authorship will not be published.

Identification

  • Upon publication of content in the social networks, Revista Arquitectura + will be identified as the source of the information.
  • Information will be included regarding downloading and indexing of the mentioned articles.
  • Labels and other types of references related to the journal will be included.

Content approval

  • All content published in the Social Networks will be reviewed and approved by the Editorial Team.
  • Information to be published in Social Networks will be related to: Titles of essays and articles, authors, affiliations, countries, and abstracts.

Promotion of participation and dialogue

  • Comments in Social Media will receive opportune and constructive responses.
  • Interchange of ideas and information and a constructive dialogue will be promoted.

Section policy

The following types of material are publishable in Revista Arquitectura +:

Literature review

A literature review is understood as an integrated synthesis of the thoughts of several scholarly authors and researchers about a specific topic. A good review should contain the concepts and research results around the most dynamic and timely aspects of a topic, with respective literature references.

How to perform a literature review:

  • Gather all the possible information into categories for a synthesis: the principal ideas of each author, research results, and a complete bibliography.
  • Classify the categories into subtopics. For instance, authors that express complementary concepts or those which present contrary arguments on a topic.
  • In a review, as little direct quotation should be used. Paraphrased concepts with strict adherence to the concepts expressed are preferred.
  • A review should start with a topic definition. The definitions given by several authors, well-edited, should categorize similar topic or concept definitions and contrast them with contrary thoughts.  
  • Develop the concept or theme in the framework of a “dialogue” between different cited authors.
  • A conclusion paragraph will be supported by the concepts from the cited authors.

A literature review should take into account that more concepts and interwoven ideas are better, with the greatest number of cited authors and manuscripts in the minimum possible space. Emphasis should be placed on SYNTHESIS.

Literature reviews should be between one and five pages in length.

Essays

An essay is a manuscript in prose, generally brief, that expounds deeply, maturely, and sensitively, a personal interpretation on a given topic, whether philosophical, scientific, historical, literary, etc. The topic is not so much defined as the author’s reflections toward it; the concept could be either a hypothesis or an idea upon which the essay expounds. The essay is a product of meditation and reflection, with the essential component being its sense of exploration, audacity and originality, the effects of the adventure of thought.

The parts of an essay:

  • Introduction or posit: This is one of the fundamental parts of an essay, to be able to capture, trap, or enchant the reader. This is accomplished through the expression of an opinion, a question, a hypothesis, or a metaphoric thought.
  • Development: This has to do with the process of argument development on the principal, secondary and peripheral ideas, which accompanied by citations, proofs and records, support the principal thesis of the essay.
  • Conclusion: If the essay begins with a presentation of a hypothesis, the arguments should be developed to prove or disprove it.  
  • Essay length: the length is relative to several factors, for instance, an essay presenting logical arguments may require more space than an exposition, criticism, or poetic presentation. Some authors suggest between three and ten pages. Regardless of the length, there should be a defined approach, with its respective development of aspects in favor or against, and a corresponding synthesis, thus the essay should be a complete document.

The essay should run between one and five pages in length.

Articles

The objective of an article is to express clearly and precisely, within a defined length, research results on a determine area of knowledge. Articles derived from theses can be accepted also, when the thesis has been awarded a score of 90 or greater. Generally, it presents the background of a study, its justification, the methodology employed, the obtained results, the implications of the work, and suggestions for related further research. It is written in third person and in past tense.

Length of the articles should be from 10 to 20 pages, but they can be longer if necessary.

Perfil

This is a document whose objective is to express clearly, precisely, and objectively, the trajectory, work and perspective of an architect, to achieve a greater appreciation for the architect’s work or thought in the field of architecture. By the same regard, a profile facilitates greater knowledge within the tendencies of architecture, in relation to the advances and the techniques, promoting innovation and creativity.

General manuscript format

Manuscripts submitted should contain the following characteristics:

  • Font: Times New Roman
  • Letter size: Title (16), Subtitle (14), Text body (12) Text images and tables (10)
  • Word count: Title (15 max.), Abstract (200 min.), Keywords (5, in alphabetical order)

For other details required in each type of manuscript, review the document in Manuscript Formats, within which the formats required are presented.

Uso de figuras y tablas

Data must be presented in figures and tables.

Figures - maps, graphs, drawings, photos, etc.- must be presented in at least 300 points per inch (dpi) or with a resolution between 300 x 300 pixels and 900 x 700 pixels, and they must be easily viewed. Figures must be sent with title and source, in files annexed to the document text, with the objective to facilitate typesetting.

Tables can contain the number of rows and columns necessary, insomuch as its text is easily read (10 to 12 letter size is recommended. Each table must be numbered, titled, and with source of information stated, contextualized within the article and following a logical order of presentation.

Literature citations

This journal requests the utilization of citations (quotes, paraphrase, secondary citations, etc.) as part of the quality of the presented materials.

Scientific articles resulting from research should count on at least seven different sources of information (books, journals, websites, interviews), organized by the type of source and organized.

The majority of the cited material (at least 60 %) should be scientific articles. At least 50 % of the articles should be current, of no more than 15 years age from the time of presentation of the manuscript.

There is no maximum limit to the number of citations in literature review articles, but at least ten should be used, among articles and books.