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Likewise, if deemed necessary, other figures may be included (graphs, diagrams, concept maps, drawings, photographs, etc.); these figures are essential if pictures are included. Authors will make sure of the quality of the figures included (jpg or png format), minimum 300-ppp resolution, and these will be zipped so that their incorporation does not result in the submission of a file exceeding 5 Mb.
Barring exceptions, manuscripts being submitted will not exceed 45,000 characters (without spaces) for the following sections: “Foundations and lines of work”, “Science: past and present”, “Science Education today”, “Science education and sustainability”, “Science teacher training”, and “Experiences, resources and other works", and 25,000 characters for the “Fun science” section. Nevertheless, longer articles may be accepted as long as this is justified on the grounds of a better contextualization of the educational framework in which the study is performed: teaching-learning sequences, teaching units, rubrics and research tools, etc. However, the most recommended option for including such information is for authors to include such complementary materials in the form of files deposited in public repositories through unique and persistent identifiers (doi or handle), explicitly linking them in the text of the article through the corresponding link.
In the same way, authors are recommended to deposit the research data underlying the publications, in open access institutional or thematic repositories federated in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
For citations and the list of references, APA 7th Edition will be applied.
Additionally, starting from January 1, 2025, all manuscripts received should include the following requirements:
1. An explicit statement of personalized contributions of each author to the manuscript preparation, using the CRediT system (Contributor Roles Taxonomy, https://credit.niso.org/). Only authors who have made a significant contribution will be accepted. The journal may request clarifications if necessary.
2. A section for acknowledgments and funding recognition, including project codes. This should not only appear in the manuscript text, as before, but also in the article metadata (under the "Supporting Agencies" section).
3. Explicit statement regarding the use of artificial intelligence tools. If applicable, authors must specify the tools employed and describe their usage. To this end, authors are required to provide the requested details both in the submission checklist and in the AI usage declaration available in the manuscript template.
Manuscript submission
Authors must sign in to the journal in order to submit a manuscript or, if previously registered, they can simply log in and start the five-step process. Please include all the requested data, clearly specifying your ORCID.
Once logged in with their passwords, authors will find in their submission box an option for a “New submission”. Please carefully follow the instructions and incorporate all the information requested in the metadata (title, abstract, keywords, references, etc.), specifying names and surnames and all the information requested (affiliation, ORCID, etc.) for all participating authors.
Before submitting the manuscript, authors are kindly requested to ensure that it fully complies with all the journal's guidelines, as any submission that does not may be returned directly to the authors. If the authors are asked to correct the submitted documentation, they must address the deficiencies within a maximum period of 72 hours.
Review process
Every article will undergo a two-stage review. In the first stage, the members of the Editorial Board of the journal will select those works in line with the profile of the journal that meet the required criteria and minimum quality standards. The criteria that must be met which will be assessed in this first review will be the following:
1.- The submitted manuscript ties in with the thematic line of the journal.
2.- The manuscript contains new elements with regards to previously published works, meets minimum quality standards, and does not exceed the maximum number of characters specified for the section to which it is directed.
3.- The authors have provided at least the following metadata: first name, last name, affiliation, email address, and ORCID code for all authors, as well as the abstract and keywords of the article, and, where applicable, an acknowledgment of the funding institution.
4.- The manuscript has been prepared using the template and follows the required layout guidelines.
5.- The manuscript passes the plagiarism and anti-plagiarism test that will be performed with a tool especially designed for this purpose. Those works with texts with a high level of correspondence with articles already on the Internet will be rejected straightaway.
Only those submissions succeeding in this preliminary review will proceed to the second stage, the peer review process.
In this second stage, the works will undergo a peer review process, performed by two anonymous reviewers (double-blind), who may or may not belong to the advisory board of the journal. Both reviewers will each issue a report stating the advisability of publishing or not publishing the manuscript, explaining the motives for this decision. In the event of disagreement, a third party will be convened. Finally, the editor will draw up a report summarizing the views of the reviewers and concluding with one of the following decisions:
a) “Accept submission”, meaning the manuscript would be included in the edition line, therefore being published as submitted.
b) “Revisions required”, meaning the article would be publishable with minor changes, to which the authors must respond within two months.
c) “Resubmit for review”, meaning the authors must introduce substantial changes to the manuscript so that it can be reassessed, by the same reviewers in the first stage. In this event, the authors must submit the new version within three months.
d) “Decline submission”.
Within approximately three or four months, the authors will be informed of the results of the review process and of the decision of acceptance or rejection of the manuscript and, where applicable, the corresponding proposal of changes. However, it is important to bear in mind that the process may take longer when more than two reviewers are needed or when the assessment requires more than just one review process. Nevertheless, the journal will always try to minimise delays. In fact, the average time spent from the receipt of the manuscripts to their acceptance is usually less than six months, and all accepted articles are published almost immediately upon acceptance as a "preprint" article.
Authors must submit the revised version within three months. Failing this, the manuscript will be labelled as declined, and so any version submitted afterwards will necessarily start again at the initial stage of the review process.
The new version must be submitted with a written document wherein the authors expound the changes introduced to the new version, compared to the previous one, responding to the remarks and suggestions of the reviewers. If any of the recommendations were not accepted, these decisions must be suitably justified.
Pre-print and revisions
Once the article has been accepted, authors will receive the pre-print version in PDF format well in advance, and will have a week to suggest changes or amendments to the submitted text. These changes must be limited to minor errors, slight style changes, and improvement of the quality of charts and figures.
Once corrections have been completed, the articles will be published as preprints, which is why we consider the publication frequency of this journal as similar to that of continuous publishing journals. The average time for the article assessment process, from submission to publication, is estimated to be between four and six months.
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