EVALUATION PROCESS BY PEERS THROUGH THE DOUBLE BLIND SYSTEM

1. FIRST PHASE. RECEPTION.

The evaluation process begins with the receipt of the article sent to the Chief Editor or the Editorial Committee. Once the work has entered the evaluation process, the author will be informed immediately that it has been correctly received. Submissions by the authors must be made via the OJS platform or to the journal email: revistaopción@gmail.com Once this initial phase is completed, the process will continue according to the following three phases, identified as Second Phase, Third Phase and Fourth Phase.

2. SECOND PHASE. INTERNAL EVALUATION OR PRE-EVALUATION. This phase is carried out over a period of two (2) weeks. It consists of verifying the citation system used, and the relevance together with its concatenation with the references presented in the work. Emphasis is placed on the thematic relevance of the citations, or their correlation if they are not directly relevant. It is compared with the different sections of the magazine, both the general sections and the specific sections. This phase also contemplates the verification of coincidences of the text presented with respect to comparable documents on the web, through specialized software. If the result of this phase is to reject the work because it contains matches greater than 20%, the author(s) will be notified. If this result is between 15% and 20%, adjustments to the text will be requested through paraphrasing without implying modification of the text. Once the adjusted file is received, as the case may be, the blind peer review process will continue.

3. THIRD PHASE: EXTERNAL REVIEW AND DECISION. This stage is carried out through evaluation by peers external to the University of Zulia, who will be selected among national or international researchers. It is carried out within a period of four (4) weeks, through the evaluators under the double-blind modality, which will first be in a number of two. In the event of disagreement between the previous evaluators, a third evaluator pair will be selected, with whose opinion it is hoped to solve the publication controversy that has arisen. The opinions received will be in the following terms: (a) Approve publication without modifications. (b) Reformulate text with slight modifications, or (c) Reformulate text with substantial modifications. And (d) Do not approve publication.

3.1. This double-blind peer review process takes into account scientific criteria, in accordance with the opinions of the selected referees, who will consider whether the work has the following aspects: a) Scientific rigor. b) Theoretical and methodological foundations. c) Evidence of knowledge with sufficient mastery of the topic of the work; d) Timeliness and relevance of the sources consulted, including handling of the classics, if necessary; e) Contributions of the work to the state of the art and finally; f) quality in writing and good use of language. These aspects will be collected according to the evaluation form that is delivered for said purposes. 

3.2. For the evaluation process by blind peers, a form is provided for this purpose to the selected referees, and in it the following parameters are considered: a) Formal Aspects, and; b) Aspects of content. The formal aspects are evaluated with the following scale: Relevant or Not Relevant, with a box for the Observations section. In this box, the evaluator records the reasons for his/her criteria of relevance or non-relevance. The formal aspects that will be evaluated are the following: Extension of the work according to the rules of style; Title (that summarizes the work); Summary and Abstract (no more than 100 words), Keywords in a maximum of 5 (related to work); Structure of the work (whose internal organization is suggested: Introduction, Theoretical Foundations, Methodology, Analysis and discussion of results, Bibliographical References), and finally the Citations and References (pertinent to the work or related to it, under the APA 7th Edition system).The Content Aspects are evaluated with the following criteria: a) Importance of the topic for the editorial lines; b) Originality of the discussion; c) Results of the investigation; d) Relevance of the theoretical foundation; e) Adequacy of the design and methodology; f) Internal organization of work; g) Solidity of the interpretations and conclusions, and h) Practical applicability and reflective depth. The decision criteria go through three categories: Excellent, Good and Poor. The form also has an observations box in this regard, where the evaluator arbitrator records his criteria, and the discussion he has with the author of the work. 

3.3. From the phase described above, the process enters into a communication process between the Editor or the Editorial Committee with the author of the work, through which the opinion received by the evaluators is made known. Said communication process is carried out by email, in which the final result of the evaluation received is indicated. If the article is approved with corrections, this must be adjusted according to the requirements explained in the results, within a period of one week from the day it is notified. The author or authors must send the corresponding adjustments in a new word file with an explanatory letter of the modifications made; in this case, the Editor will have the power to decide whether or not said modified manuscript is definitively accepted. In case of controversies between the opinion of modification and the criteria of the author(s), the author(s) must raise it in the justifying letter, proceeding the Editor in the same way as the previous one, or send it again to the referees for its new consideration, always under the double-blind evaluation criteria. Once the corrected version of the evaluated article has been received, it will receive the final decision by the Journal about its acceptance and publication, or its refusal of acceptance and non-publication. 

3.4. Once the acceptance of the article is received, the author(s) must send to the Journal in independent files: (a) Report with the inclusion of the suggestions received by the evaluators, if applicable; (b) the final version of the article; (c) Letter of authorization to the Journal in which the reproduction of the article is authorized, with the signature of all the authors; and finally, (d) all the identifying data of the authors for the storage and authorization of treatment of their data of ID. These data include the ORCID code, affiliation institutions, and email. The final version of the article must include a biodata of the author or authors, which will be located at the end of the work, after the Bibliographic References. 

3.5. The Journal, represented by the Chief Editor or by the Editorial Committee, is not obliged to accept and publish the articles submitted for evaluation. Of all the works, a certificate of acceptance or rejection will be issued, as the case may be, but the acceptance of the works for publication and dissemination by the Journal implies that the author(s) cede the rights of reproduction and dissemination by the Magazine or by any other organ of the University of Zulia. In the latter case, the University, in its capacity as publisher of Opción Magazine, must notify the author or authors and they must accept said disclosure and reproduction. 

4. FOURTH PHASE: PUBLICATION. This is the last phase of the process, and it begins with the submission of the final version of the article approved for publication. Once all the aforementioned details have been received and determined, the article goes to the final editing process, which begins with the layout and layout. This phase is carried out in two (2) weeks, which has the support of the Library Services of the University of Zulia (SERBILUZ), following the following procedure: (a) submission of papers accepted for publication by of the Editor to start the publication process, (b) SERBILUZ sends the Editor the first draft in pdf for style correction, according to the language of the work (Spanish, English, Portuguese, French or Italian), which will be reviewed and sent to the authors for review, (c) receipt by the Editor of the papers resent by the authors with corrections, if applicable, and sending of the material with corrections for adjustments and corrections to SERBILUZ; (d) layout and layout of the papers in accordance with the standardized standards of the journal, to which, once added, the DOI code is assigned by request to the service provider, and finally (f) publication of the article in the issue corresponding correlative of the Journal both in print and electronic format on the official platform of the University of Zulia: https://www.produccioncientificaluz.org/index.php/opcion, which is part of REVICYHLUZ: RevicyhLUZ-Portal of Scientific Journals and Humanities of the University of Zulia (produccioncientificaluz.org)