About our Editorial Process

The journal Sophia is aimed at the entire academic community and particularly at teachers and student researchers, whose work and products are related to the appropriation and generation of knowledge in the field of education.

Focus and Scope

The journal Sophia of La Gran Colombia University, Armenia headquarters, is a publication oriented to the dissemination of unpublished articles resulting from research developed by the internal and external academic community, in the area of education. The purpose of the publication is to serve as an organ for the dissemination of unpublished articles among the academic community, nationally and internationally, based on the editorial, scientific, visibility and permanence criteria established by Publindex and the international bibliographic bases and indexes.

Peer Review Process

Articles submitted to the journal Sophia of La Gran Colombia University, Armenia headquarters, are subject to evaluation by external, national and international academic peers, experts in the subject matter, under the double-blind modality. The article to be evaluated will be sent to two peers of equal or higher academic title.

Stages of the Review Process

Stage 1: The article is sent to the peer reviewers, who will have a maximum of one month to send their review of the work. Stage 2: Once the peer reviewers have sent their concept, suggestions are forwarded to the author, who will have approximately one (1) month from the date of submission. Stage 3: If the evaluations are positive, the Editorial Committee decides to publish the article.  On the contrary, if they are negative, the article is rejected.  In case of a positive and a negative opinion, the article is sent to a third peer reviewer and according to his/her evaluation, an editorial decision will be made.

Open Access Policy

The journal publishes its contents under the Open Access modality, which is a way of disseminating academic production, in which free access must be guaranteed by the journal without restrictions at the time of its online publication. This movement advocates the removal of barriers that limit access to the results of research as a universal good to which everyone is entitled, allowing any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or use for any legal purpose, free of charge without any financial, legal or technical barrier outside the Internet access in order to provide authors and their work a new scenario, where to disseminate it and give it greater visibility and impact. The only limitation in terms of reproduction, distribution and copyright will be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.

In addition to Open Access, our contents are published under the Creative Commons 4.0 license (CC-BY-SA) which allows: others to remix, retouch, and create from a work, even for commercial purposes, as long as credit is given to the corresponding author and they license their new creations under the same conditions.

Editorial Process

 All articles will be subjected to plagiarism detection by means of the Plagiarism Detector software. If plagiarism is detected in whole or in part, the text will not enter the editorial process and the author will be notified.

Excluding criteria for the acceptance of articles:

The subject does not correspond to the thematic field of the journal.

The article does not use the American Psychological Association (APA) type of reference and citation.

The article is not sent in the required format (Microsoft Word format).

The articles susceptible of publication will be reviewed by academic peers. Once they issue their evaluation, suggestions will be sent to the author, who must adjust the manuscript within the time established by the Editorial Committee, or if it is the case, argue for not making the adjustments.

Finally, once the changes have been contrasted by the editorial body, the article is approved for publication and the number and respective volume will be notified.

 

Intellectual Property Rights

The author(s), by submitting his/her article to the journal Sophia, certifies that his/her manuscript has not been, nor will be submitted or published in any other scientific journal. By submitting the article, he/she also accepts that he/she will transfer the rights to the journal for its publication, which may publish it in printed or electronic version.

For this purpose, the format for transfer of rights is available, which must be sent signed by all the authors and in PDF format.

 Copyrights

The content of the articles published in Sophia is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily express the thoughts of the Editorial and/or Scientific Committee of the journal. Manuscripts may be reproduced by readers in whole or in part, citing the source recorded in the bibliographic headings of each article.

Non-profit Publication

Within the editorial policies established for the journal Sophia, no costs are established at any stage of the editorial process. The submission of articles, editing, publication and subsequent downloading of the contents is free of charge since the journal is a non-profit academic publication.

Our Rules for Authors

The journal Sophia is governed by the classification of articles stipulated by Colciencias and international databases for indexed publications, which establishes the following classes: research and innovation article, short article, case report, topic review, letters to the editor, reflection article not derived from research, literature review, erratum and editorial. The journal will prioritize as part of its indexing policies the following types of articles:

Research and innovation article

Original and unpublished production resulting from research processes that can be divided into the following categories:

 Scientific and technological research

A document that presents, in detail, the original results of completed research projects. The structure generally used contains three important sections: introduction, development and conclusions.

 Reflection

A document that presents the results of a completed research from an analytical, interpretative or critical perspective of the author, on a specific topic, using original sources.

 Review

A document that arises from a completed research where the results of published or unpublished research on a field of science or technology are analyzed, systematized and integrated, in order to account for the progress and development trends in the area. It is characterized by presenting a careful bibliographic review with a minimum of 50 references.

 Editorial Criteria

Articles eligible for publication should take into account the following formal presentation criteria:

Title: It should be short, specific, clear and pertinent (maximum 15 words).

Note: With a footnote at the end of the title, the name of the project and group from which it arose, as well as the funding institution, should be listed.

Title in English: The purpose is to give visibility to the work and allow its incorporation in international bibliographic databases and indexes. It should be the translation of the title in Spanish.

Author(s): It can be individual or group. In the latter case, authors should appear according to the importance of their contribution. The last academic degree, current institutional affiliation, research group to which he/she belongs, e-mail, institutional correspondence address and country should be included in a footnote.

Abstract: A brief presentation of the subject of the article (maximum 250 words), describing the main idea, objectives, methodology, results and conclusions. This section should be analytical and not descriptive.  It should be written in the third person and in the present tense. In addition, the information should not be repeated in the introduction.

 Keywords: Words that describe the content of the document, written in strict alphabetical order. These descriptors should facilitate the thematic analysis and the identification of the article in international indexes, according to the descriptors established by the Unesco Thesaurus or disciplinary thesauri (they should be a maximum of 5 words).

Abstract: It is the English translation of the abstract.

Key words: Key words in English.

It is suggested to send the article with the following components:

Introduction: It should be brief and precise, in such a way that it provides the reader with sufficient background to identify the purpose of the text. The length of the introduction should not exceed 1/4 of the complete article. It should clarify the following aspects in a continuous text without subtitles:

Nature and scope of the problem: what is the importance of what is being studied and investigated? what is the basic relationship with other studies and research on the subject? what is the contribution of the research? what limits were necessary to impose on the research work?

Objectives of the study: indicate concretely, what important information was expected to be obtained with the research?

Procedures used: In general terms, determine the place where the research was carried out and the time spent.

Development of the topic. In this section the author presents the results, exposes solid arguments contrasting with the theoretical references consulted, in such a way that it shows coherence with the methodological proposal. Other functions of this section are to present the author's significant contributions to the disciplinary field, to propose relations, comparisons, similarities, between the results, the theoretical references and other investigations.

Conclusions. They are mandatory and must be clear, expressing the final result of the research, scope and application of knowledge. They should be elaborated in affirmative language.

Bibliographical references: These must be constructed and included within the text in APA format, placing in parentheses and separated by commas, the author's last name, year of publication and page and appear completely and in strict alphabetical order at the end of the document. There must be at least 15 references for the document to be valid.

Footnotes: Clarification written by the author in the lower margin of the page to expand or complete an idea expressed in the text. (Format used for the reference of the article and authors).

Graphic material: Figures and images must be duly cited. In the case of images, they should have a resolution of at least 150 dpi (dots per inch), in TIFF format, and should be sent in a separate file.

If the author considers that the purpose of the article requires it, the document will be received with the IMRAD structure (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusions).

Length of the article: Maximum 20 pages including bibliographical references and annexes.

Writing Guidelines

Use of capital letters: The use of initial or sustained capital letters should be restricted to those strictly necessary, according to orthographic criteria (as the beginning of writing, paragraphs, proper names and initials, but never acronyms) and also to reduce, as far as possible, the typographical alterations caused by their indiscriminate use.

Acronyms, abbreviations and units of measurement: Acronyms and abbreviations should not be used, except for those of institutions or programs whose names appear repeatedly in the text; if this situation arises, the full name should be mentioned the first time it is cited, followed by the corresponding acronym. The units of measurement should be those recommended by the International System of Units, and it should be remembered that these do not have a plural or period. In any case, the exclusive invention of acronyms to identify very particular elements of the subject of the article should be avoided.

Bibliographic citations: They should appear between quotation marks, in letter 11 and inside the text if they do not exceed forty words, otherwise, they should be outside the text, with left indentation of 1.27 and in letter 10; as shown in the following examples taken from the article "La Mirada cultural" by Rigoberto Gil Montoya (Contexto, 2012, own translation).

Quotation within the text (less than forty words)

If there is no word without memory, there can be no memory without a gaze. It allows its reading, its verification and later its writing. The act of writing, Bolléme maintains, becomes tension: "Because writing consists in measuring oneself, in confronting an established language in order to take a place with one's own words" (Bolléme, 1990: 206) [own translation].

Quotation outside the text (more than forty words)

Lewis understands his work as an anthropologist as an account and study (quite close to journalism) of what he calls the anthropology of poverty. Hence, he has lived with the families under study and has preserved the tone of their language and respected their worldviews:

Poverty becomes the dynamic factor that affects participation in the sphere of national culture by creating a subculture of its own. One can speak of the culture of poverty as it has its own distinctive social and psychological modalities and consequences for its members. It seems to me that the culture of poverty crosses regional, rural, urban, and even national boundaries. (Lewis, 1972: 16-17) [own translation].

Bibliographical references: List of sources used for the construction of the article and placed at the end of the article in strict alphabetical order. They must be fully cited within the article (referenced). Examples:

 Books:

Bolléme, G. (1990). El pueblo por escrito. Significados culturales de lo  “popular”. México: Grijalbo.

Digital Books:

Ferrater, J. (2002). Diccionario de Filosofía.  In: http://www.ferratermora.org/ency_filosofo.html

Journal article:

Vega, L. (2014). Ciudad, envejecimiento-vejez y educación: elementos para develar un conflicto entre la ciudad concebida y la ciudad practicada. Contexto 10 (1), 51 – 64.

Electronic journal article:

Patiño, E. (2014). Construcciones sociales sobre género y participación. Inciso (16), 78-90. In: http://revistas.ugca.edu.co/index.php/inciso/article/view/267/473

Legal documents:

Law 1450 of 2011 (June 16), by which the National Development Plan 2010 - 2014 is issued. Official Gazette No. 48102.

 

Footnotes: Clarification written by the author in the lower margin of the page to expand or complete an idea expressed in the text.