About the Journal

Policies

Focus and scope

Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales has as a mission to share among the national and international scientific community results of research on Sustainable Forest Management, Environmental Services, Forest Plantations and Agroforestry and Game Systems, Forest Biotechnology, Wood and Non-wood Products, Forest Ecology, Climate Change in Forest Ecosystems, Forest Biometry and Mensuration in order to contribute to the country’s sustainable development. It is a publication edited by the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agrícolas y Pecuarias.

 

The journal focuses its efforts on being a specialized scientific publication with leadership and national and international recognition owing to its high capacity to communicate results of research on forest and related sciences, and also because of its inclusion in the main indexes of journal impact factor, which comes from the high quality of its contents, management of editorial process and the prestige of its editorial committee; also, it meets parameters of relevance, accessibility and visibility.

Section policies

Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales publishes original and unpublished research results in the format of articles, review articles and research notes. These structure as follows:

Scientific article. The text will have a maximum of 20 pages, including tables and figures. The article incorporates unpublished information analyzed by means of models and statistic tests; it comprises the sections: Abstract, Key words, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusion, Contribution by author, Declaration of Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements and References.

Review article. Commented dissertation on any topic of forestry interest or related that may or may not incorporate solid data. Its structure allows including a discursive text substantiated with references and conclusive aspects. It follows the characteristics mentioned for Scientific Articles regarding extension, Abstract, Key words, Introduction, Development and discussion of the topic, Conclusions and References.

Research note. The text follows the format of Scientific Articles, however it refers to proximal or partial results on a concluded or ongoing research. Its extension is 10 pages maximum, including tables and figures. The sections must be: Abstract, Key words, Development of the topic and References.

Peer review proces

Editorial review

The authors who submit an article for possible publication in Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales must send the documents —in full and in their final version— indicated in requirements for manuscript submission. Once the editorial team verifies the submission meets all the requirements, the text will be sent for editorial review, which consists of the following stages:

1. Accredit a review under the tool approved by the Editorial Committee for plagiarism detection, only after this will it be possible to go on to the next stages of editorial review.
2. It will be verified that the text correlates with the journal’s focus and scope. Works which do not explicitly regard the regional dimension as a relevant component will not be considered.
3. It will be checked that the text meets each and every format indication stated in requirements for manuscript submission and delivery of manuscripts, as well as those in guidelines for authors.
4. It will be revised that the reported bibliography is relevant and updated and that it is duly presented standardized according to the norm exemplified in guidelines for authors.
5. In accordance with the editorial policy guidelines, approved by the Editorial Committee, priority will be given to texts whose bibliography is delivered using reference management software and with active hyperlinks to the respective DOIs, where appropriate.

Once the submitted article accredits editorial review, the corresponding author will be formally notified about the registration and beginning of the process of academic review.

Academic review

The articles must favorably accredit the process of academic review, which works under the modality of double-blind peer review, where the identity of both the authors and reviewers will remain anonymous:

1. The articles that accredit editorial review will be sent to academic experts in the same discipline and topic as the submitted text. The reviewers will be selected from the panel of referees —which comprises specialist of national and international institutions— they will produce comments about the relevance and academic quality of the submitted text and will decide on the feasibility of publishing the paper in question.
2. The reviewers will be in charge of revising and analyzing the academic, theoretical and methodologic relevance of each and every article assigned to them. They will be responsible for verifying the explicit presence of the theoretical-methodological section, consistency between academic output and the findings’ relevance, as well as the up-to-dateness and appropriateness of the bibliography resorted to.
3. All the texts will be sent to two experts —ascribed to institutions other than the authors’— who will comment on the text.
4. In case of discrepancy between the rulings, the assistance of a third reviewer will be sought in order to resolve the case. Finally, on the basis of their recommendations, the decision of the editorial board of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales will be:
5. Recommend its publication without modifications.
6. Recommend its publication with minor changes and which do not make a second peer review necessary.
7. Condition its publication on making major changes, which makes a new peer review necessary, if referees thus indicate. This process can be repeated up to three rounds, if upon reaching this point the document is not recommended for publication yet, the article will be rejected without option to resend it
8. Not recommend its publication.
9. For a text to be approved for publication it is indispensable that at least two of the three reviewers’ rulings are positive.
10. The editorial board will ensure, in all cases, that the rulings delivered to the authors contain sound arguments to support the editorial decision.
11. The results of the academic review process will be unappealable in all cases.
12. If observations are received, the author(s) will have a 20-calendar-day deadline to send the new version of the work to the editor. Failing to meet this deadline will mean the manuscript has to begin a review process anew.
13. The time for the document to be sent to review will be in function of the number of articles in waiting list. The referees, once receiving the article, will have four weeks to carry out the review and deliver their ruling.
14. The accepted documents will start the edition process (proofreading, metadata marking up, layout and typesetting) to later be included in the corresponding fascicle, according to the decision of the editorial coordination.
15. Once the editorial process concludes (proofreading, metadata marking up, layout and typesetting), the preliminary version of the text will be sent to the authors for their final revision and approval. The authors will have three calendar days to give their consent, if no comments are received within this period, the journal’s editorial coordination will assume the authors have tacitly approved.

Collection policy

Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales charges the authors for submitting and processing articles for publication: in order to receive them a fee of 900 MXN (Nine hundred  Mexican Pesos) has to be paid, while for publication there is a fee of 600 MXN (Six hundred Mexican Pesos) per each published page (translation and edition expenses).

Payments have to be made as a bank deposit to INIFAP/ CENID-COMEF, to account number 0657617851, interbank code (CLABE Interbancaria) 072 180 00657617851 2, Grupo Financiero BANORTE, Bank branch No. 2037. In case of international subscriptions, the corresponding SWIFT key is: MENOMXMT. A copy of the bank receipt has to be sent by email. If the payment is by check, make it payable to INIFAP/CENID-COMEF.

Open access policy

The authors who publish in Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales accept the following conditions:

In accordance with copyright laws, Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales recognizes and respects the authors’ moral right and ownership of property rights which will be transferred to the journal for dissemination in open access.

All the texts published by Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales –with no exception– are distributed under a Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0), which allows third parties to use the publication as long as the work’s authorship and its first publication in this journal are mentioned

The author(s) can enter into independent and additional contractual agreements for the nonexclusive distribution of the version of the article published in Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales (for example, include it into an institutional repository or publish it in a book) as long as it is clearly and explicitly indicated that the work was published for the first time in Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales.

For all the above, the authors shall send the form of Letter-transfer of Property Rights for the first publication duly filled in and signed by the author(s). This form must be sent as a PDF file to: ciencia.forestal2@inifap.gob.mx

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International license.

Filing

Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales uses LOCKSS system to create a storing system distributed among participant libraries and allows the creation of permanent files in the journal for preservation and restoration purposes.

Code of ethics

Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales adheres to the code of ethics for the actions and performance of personnel involved in this journal’s publication process (editors, editorial committee, authors and reviewers) established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and available at publicationethics.org

Plagiarism detection

In Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Forestales specialized software for plagiarism detection is used. The texts submitted will undergo a screening test before being sent to editorial and academic review; they will be rejected if the percentage of similarity with other published text or available on the internet is over 50%.

If possible plagiarism is reported or detected in a published text, the procedure to follow is the one COPE summarizes in the following flowchart

Guidelines and best editorial practices

These guidelines refer to the policies of best editorial practices by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), available at: http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines.

Functions of the Advisory Council

• Promote among the national and international academic community the submission of works to be published in the Journal.
• Suggest academic guidelines for the journal’s editorial policy.
• Promote the dissemination of the journal in national and international academic media.
• Participate as reviewers of the works submitted for publication or to recommend other experts as reviewers.

Functions and responsibilities of the editorial committee

• Promote among the national and international academic community the submission of articles to be published in the Journal.
• Support in the selection of reviewers for the works received, as well as deliberate on the best options for possible reviewers where required.
• Decide on the relevance of publishing the submitted materials on the basis of the experts’ reviews.
• Approve the content proposed for each number of the journal.
• Revise and assess each number published.
• Collaborate with the corresponding instances to maintain the periodicity established for the journal.

Functions and responsibilities of the Editor-in-chief

• Coordinate actions toward the fulfillment of the journal’s goals.
• Plan and coordinate the journal’s editorial production process.
• Monitor the technical processing of the materials approved by the Editorial Committee, once the established academic requirements are accredited.
• Ensure high academic level in the published content.
• Receive the works submitted for possible publication and verify the compliance with the Journal’s topic, originality of the contribution as well as the Journal’s format.
• Monitor compliance with the reviewers’ recommendations.
• Inform the authors about the stage of the editorial process in which the submitted text is.
• Monitor proofreading and the journal’s technical quality.
• Monitor metadata marking up, layout and typesetting.

Collaborate to maintain the journal’s publication periodicity and to begin the distribution of each journal’s number the first month of the corresponding period.

Functions and responsibilities of the Associate Editor

• Assign reviewers for the submitted works and follow the academic review process.
• Inform the editorial committee on the review process of all the materials received, ensuring confidentiality.

Roles and responsibilities of the Section Editor

• Assist the Editor-in-Chief in the organization and control of the editorial process, in a timely manner to guarantee editorial quality.
• Review the evaluations of the referees, to identify their similarities, differences, inconsistencies and shortcomings. To do this, they must check with the original manuscript. If necessary, they can request the opinion of an additional reviewer.
• Check that the corrections suggested by the reviewers are applied by the authors in the corrected version and, where appropriate, suggest modifications that contribute to improving the technical quality of the manuscript.

Responsibilities of the authors

• Follow the journal’s publication requirements regarding originality, not being published, relevance.
• Present their results with honesty and without lying, falsifying or manipulating data.
• Take collective responsibility, if this is the case, for the work submitted and published.
• Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest must be stated in the article.
• Cite the work of others accurately and only refer publications used in the text.
• The authors must inform the editors if the results have been previously published or if any report or multiple analyses of the same dataset are under consideration for publication somewhere else. The authors must provide copies of the publications or related works submitted to other journals.
• The authors must meet the deadlines established by the Journal to address the reviewers’ observations.

Responsibilities of the reviewers

• Accept the review of texts that fall into their specialty area so that an adequate assessment is carried out.
• Declare from the start of the process if there is any conflict of interest.^[1] If the identity of any author is suspected, the journal shall be notified if this piece of information poses any conflict of interest.
• Decline any review immediately if it is not possible for them to deliver it within the established deadline.
• Produce their assessment on the basis of originality, contribution of the article to the topic, methodology resorted to, relevance and up-to-dateness of the reported bibliography, style, coherence and quality in the structure and drafting.
• Immediately inform the journal if over the review process, they discover they do not have the necessary experience to assess all the text’s aspects.
• Their criticisms will be objective, specific and constructive.
• Clearly define the approval, rejection or conditioning of the text.
• Deliver their assessment within the established deadline.
• Respect confidentiality during and after the review process.
• Must not use content of an under-review or reviewed text.
• Will not involve third parties in the assigned review.
• Inform the journal if similarity with other text they have reviewed is noticed or if they identify any sort of plagiarism.
• Transferring the responsibility of undertaking a review to any other person, assistant or collaborator is not allowed whatsoever.

^[1] Conflicts of interest appear when authors, reviewers or editors have nonmanifest interests, which may influence their judgment on the material submitted for publication. These can be personal, academic, economic, political or religious. If such interests are relevant, they have to be communicated to the editors.