Information for reviewers

Information for Reviewers

RICT Revista de Investigación Científica, Tecnológica e Innovación recognizes the work of reviewers as a fundamental component in ensuring the scientific, technological, methodological, and editorial quality of published manuscripts. Peer review strengthens the originality, relevance, rigor, clarity, and academic contribution of submitted works.

The journal uses external peer review under the double-blind modality. Therefore, reviewers are expected to provide objective, confidential, well-founded, respectful evaluations aimed at improving the quality of the manuscript.

Role of Reviewers

Reviewers support the Editorial Committee through the critical evaluation of manuscripts submitted to the journal. Their assessment helps determine the thematic relevance, originality, methodological rigor, consistency of results, argumentative clarity, bibliographic currency, scientific or technological contribution, and suitability of the work for the editorial scope of RICT.

The review should contribute both to the editorial decision and to the improvement of the manuscript. Therefore, observations must be clear, precise, respectful, and academically justified.

General Evaluation Criteria

Depending on the type of manuscript, the review should consider the following criteria:

• Relevance of the manuscript to the journal’s focus and scope.
• Originality, novelty, and scientific, technological, educational, or applied contribution.
• Clarity of the title, abstract, objectives, research problem, and keywords.
• Methodological rigor and coherence of the design, instruments, procedures, data, or technological development.
• Consistency among objectives, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusions.
• Quality, sufficiency, and currency of the literature review.
• Appropriate presentation of tables, figures, equations, appendices, and supplementary materials.
• Proper use of citations, references, and verifiable academic sources.
• Expository clarity, text structure, academic writing, and formal quality.
• Compliance with ethical principles, privacy, informed consent, originality, and academic integrity.

Confidentiality of the Review Process

Every manuscript assigned for review must be considered a confidential document. Reviewers must not share, reproduce, distribute, publicly discuss, or use the content of the manuscript for personal, academic, or professional purposes before its formal publication.

The identity of authors and reviewers must be protected throughout the double-blind review process. If the reviewer identifies information that compromises the anonymity of the manuscript, they must notify the editorial team.

Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers should accept an evaluation only when they have sufficient subject-matter expertise and when no conflict of interest exists that could affect the objectivity of the review.

A conflict of interest includes any personal, academic, institutional, professional, financial, or recent collaborative relationship that may influence the evaluation of the manuscript or compromise the impartiality of the process.

If a reviewer identifies a potential conflict of interest before or during the review, they must immediately inform the Editorial Committee so that reassignment of the manuscript can be considered.

Use of Artificial Intelligence During Review

Reviewers must not upload unpublished manuscripts, supplementary files, data, images, tables, results, or confidential information to external artificial intelligence tools when doing so may compromise the confidentiality, privacy, originality, or integrity of the editorial process.

The use of artificial intelligence tools to support auxiliary tasks such as correction, organization of ideas, or formal review may only be carried out when no confidential manuscript content is exposed and when such use is compatible with the journal’s editorial policies.

Responsibility for the review rests exclusively with the reviewer. No artificial intelligence tool may replace the reviewer’s academic, methodological, ethical, or technical judgment.

Recommendations for Preparing the Review Report

The review report should be clear, respectful, well-argued, and useful to both the Editorial Committee and the authors. Reviewers are encouraged to organize their evaluation by identifying strengths, weaknesses, major observations, minor observations, and suggestions for improvement.

• Avoid offensive, ambiguous, or academically unsupported comments.
• Distinguish between formal issues and substantive problems.
• Clearly identify the sections that require revision.
• Indicate whether the issue affects the validity, clarity, originality, or coherence of the manuscript.
• Suggest specific improvements whenever possible.
• Do not request citation of the reviewer’s own work unnecessarily or unjustifiably.
• Avoid attempting to identify the authors during the double-blind review process.

Possible Editorial Recommendations

After reviewing the manuscript, the reviewer may issue an editorial recommendation according to the options available in the OJS platform:

• Accept: the manuscript meets the required academic, methodological, and editorial criteria.
• Accept with minor revisions: the manuscript requires formal adjustments or specific clarifications that do not alter its structure or main results.
• Request major revisions: the manuscript requires substantive changes in methodology, analysis, discussion, structure, theoretical foundation, or presentation of results.
• Resubmit for review: the manuscript may continue in the process but requires a new round of evaluation after corrections.
• Reject: the manuscript does not meet the minimum criteria for quality, originality, relevance, methodological rigor, or academic integrity.

Review Deadlines

Reviewers must complete the evaluation within the deadline established by the Editorial Committee. If they are unable to meet the assigned deadline, they should notify the editorial team in a timely manner so that the manuscript can be reassigned without affecting the editorial process.

Compliance with review deadlines contributes to the transparency, efficiency, and quality of the editorial workflow, as well as to respect for the work of the authors.

Academic Integrity and Malpractice

If, during the evaluation, the reviewer identifies possible plagiarism, self-plagiarism, data fabrication, result manipulation, nonexistent references, redundant publication, undisclosed use of artificial intelligence, undeclared conflicts of interest, or any other irregularity, they must report it confidentially to the Editorial Committee.

The editorial team will analyze each case in accordance with RICT policies, academic integrity principles, and editorial best practices recommended by COPE.

Ethical Confirmation of the Review

By accepting a review invitation, the reviewer confirms that they have the subject-matter expertise required to evaluate the manuscript, that they do not identify any conflict of interest that could compromise their impartiality, and that they will maintain the confidentiality of the editorial process.

The participation of reviewers strengthens the quality, credibility, transparency, and academic consolidation of RICT Revista de Investigación Científica, Tecnológica e Innovación.