Peer Review

Pre-Check

Response Time: 2-3 business days

In the Pre-Check phase is verified:

1. If the manuscript is within the journal’s scope.
2. If the information about authorship and institutional affiliation is complete and reliable.
3. If the document meets the author guidelines.
4. If the bibliographical section has an appropriate size, is updated, contains well-known sources, and includes DOI links.
5. If the manuscript apparently has not been previously published in another language.
6. If the manuscript shows evidence of plagiarism.
7. If the manuscript meets general guidelines for writing, spelling, and punctuation.
8. If the submission includes the required documentation.

Manuscripts with evidence of plagiarism, false information from authors or any ethical problem will be immediately rejected.

Peer Review Process

Deadline:

• 5 to 12 weeks for the peer review process, depending on the peer reviewer’s availability.

The peer review process is defined as Double-blind, which implies that neither the authors nor the arbitrators will know the identity of each other. The selection criteria for peer reviewers are the following:

1. A minimum academic level of master degree.
2. Scientific papers related to the manuscript, published in the past 2 years.
3. Institutional affiliation is different from the author’s institution/organization.
4. No conflict of interests with the publication or any of its members (authors, editors, scientific board or administrative staff)

Selected reviewers will receive an invitation from the Editor in Chief. This invitation may be accepted or declined; if accepted, the reviewer will have access to the full text and an online form to support the review process. This process will be carried out through the OJS (Open Journal Systems) platform.

IMPORTANT: When accepting the Editor's invitation, reviewers declare the inexistence of any Conflict of Interest and accepts to follow the ethical, confidentiality, and plagiarism guidelines defined by the journal and published in the section Publication Ethics.

The review form includes a checklist that covers aspects related to the title, the content and structure of the Abstract, keywords, introduction, methodology, argumentation, obtained results, discussion, and conclusions.

An overview for the review form is available at Review Form

Reviewers will send their review report and a general recommendation to the editor, taking into account one of the following results:

Accept Submission: The article fulfills all of the requirements and is ready for publication.

Revisions Required: The article contains a small number of easily correctable errors (Grammar, missing references, or minor content clarification).

Resubmit for Review: The article has significant major revisions in content and grammar that require a second round of review.

Decline Submission: The article is not suitable for publication. Its content does not offer any value to the journal readers.

Editor Decision

The editor will issue a decision based on at least 2 review reports.  If there is any controversy or contradictory recommendations, the editor in chief (with the possible collaboration of the editorial board) will make the final decision.

The Editor in Chief may Accept, Decline the submission, or request additional revisions to the authors (Revisions Required, Resubmit for Review).

In case the decision of the editor conflicts with the recommendations of the reviewers, this decision must be justified to the authors. The publication decision may be delegated to associate editors or guest editors (if applicable). If an editor has a conflict of interest, is excluded from the decision.

An email with the Editor's Decision will be sent to the author. This will include a summary of the comments and suggestions from the review reports.

Online Tracking: The editor's decision will be immediately reflected in the status of the manuscript on the submission platform. In case of receiving a decision of "Decline Submission", the article will be sent to the Archives section. 

Author Revisions

Deadlines:

1 week in case of a decision of "Publish As Is"

2 weeks in case of a decision of "Revisions Required"

3 to 4 weeks in case of "Resubmit for Review"

Once the editor's decision has been issued, the author will review the comments and suggestions from peer reviewers within the deadline and will send the manuscript with modifications and any required documentation. 

Publish As Is:

This decision will be issued when:

- The reviewers' recommendations were positive and the manuscript is accepted for publication without comments from the reviewers.
- The manuscript had minor corrections that were already corrected or successfully passed through a second evaluation round.
The editor will ask the authors to review the manuscript before starting the correction process and will send the Publishing Agreement Document (Spanish), which must be completed and signed by all authors.

The authors will not be allowed to make substantial modifications to the content of the accepted manuscript and they should be limited to:

1. Verify author's information (Names, emails, institutional affiliations, ORCID, short biographies) and the Funding section. The majority of this information was censured in the reviewed version of the manuscript (Double-blind process) so the author should make sure to include this information in the final accepted version.
2. Ensure and improve the quality of graphics and images. Ensure that tables, graphics, and figures have its description and source.
3. Send the Publishing Agreement Document, duly completed and signed by every author.
4. Adjust the citation style to the IEEE standard.
   1. Complete the references list with the suggestions of the reviewers or editors.
   2. Complete and check the data for each source in the reference section (Authors, abbreviated titles, page numbers and include DOI links at the end of each reference).

The final version is analyzed using an anti-plagiarism tool and it is verified that the documentation is complete. The editor will send a Certificate of Acceptance to the authors via email.

Revisions Required

In this case, the manuscript requires a minimum amount of modifications that are easily correctable. Authors must send a document with their responses the peer reviewers' suggestions within a stipulated deadline. In case the authors consider not complying with any of the recommendations, they must duly justify it.

Once the modifications have been received, the editor in chief may issue a decision of Acceptation or request clarifications or modifications, if necessary.

Resubmit for Review

In this case, the manuscript requires considerable modifications that merit that the document has to be reviewed again. Authors must send a document with their responses the peer reviewers' suggestions within a stipulated deadline.  In case the authors consider not complying with any of the recommendations, they must duly justify it.

Once the modifications have been received, the manuscript will be sent to the second round of review, with the same terms and conditions of the first round. The editor may request the collaboration of the reviewers in the first round or select new ones. 

Once the review reports of the second round have been received, the editor may issue a decision of Acceptation if reviewers have no more suggestions, "Revisions Required" in case minor changes are required or "Decline Submission" in the case the article does not meet the criteria of the reviewers and the editor in chief. A manuscript may not receive a "Resubmit for Review" decision more than once.

Correction, Production, and Publication 

Deadlines:

7 business days for correction and production

2 business days to author revisions

1 business day for online publication of the final version

The accepted articles were sent to the production and correction process. 

The author will have a period of 2 business days to respond and resolve the requests of the electronic mail.

A preliminary version of the paper will be sent to the author for review and the author will have 2 business days to end the modifications. The preliminary version will include a DOI identifier and the assigned page numbers. 

Corrections y retractions

Deadlines: In case a complaint is received, 1 week to apply the protocol 

Communications: Ethical Protocols COPE, Editor Decision

CESTA is an Open Access publication, which allows anyone to access and verify full-text papers without any limitation or fees. If you as a reader have any questions about an article, your questions, comments, and suggestions will be answered through the email address: cesta@cuc.edu.co. You can also send a letter to the Editor at the same email.

If you detect scientific errors or possible ethical problems, please contact us, to initiate the respective investigation and take immediate action. If an error or ethical issues are confirmed, the corresponding correction or retraction process will be initiated.

Corrections of major errors after online publication will be published separately in an Errata document at the close of each issue.

In case of small errors that do not influence the understanding of the study will be corrected on the online versions in the first 15 days of publication.

Retractions are published when authors, readers or editors find important errors in the published article, whether they are unintentional errors or the result of scientific misconduct.

The editors will study each case and will contact authors and reviewers before making the final decision of the retraction. For this purpose, the recommendations protocols defined by COPE will be used to identify misconducts or malpractices.

Rejection Rates

Percentage of articles rejected per year.

2019: N/A

2020: