About the Journal

APPROACH AND SCOPE

AMÉRICA LATINA HOY (ALH) is a Social Sciences journal founded in 1991 specialized in area studies, published by the Institute of Ibero-America and Ediciones of the University of Salamanca. It is dedicated to the analysis of Latin America in its political, social, historical, cultural or economic aspects. We publish original and unpublished articles, prioritizing those that are the result of innovative research. We also have a wide section of book reviews. ALH is published three times a year and receives originals in Spanish, Portuguese and English, but the final versions of accepted articles will be published in Spanish, the language in which the journal is published.

The journal is divided into two main sections. One of articles, which may include a monographic section, and another in which bibliographic information is published. Exceptionally and with the prior decision of the Editorial Board, a section with research notes may be included. Articles should not exceed 8,000 words, research notes 6,000 words. In both cases, including abstracts, bibliography, tables, figures or any other support that accompanies the text. Bibliographic reviews must have a maximum of 750 words.

The articles section publishes the works presented to the journal within the framework of the general call for manuscript submission that ALH has permanently open. This section can complement the monographic section or cover all the articles published in the journal.

If the journal includes a monographic section, it will have a maximum of six and a minimum of four articles, which can be of two types: a) studies from a specific country, or b) a particular topic. All published articles must meet the general requirements for external peer review and acceptance. The monographic issue is in charge of one or two people who coordinate it, after the approval by the Editorial Board of the proposal they present. The coordinators will be in charge of conducting the call, reception and first selection of articles for the proposal to the ALH management. If the proposal is approved and, once the external peer review is completed, the minimum number of articles is not reached to complete the monographic number, the approved articles will be published individually.

In the bibliographic information section, works are published in which a critical analysis is carried out on a work in question. They must be books on Latin America or one of its countries, published in the course of the last two years prior to their publication in the journal.

The final decision on the acceptance and publication of the manuscripts sent to the journal corresponds to the Editorial Board.

The journal is indexed in large databases such as SCOPUS, ESCI (Emerging Sources Citation Index) of the Web of Science (WoS), DOAJ, HAPI, HLAS, IPSA, IBSS, PAIS, SA (Sociological Abstracts), WPSA (Worldwide Political Science Abstracts --- 9), RESH, CIRC, ÍnDICEs-CSIC, REDIB, MIAR, LATINDEX, EBSCO, Proquest, The Philosopher's Index, Dialnet, Ulrichweb, Fuente Académica Plus, Political Science Complete, CARHUS Plus + 2018, Redial & ceisal .

In addition, it has the quality seal of the FECYT (Quartile 1), and is positioned in:

Scimago Journal & Country Rank: SJR = 0.15, Q2 in History

Dialnet Metrics: C1 in Sociology

Qualis: A2 in Political Science, Economics, Education and Sociology

WED: ICDS = 10.0

H index of the Spanish journals of Political Science and Administration, according to Scholar Metrics, 2014-2018: 1st in the ranking.

PEER EVALUATION PROCESS

Only original manuscripts that are not under evaluation by another publication are accepted.

It is the author's task to anonymize the manuscript. The Editorial Board will check that this requirement is met in order to guarantee the anonymity of the entire blind peer review process.

Contributions sent to ALH for review and publication must only be submitted through the «eUSAL Revistas» (OJS) platform accessible from:

http://revistas.usal.es/cuatro/index.php/1130-2887/author

ALH will acknowledge by email the receipt of the originals sent.

At least two years must pass between two submissions from the same author.

When submitting a manuscript, all the authors must register. No modifications can be made later.

Upon receipt of the manuscript, the Journal's Management and / or members of the Editorial Board will proceed to pre-evaluate the manuscript in order to determine if the work in question complies with the focus and guidelines for journal authors.

In case of not complying with the approach or the ALH guidelines, the shipment will be returned so that the people who presented it can send it to another publication.

Positively pre-assessed articles will begin the blind peer review process. In this case, the Editorial Board will assign a minimum of two external reviewers to each manuscript, who must evaluate it using the journal's review form, which will be available online in your OJS reviewer profile.

During the entire review process, the Editorial Board may not have communication with the author.

At the end of the blind peer review, the ALH Directorate will communicate with the author via email to indicate the editorial decision on the manuscript. The assessment that a job can receive is:

Not publishable
New version

The comments of the external reviewers will be forwarded to be incorporated into the text. The new version of the manuscript will undergo a second round of blind peer review with the reviewers of the manuscript. This version must be accompanied by a letter indicating the changes made and responding to the comments of the reviewers if necessary.

The inclusion of the reviewers' comments is an essential requirement for the eventual publication of the manuscript; but if there are modifications suggested by the reviewers with which the author does not agree, he / she has the possibility of explaining and justifying it appropriately in the letter so that the Editorial Board can assess it.

Reviewers if necessary

The comments of the external reviewers will be sent for incorporation. The new version of the manuscript may be sent to the reviewers if they have requested it in their opinion. This version must be accompanied by a letter indicating the changes made and responding to the comments of the reviewers if necessary.

Publishable

The author will be informed that her manuscript will begin the editing process. The journal must be expressly authorized to publish the accepted manuscript

In the event that the opinions of the reviewers have contrary assessments, the Evaluation Committee may resort to a third external reviewer in order to determine whether the manuscript is publishable or not.

FREQUENCY OF PUBLICATION

América Latina Hoy publishes three volumes a year, in the months of April, August and December. Each issue consists of seven articles, plus bibliographic information.

Open access policy

The contents of ALH, are freely and immediately accessible, based on the principle that the free availability of scientific research results allows for a wider exchange of knowledge.

No Charges for Levied Processing Contributions or for Publication in Open Access Format (APC)

The Journal does not levy charges for processing of articles, nor for editing them or publishing them in open access format [article processing charges (APCs)]

Sections of the Journal

ALH, is articulated in several sections:

Articles (monographic or individual)
Research Notes
Bibliographic information

Commitment to Research Submitted by New Authors and Authors from Developing Countries

The Journal ALH supports the research carried out by authors or research teams from developing countries, especially from Latin-America, whose texts are presented in scientific language, preferably in Spanish or English.

We are also committed to new authors from all over the world who wish to send articles written in these languages.

Permission to Self-Archive and Digital Preservation

Authors are authorized to publish on the internet (for example, in institutional repositories or personal web sites) after publication (in no case prior to the review, layout or even in the phase of proof-reading); in the event of embargo, immediately after this has expired. It is also permitted in cases in which the costs of APCs (article processing charges) have been paid to the Editorial Board. These measures are designed to foster the reading and citation of contributions and to achieve greater and faster dissemination of the work published (see The Effect of Open Access)

The Journal can be accessed from the two main repositories of the University of Salamanca:

«eUSAL Revistas»
«Gredos»

This Journal uses the LOCKSS system to create an archive distributed among the participating libraries, allowing them to create permanent archives of the Journal with a view to preservation and restoration.

Dissemination in Databases

The Journal is committed to the provision of XML metadata or in other specific formats, immediately after publication in «eUSAL Revistas» and before three months have elapsed in order to foster diffusion in databases (Proquest, Ebsco, Elsevier, DOAJ, CrossRef/DOI).

Download Statistics

Following requests from the party(ies) interested, ALH will provide statistics about the downloads of paper submitted.

Golden Roads to Open Access

Salamanca University Press, will implement Golden Roads to Open Access as of 2015, and it will be possible to access complete texts in PDF format of the ALH journal meeting the provisions of Enactment 14/2011, 1st June, concerning Science, Technology and Innovation.

Thematics

Original research works of «Society & Social Sciences» are accepted.

IBIC: Sociedad y ciencias sociales (J); Latinoamérica (1KL)
BIC: Society & Social Sciences (J); Latin America (1KL)
BISAC: Political Science / General (POL000000); Regional / Latin America (RG130)

Language, Identification of Text Authorship

Language

Contributions will be published in Spanish or English .

Text Identification

The texts must always be identified with the following data:

Spanish: Título, resumen y palabras clave (separated by semicolons)
English: Title, Abstract and Key Words (separated by semicolons).

Authority Control

The authors must specify their affiliation:

Name: Lower case
Second name: Lower case
Surname(s): Lower case
E-mail address: institutional but neither G-mail (generic) nor similar, etc.
ORCID: previously registered in ORCID
The institution: University or Research Institute
Country
Full postal address.

Ethics and Accountability of the Journal

Upon submitting their originals to the Journal, authors must commit to accepting the usual procedures in the scientific community; only originals that have not been published previously and that are not undergoing review by other journals can be accepted. Thus, the originals sent to the Journal will cannot be sent to other journals while they are still undergoing review by our Journal.

Authors must respect international norms concerning authors’ rights to the text, graphics and other materials included in their contributions submitted to the Journal for publication. In turn, the editors, the editorial board and the reviewers of the journal will ensure the integrity of the research is maintained, which in the first instance is the responsibility of the authors, reminding them of the use of software «Turnitin Ephorus» https://moodle2.usal.es/mod/page/view.php?id=260582. Accordingly, authors are requested not to engage in plagiarism or self-plagiarism

Accountability of the Journal

The Editorial Board will not be responsible for the ideas and opinions expressed by authors in articles published in the Journal.
Once an article has been accepted for publication, it is assumed that all the authors have agreed to its diffusion, the right to reproduction in any format belonging to ALH.
Once the article has been published, the author will receive a separatum in PDF format from the Journal in which it has been published.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

This Journal adheres to the principle of transparency and good practices set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Authors publishing in ALH must agree to accept the following conditions:

The authors conserve the copyright © and cede the publication rights to Salamanca University Press, under the license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which allows third parties the possibility of distributing and exhibiting the article as long as they cite the authorship, it publication in the Journal ALH , the specific issue, and the pages on which the information appears. Derived works for commercial purposes not authorized by the editorial Board are not permitted.

Authors may engage in other independent and additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive diffusion of the version of their article published in ALH as long as:

It is clearly indicated that the work was published in the Journal ALH, together with the specific issues and the pages on which the information quoted appears.

The information of the Journal will be transmitted to Sherpa / Romeo, Dulcinea, etc.

DORA

Latin America Today supports the "Declaration of San Francisco on evaluation of research" - DORA.

Interoperability protocols

The OAI-PMH protocol is used with the route https://revistas.usal.es/cuatro/index.php/1130-2887/oai

Information on the specific contribution of each of the authors to the published articles

The order of signatures/affiliation in the article should reflect the effort and contribution.

Registration funder of articles published

The funding agency(ies) external to University must be indicated, indicating the reference(s) of the project(s) in the framework of which the research that has given rise to the publication of the article has been carried out. This information should be referenced by the authors in the acknowledgements in the article. The corresponding author in charge of submitting the article to «eUSAL Revistas» must include this metadata at the time of the submit in the corresponding section.

Good editorial practices in gender equality

Good practice in gender equality requires that:

Articles should include, as far as possible, the use of inclusive language;
Authors should include full names (not just first initials), at least in the metadata;
Being aware of the protection of personal data, the journal would appreciate information on the sex of the signatory(s) in the metadata, in order to enable the identification of possible gender differences;

Interoperability protocols

The OAI-PMH protocol is used with the route <https://revistas.usal.es/cuatro/index.php/1130-2887/oai/>