ISSN 0123-7799
printed version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and policy
• Form and preparation of manuscripts
• Sending of manuscripts

Initial Review Process
When a manuscript is received, a unique reference number is assigned to it, and the contact author is notified via e-mail by the Editorial Board with details of the review process. Initially, the Editorial Board reviews aspects such as relevance, clarity, structure and compatibility with the journal goals, and language aspects (such as style and punctuation). Only those manuscripts which pass this initial review process will be forwarded to referees for further scientific and technical review. A manuscript may be rejected without peer review if, in the opinion of the Editorial Board, the manuscript fails in the following aspects: originality and novelty; b structural deficiencies; poor redaction quality; or the format is not strictly in accordance with the journal guidelines. It is important to highlight that this Editorial Board has adopted the editorial freedom concept, which means that it has complete authority in terms of selecting the journal content.

Peer Review Process
All the manuscripts accepted by the Editorial Board begin the peer review process where every paper is reviewed by two experts in the corresponding area of knowledge. It is important to note that this stage is carried out by a double-blind reviewing process, ensuring confidentiality and anonymity between authors and reviewers. The reviewers are chosen based on academic prestige in the subject area by looking at the Colombian scientific curriculum “CvLac”. The decision of the reviewers can be one of the following: accepted without modifications, accepted with modifications, or rejected. A contribution may require several revisions before the final decision for publication is made. In any case, the final decision is made by the Editorial Board based on the reviewers’ recommendations.

Publication
If a paper fulfills the technical-scientific requirements for being published according to the reviewers’ evaluation, the contact author will be informed about the structural and methodological recommendations made by the reviewers and the additional suggestions made by the Editorial Board. Authors must pay attention to all the recommendations and suggestions in order to adjust and improve the manuscript. Once corrected, the manuscript is checked again to verify all the required changes. In addition, the author must submit a response letter clearly outlining the changes and corrections made to the manuscript according to the reviewer’s recommendations, or justifying why these changes were not made. If the contact author does not present the corrected version, this will mean that the authors withdraw the manuscript from the process of editing and publishing. After the final corrected version of the paper and the response letter are received, the manuscript goes into the final editing process. During the final editing process, the author could be asked to make additional changes that must be immediately attended to. If there are no more corrections, the contact author will be informed of the volume and date on which the paper will be published.

Format: The required format is single column, 1.5 spacing between lines, with a space between paragraphs and between titles and text. The paper size must be "letter" (21.59 cm x 27.94 cm) vertical orientation. The margins should be: 3 cm to the left and 2.5 cm to the right, up, and down. All text (including headings of tables, figure captions, and references) should be in Arial font size 12 with the exception of the title that should be in font size 14. Tables and figures, derived from analysis equipment, control instruments, or similar, that do not meet the standards of clarity, sharpness, and simplicity should not be incorporated. Do not insert figures and tables with unnecessary backgrounds and edges or lines or color figures. Do not indent any section of the article. Paragraphs are distinguished and separated by a space. Do not use any type of symbols or bullet points.

Length: Papers should not exceed 20 pages, including abstract, introduction, topic development (equations, tables, and figures), results and discussion, conclusions, and references.

Title: The title should represent clearly, accurately, and concisely the content. Avoid abbreviations or acronyms where possible. The title must be centered between the margins, written in capital letters, bold, font size 14.

Authors: The first name, middle initial and last name must be included for each author. Consecutive elements in the list of authors should be written in italics and separated by commas. Superscript numbers inserted at the end of the name must be used for each author to indicate his/her affiliation.

Affiliations: The institution to which the work should be attributed must be specified as well as the author’s email. When the authors are affiliated to universities, the name of the academic unit, school, or department must be followed by the name of the university. For authors affiliated to companies they should state the name of the department, division, or section, followed by the name of the company. Affiliations are listed preceded by the number which was inserted as superscript at the end of the name of each author.

Potential reviewers: The name, affiliation, and email of three potential reviewers of the manuscript must be included. They should not be affiliated to ITM or to the author’s university or company.

Abstract in Spanish: The abstract should be one paragraph long and completely self-contained using simple and clear terminology (must be between 200 and 250 words long). The abstract must: (i) determine the goal and scope of the study; (ii) describe the methodology; (iii) summarize the most important results; and (iv) establish the main conclusions. An abstract should not contain results or conclusions that are not included in the paper. Abbreviations and literature citations should not be used. This paragraph must be preceded by the Spanish word “Resumen” written in bold.

Keywords in Spanish: Five keywords must be included and preceded by the Spanish words “Palabras clave”, written in bold and italic. Consecutive elements in the list of keywords should be separated by commas. Each keyword can be maximum four words long, including prepositions.

Abstract: It must be a correct and accurate English translation of the text that appears in the abstract in Spanish. Authors who do not speak English should be assisted by a native English speaker. The same editing style must be used as specified for the abstract in Spanish.

Keywords: It must be a correct and accurate English translation of the list of keywords in Spanish. That is, these keywords should correspond to well-known English expressions in the international scientific community in order to give greater visibility to the paper. The same editing style must be used as specified for the keywords in Spanish.

Main text: As mentioned above, scientific and technological research papers must be made up of five sections: 1. Introduction, 2. Methodology, 3. Results and discussion, 4. Conclusions, 5. References. If applicable, an additional section for Acknowledgements may be included. A title for each of these sections must be included and written in bold, capital letters, justified to the left margin, not underlined or numbered. Subtitles are also justified to the left margin, written with small letters, not bold or in italics, except the first letter of the titles and the first letter of proper names, which must be written with a capital. A space before each heading is required. The use of page footnotes is not permitted; all text should be included in the paragraphs. All foreign names and words should be written as used in its language. The names of countries, institutions, and individuals must follow the official script. When the sentence ends with a closing parenthesis, dash, or quotes, the point is placed immediately after such signs. An ellipsis is only three points. The word that follows a quotation or exclamation mark does not need to begin with a capital, as this depends on the context. A sentence ending in a quotation or exclamation mark does not need a full stop.

Equations: Mathematical expressions should be centered with respect to the main text and must be numbered consecutively with Arabic numbers within parentheses [i.e., (1), (2), (3), etc.]. All equations must be cited in the text and written in the equation editor of MS Office Word®. These expressions must not be embedded as images in the text. The equations should be referred to as “(1)”, not "Eq (1)" or "equation (1)", except at the beginning of a sentence. The notation and units must be well-defined in each of the expressions. The International System of Units is recommended. For each number included in the main text, equations, tables, and figures, the comma should be used as a decimal point.

Tables: Do not embed tables as an image. Tables should be prepared directly in MS Office Word® or MS Office Excel®. Tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numbers in the order in which they are referred to, and a brief descriptive caption above each table must be included. The source of the table must be added to the end of the caption, even if it was developed by the authors. All tables must be cited in the text as "Table X", where X is the consecutive number. The columns of the table must have headings. The table rows must be separated by horizontal lines, while the columns should not be separated by vertical lines. Tables must be inserted in the main text and placed after they are cited. Tables should not duplicate results presented elsewhere in the manuscript (figures).

Figures: All the figures (i.e., plans, diagrams, depictions, photographs, etc.) should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numbers in the order in which they are referred to, and a brief descriptive caption below the figure must be included. The source of the figure must be added to the end of the caption, even if it was developed by the authors. All figures must be cited in the text as "Fig. X", where X is the consecutive number. Figures must be inserted in the main text and placed after they are cited. Figures must be in black and white or grayscale. In the case of figures with multiple lines, the lines should show good contrast. Photos and figures obtained by scanner must be clear. Lines with different data point symbols may also be used to distinguish curves. For bar charts, use different shading patterns if needed. Ensure that the text, within the figure, and axis labels are readable at the final publication size (after reduction).

Conclusions: The paper must include a section describing the main conclusions of the study, derived from analysis of the results. This section should be clear and precise and its length should be consistent with the results of the study.

Acknowledgments: If the authors wish, an Acknowledgments section can be included. Preferably brief, no more than 4 lines long, and should include the essential contributions for the development of the paper. It will be located just after the Conclusions section.

References: The IEEE citation style is used. References should be numbered and appear in the order they appear in the text. When referring to a reference in the text of the document, put the number of the reference in square brackets, inside the punctuation [1]. In sentences, refer simply to the reference number, as in [2]. Do not use “Ref. [2]” or “reference [2]” except at the beginning of a sentence. Multiple references are each numbered with separate brackets, e.g., “…as demonstrated in [3], [4] and according to [5]-[7]. You can specify the author(s), but you should always give the reference number, e,g., “…as shown by Brown [8]; Brown and Jones [9], [10]; and Wood et al. [11]-[13]”. Use et al. when three or more names are given.
The reference list must appear at the end of the manuscript, after Conclusions or Acknowledgements. The list of references should be arranged in the order of citation in text, not in alphabetical order. Each source cited in the paper must appear in the reference list; likewise, each entry in the reference list must be cited in the text. Do not use the word “Bibliography” as a synonym of “References.” The number of citations and references must be consistent with the work, its length and type. At least 50 references for review papers are required. Unpublished results and personal communications are not included in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. They must adhere to the following format:

Journals: Author(s), “Name of paper,” Abbrev. Title of Journal, vol. X, no. X, pp. XXX-XXX, Abbrev. Month, year. Examples:

[1] R. E. Kalman, “New results in linear filtering and prediction theory,” J. Basic Eng., vol. 83, pp. 95-108, Mar. 1961.

[2] P. Bernardi, R. Cicchetti and O. Testa, “An accurate UTD model for the analysis of complex indoor radio environments in microwave WLAN systems,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 52, no. 6, pp. 1509–1520, Jun. 2004.

Books: Author(s), Title of Book, Xth ed. City of Publisher, Country if not USA: Abbrev. of Publisher, year. Examples:

[3] B. Klaus and P. Horn, Robot vision. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986.

[4] J. P. Stiles, Handbook of non-conventional energy, 2nd ed. London, United Kingdom: Brooks Publishers, 1990.

Chapter in a book: Author(s), “Title of chapter in the book,” in Title of Book, Xth ed. . City of Publisher, Country if not USA: Abbrev. of Publisher, year, ch. X, sec. X, pp. XXX-XXX. Examples:

[5] L. Stein, “Random patterns,” in Computers and You, J. S. Brake, Ed. New York: Wiley, 1994, pp. 55-70.

[6] G. O. Young, “Synthetic structure of industrial plastics,” in Plastics, vol. 3, Polymers of Hexadromicon, J. Peters, Ed., 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964, pp. 15-64.

Congress or conferences: Author(s), “Title of paper,” in Name of Conference, City, Country, year, pp. XXX-XXX. Examples:

[7] S. Arnofsky, P. Doshi, R. Kenneth, D. Hanover, R. Mercado and D. Schleck, “Radiofrequency field surveys in hospitals,” in Proc. of the 1995 IEEE Bioengineering Conference, Bar Harbor, USA, 1995, pp. 129-131.

[8] D. B. Payne and J. R. Stern, “Wavelength-switched passively coupled single-mode optical network,” in Proc. IOOC-ECOC, 1985, pp. 585-590.

Standard: Title of Standard, Standard number, date. Examples:

[9] IEEE Criteria for Class IE Electric Systems, IEEE Standard 308, 1969.

[10] Letter Symbols for Quantities, ANSI Standard Y10.5-1968.

Theses: Author, “Title of thesis,” Degree thesis (Ph.D., M.Sc.), Abbrev. Dept., Abbrev. Univ., City of Univ., year. Examples:

[11] J. O. Williams, “Narrow-band analyzer,” Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Elect. Eng., Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA, 1993.

[12] N. Kawasaki, “Parametric study of thermal and chemical nonequilibrium nozzle flow,” M.Sc. thesis, Dept. Electron. Eng., Osaka Univ., Osaka, Japan, 1993.

TecnoLógicas has a permanent call for papers. The manuscripts can be written in Spanish or English. This journal accepts original unpublished papers for publication, i.e., articles that have not been previously published or that are not currently being reviewed in any other scientific journal (either in printed or electronic form). The manuscripts may be submitted via email to tecnologicas@itm.edu.co, as a Microsoft Word file, specifying the contact author's name, institution, city, e-mail, and the type of paper. All manuscripts must be accompanied by a cover letter confirming originality. The articles must strictly follow the style and format guidelines described below. Authors can use the downloadable template, found on the journal website. Only manuscripts with the correct style and format will be evaluated.