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As mentioned in the previous Editorial, Revista Colombiana de Obstetricia y Ginecología (RCOG) has again been accepted in the Medline database as of this year. This acceptance coincided with a change in our editorial team and, starting with this issue, editorial management will be supported by Biteca S.A.S, a specialized company with longstanding experience supporting editorial management processes for scientific journals.
We apologize for any inconveniences that this change may have brought about, but it has required a redesign of all editorial processes, from checklist review to ensure that manuscripts are accepted before peer review is initiated, all the way to verification of the papers in their final form for publication.
These changes require greater commitment on the part of the authors as well as of the editorial team. The former will need to be aware of the steps and timelines that will need to be met in order to ensure a high-quality and expedite editorial process, as explained below:
Documents that do not meet each and everyone of the requirements described in the checklist for manuscript acceptance shall not be admitted. Consequently, authors are asked to carefully review these recently revised criteria, available in the RCOG website 1.
After verifying compliance with the checklist, the study will be assessed by a member of the editorial committee who will determine whether it is among the topics that are part of the scope of the journal, and whether its content is relevant for the RCOG readers. The scope of RCOG can be found in the journal’s presentation page 2.
Later, papers that comply with these two requirements shall be sent for independent assessment by two or three peer reviewers blinded to the authors’ identities, in order to reduce the risk of selection bias. These steps will be completed within the first 15 days after the manuscript is received.
The peer review process will take no more than 30 days. After that time, decisions and comments by the peers will be sent to the authors informing whether the study has been considered as “accepted, accepted with minor changes or acceptable with major modifications for publication.” Should the manuscript not be accepted, reasons for the decision shall be communicated.
Authors will have 30 days to reply to the comments from the peers and to implement the suggested changes considered as pertinent and relevant. The reply must be sent in the form of a separate letter, making specific reference to each of the comments and stating whether they are accepted or explaining the reasons for disagreeing. Moreover, they must describe the change and the place where it was included, highlighted in yellow for easy identification by the peer reviewers.
Within the next 15 days, the editorial team will reply to the authors explaining whether the manuscript may remain in the editorial process and, if so, if any new changes are required.
If new changes are required, the authors will have 8 days to comply. They will then send a new letter explaining the changes and any reasons justifying their decision should they disagree.
Once the paper is accepted, it will go to copyediting and will then be sent back to the author within the next 15 days to confirm agreement with the changes introduced during this step. The author must reply within the next 5 days.
The version will then be sent for layout, and the PDF layout file will then be sent within the next five days to the corresponding author to confirm proper layout and consistency with the World file version. Acceptance from the authors must be received within the next 5 days.
The final step is publication in the journal.
Overall, this process will last 3 to 4 months, from the moment the study is accepted, until it is published. Application of the checklist to the papers received since March of this year has already started. We are certain that our authors, who already produce high quality research, will be competent in meeting international standards for publication in high circulation and impact journals. We count on their commitment and that of the editorial team, that will continue to lend its support so that manuscript published in RCOG will maintain their scientific and editorial quality.
Hernando Gaitán Duarte, MD, MSc
Editor
