About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The journal Itinerarios de Trabajo Social was created in 2020 and aims to disseminate research and theoretical and / or methodological advances in the discipline of Social Work. It is addressed to all social workers in order to promote the rigorous and scientific knowledge of the discipline in the different fields of intervention.

We accept articles in english and spanish.

Peer Review Process

Editorial and publication process

The management of the editorial and publication process is based on the automated Open Journal Systems (OJS). You can display an outline of the OJS publishing process from this link.

The publishing process is simplified in the 10 steps shown in Figure 1.

 

Figure 1. Publishing process.

 

 

  1. Submitting a manuscript. They will be sent through the journal's website.

  2. Verification and acceptance of the manuscript. It is necessary to comply with the guidelines for authors.

  3. Assignment of external reviewers. The editorial team will assign two reviewers according to the topic and specificity of each manuscript.

  4. Double-blind peer review. The external reviewers will evaluate the manuscript according to the protocol provided.

  5. Evaluation of the peer review. The editorial team will carry out an evaluation of the double-blind peer review.

  6. Editorial decision. The editorial team will make a decision based on the evaluation of the external reviewers and their assessment. This decision may result in three possible outcomes: (1) rejection, if the evaluators agree that it is not suitable for publication; (2) acceptance with minor changes, if one or both evaluators agree that it is publishable but requires some prior changes; (3) acceptance with major changes, in the event that one or both external evaluators consider the need for major changes before publication.

  7. Review of the manuscript. In cases where the editorial decision implies acceptance of the manuscript, the authors are provided with the protocol completed by the reviewers so that they can include the necessary changes. In some cases, this step may not be necessary if the original manuscript is suitable for publication without requiring changes. In any case, the publication of a manuscript modified from the indications of the external reviewers must be approved by them.

  8. Editing the manuscript. The editorial team makes a first post-print version, which may include corrections of typos or grammars. It is sent to the authors for their approval.

  9. Post-print review of the editorial version. The authors approve or reject the possible changes included in the first post-print editorial version. If no response is received by the deadline, the editorial team will publish the proposed version.

  10. Publication. Edited articles will be published in post-print editorial version in a specific section of the journal's website, being assigned a DOI identifier. When the full issue is published, the article will be transferred to the main summary of the issue to which it corresponds.

 

Both during this process and after the publication of the article, the journal reserves the right to request access to sources and other materials related to the original scientific data on which the submitted articles are based, in order to ensure their veracity and validity.

The duration of the editorial process is 5 ± 1 months, depending especially on the possible need for a third external reviewer in cases where the first peer review assesses both the rejection and publication of the manuscript. The specific deadlines for each of the detailed steps are shown in Figure 2.

 

Figure 2. Duration of the different steps of the editorial and publication process.

 

The Reviews section is excluded from the peer review process and aspects such as novelty or contribution to the discipline will be considered.

Authors will receive notification of the receipt of their manuscript from the submission management system and feedback about the publication process. This motivation may be given prior to acceptance of the manuscript if it does not meet minimum requirements (e.g., original article, focus and scope of the journal, etc.), and once it is accepted for review, the assessment and comments of external reviewers are offered in all cases.

 

Confidentiality

The intellectual property of the manuscripts belongs to the authors until their publication. For this reason their content will be treated as confidential communication by the journal and team involved in all phases of the evaluation and publication process. The content of the manuscripts will only be accessible to the minimum number of people involved in the editorial process.

Publication Frequency

Annual periodicity (January).


 

Open Access Policy

The articles published in the journal are provided in Open Access, allowing full availability and reading, downloading, copying, distribution, printing, searching or any other legal use of it. No registration, subscription or payment is required. Only the appropriate citation of the articles used is requested. Authors can deposit the final version of their accepted articles in open access repositories.

The open access mode to which the journal responds is the Diamond Access mode, which involves the immediate publication of articles after passing the acceptance and review process, without charging a fee for publication of the article.

This type of access to articles and possible complementary material will be maintained over time, applying to all manuscripts that are published in any of the issues of the journal and without subsequent modification.

The magazine uses the LOCKSS and PKP PN digital preservation services.

Itinerarios de Trabajo Social has no charges for authors and no charges for readers.

Internal evaluation

In addition to the evaluation processes to which the journal is submitted for inclusion in databases and indexing, Itinerarios de Trabajo Social contemplates its own system of control, audit and self-evaluation. This system evaluates:

  • The evaluation criteria
  • The forms and protocols.
  • The evaluation reports.
  • Published works.
  • The reviewers.

Authors, members of the editorial team, reviewers and readers will participate in this evaluation.

Editorial freedom and integrity

Itinerarios de Trabajo Social declares its editorial freedom and integrity, preserving its mission from any interference or external pressure that could alter or condition the magazine. The Management of the journal has full responsibility and authority over the content of the publication. As an independent journal, it guarantees the absence of pressure and interference from outside owners or sponsoring organizations. Any collaboration or change in ownership, participation or sponsorship must support the principle of editorial freedom and integrity, must be announced on the web platform and must adhere to the recommendations of ICMJE, WADA, SSC. Second Draft Statement on the Relations between Editors and their Publishing or Sponsoring Societies.Draft for CSE Member Review, posted 3/31/00

 

Ethical statement

Itinerarios de Trabajo Social subscribe the Declaration of publishing ethics and best practices for scientific journals published by the University of Barcelona (including COPE and DOAJ Principles).

The University of Barcelona promotes the open access publication of digital journals and endeavours to guarantee quality and conscientiousness in the transfer of scientific knowledge. The University is committed to ensuring that the articles it publishes and the publishing process itself observe the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

It is therefore essential that all of the stakeholders in this process—journal editors, reviewers, technical editors and authors—know and act according to the Code.

 

· Journal editors

should ensure that the decision to publish is not dependent on the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, country of origin, citizenship or political persuasion;

publish regular updates on the responsibilities of authors, submission requirements, the arbitration system used to select the articles and the evaluation criteria to be applied by reviewers; publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed and not make use of any article received for UB-specific research assignments without the author’s consent;

guarantee confidentiality during the review process, meaning (a) the anonymity of reviewers and authors and the confidentiality of the content of the articles, the reports submitted by reviewers and any other type of correspondence with or between the editorial, consultant and scientific committees and (b) confidentiality in the correspondence between the author and the journal committees or reviewers when the author wishes to clarify, change or complain about some aspect of the article; make certain that the integrity of articles already published is respected; act swiftly to eliminate from the journal or refuse to publish any article that has been found to plagiarise information from other sources.

 

· Authors should

understand that they are responsible for all submitted content;

notify the journal editors of any errors in their published articles so that the appropriate corrections can be made;

guarantee that the article and associated materials are original and do not infringe on the rights of third-party authors and, when there are co-authors, guarantee that the consent of all the authors is obtained before the article goes to press.

 

· Reviewers and technical editors should

apply revisions that are objective, informed, critical, constructive and unbiased, where acceptance or rejection is based only on the work’s relevance, originality, interest to the public in question and compliance with the style and content regulations in the evaluation criteria

meet deadlines when this is possible and promptly inform the journal editor when it is not;

avoid sharing, spreading or reproducing any information from articles still under review without permission from the corresponding journal editors or authors.

The editorial team is excluded from the review tasks in order to guarantee anonymity throughout the process.

Disclaimer of liability

The journal, including the members of its different organs, do not assume the statements made in the published works: it exempts itself from any responsibility for the published material, which falls on the authors of each article.

Plagiarism and other fraud policy

The articles sent will be subject to a double process of detection of possible plagiarism:

  • Use of Urkund software.
  • Search for similarities through a computerized process with the journal's own database, which includes all Social Work journals to which it has access, whether open or by subscription.

In case of plagiarism, the article will not be published under any circumstances. In the event that the described process does not detect plagiarism until after the publication of the article, it will be removed from the journal and a retraction will be published. This retraction will contain in its title the word "Retraction" together with the reason for it, will appear in the summary of the journal and will contain complete bibliographic reference of the original article, together with the reasons and data that originate the retraction.

The journal reserves the right to request access to sources and other materials relating to the original scientific data on which the articles submitted are based, in order to ensure their veracity and validity, both before and after the publication of the article. Similarly, it will exercise the actions it deems appropriate in the case of doubts about the authorship of the manuscripts.

Duplicate or redundant publications are not accepted, defining these as those that essentially contain information already published in any type of medium, printed or electronic. Those that have been rejected by other journals or that expose in an extended form the content of scientific summaries or posters are not considered as such.