About the Journal
PHONICA, founded in 2005, is an annual double-blind peer-reviewed open-access e-format scientific publication from the Applied Phonetics Laboratory at the University of Barcelona’s Faculty of Education.
Focus and Scope
The journal aims to create an interdisciplinary exchange between different research fields concerning sound, voice and speech. Phonica also offers an exchange platform for disseminating theoretical approaches, original research findings and innovation proposals that, because of their interdisciplinary nature and their scientific orientation, address a specialised public, such as linguists, language teachers, teachers, speech therapists, and professionals linked to philology, speech processing engineering, pedagogy or psychology.
Phonica encourages the submission of original and significant manuscripts that deal with sound, voice and speech from different research fields such as phonetics, speech therapy, speech clinics, language training, audiovisual communication, applied semiotics and signal processing, among others. It is therefore a broad and complex space for its diversity devoted to Applied Phonetics.
Publication Frequency and Section Policies
Articles are published continuously as they are approved and are collected into an annual volume in December.
Each volume can be made up of a set of various articles on speech, voice and sound, or a special topic section, proposed to the journal and approved by the Editorial Board, followed by a Miscellanea section. All submissions received by the journal, whether they are part of the article, miscellanea, or special topic section, will follow the external peer review process.
Peer Review Process
The review period and notification of the editorial decision take between 3 to 6 months.
Review Process:
- Following confirmation of receipt of the manuscript to be reviewed, the Editorial Committee will evaluate and verify that it adapts to the editorial policy. If it fails to meet requirements, the Committee can reject it without sending it for review and the author will be notified.
- Manuscripts accepted by the Editorial Committee will be reviewed by two independent experts on the subject (double-blind peer review). Within a maximum period of one month, they shall complete their review report based on a form specifically designed for this purpose. In the event of contradictory evaluations, the Committee will decide whether or not to request the opinion of a third reviewer not affiliated to the same institution.
- Based on the review reports, the Editorial Committee shall decide whether to directly publish the manuscript, return it to the author for revision or reject it. Authors will be notified in writing of the decision and if their manuscript has been rejected the reasons will be stated.
- A maximum of 21 days will be given to the author to make improvements to the manuscript and to submit the new version with any changes made marked in colour. The manuscript may be accompanied by a document containing any comments and observations considered appropriate. PHONICA’s Editorial Committee will decide if the changes introduced are suitable and will accept the manuscript for publication or return it to the experts for a second review.
The assessment criteria used for the review of any manuscripts submitted are the following:
- Originality and innovation
- Academic and scientific interest
- Structure and contents of the manuscript suitable for a scientific publication
- Title, abstract and keywords reflected in the manuscript
- Precise formulation of the objectives
- Adequacy of the methodology and data analysis
- Clear presentation presentation of results
- Interpretation and conclusions sufficient and coherent with the proposed objectives
- Relevance of the sources and bibliography
- Linguistic accuracy and quality of the writing
- Compliance with the format and length of the manuscript
Open Access Policy
PHONICA provides immediate open and free access to its contents, based on the principle that making research available to the public free of charge supports a global exchange of knowledge.
All contents included in PHONICA are subject to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which allows the work to be shared with third parties, provided that they acknowledge its authorship, initial publication in this journal and the terms of the license.
PHONICA does not charge users a fee to read, download or print the contents published in the journal nor does it charge authors to submit, review, edit and publish their contributions.
Declaration of publishing ethics and best practices
PHONICA subscribe the Declaration of publishing ethics and best practices for scientific journals published by the University of Barcelona.
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, quality, 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.
Reviewers may not share, distribute or use the information included in papers submitted for review without the permission of the Editorial Committee and the authors.
Policy on Plagiarism
In the event of suspected plagiarism, PHONICA will follow the Guidelines on Good Publication Practice developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts).
To detect possible issues, when a manuscript is submitted to the journal, it will be checked using URKUND before being considered for peer review.
In the event of possible plagiarism in a manuscript submitted to this journal or already published:
- The person who has notified the journal of the situation will be informed of the process followed.
- PHONICA's Editorial Committee will meet and assess the severity of the plagiarism.
- If it is considered that there is plagiarism, documentary evidence will be sent to the author of the manuscript and they will be asked for explanations.
If those responsible for the journal consider that there is plagiarism:
- Both the editor of the journal in which the original plagiarised manuscript was published and its author(s) will be informed.
- If the manuscript has already been published by PHONICA, it will be removed from the journal’s website and a withdrawal notice will be published.
- PHONICA will not publish any manuscripts by authors involved in the plagiarism for a period of 5 years.
Archives in LOCKSS
This journal uses the LOCKSS system to create an automatic archive system shared by the collaborating libraries, which create permanent journal files for conservation and restoration: https://revistes.ub.edu/index.
Interoperability protocol
Phonica implements OAI-PMH protocol (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting), a low-barrier mechanism for repository interoperability that expose Dublin Core structured metadata. OAI 2.0 Request: https://revistes.ub.
