The editorial quality policy, which involves human teams and differentiated work flows, executed under close coordination, is developed in a double direction.
On the one hand, all editorial products are subject to conceptual and scientific quality controls and, on the other hand, the staff of the editorial department, technical and internal to the organization, who guarantee the formal quality of the product: linguistic correction (spelling, grammar, syntax ), of style (property of expression and quality of writing) and orthotypography; functionality and aesthetics of the design and maximum operability of the support (printed or digital).
Ediciones USC has the USC Editora seal, certified by AENOR and IQNet) with the UNE-EN-ESO 9001:2015 quality management system standard.
Within this framework, quality targets are established and reviewed annually and, with the involvement of the entire team in achieving them, the aim is to continuously improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the processes that govern the USC Editora seal, thus increasing the satisfaction and trust of our customers.
In any of the publishing modalities, all works require the approval of the Academic Editorial Committee, made up of ten members belonging to the five main areas of knowledge: Health Sciences; Social and Legal Sciences; Arts and Humanities; Sciences; Engineering and Architecture.
Edicións USC
In the originals destined for the different series of Ediciones USC (Académica, CELE. Cuadernos de Español como Lengua Extranjera, Clave, Ensayo, Manuales y Textos), the conceptual and scientific quality is assured through a systematic process of confidential peer review in both directions (author-reviewer; reviewer-author), as established in the SPIC Regulations.
Collections with a director and/or scientific council
In the case of originals destined for collections, the quality of the originals is certified by the collection director and/or the scientific councils, after analysis, reading and even, in some cases, requesting reports from specialists.
These collections are:
- Dissemination Library - Galicia Series;
- Dissemination Library - Scientific Series;
- Cadernos CIPPCE de Emerxencia Cultural;
- Clásicos do Pensamento Universal;
- Library for the Alejo Carpentier Chair of Cuban Culture;
- Library for the Valle-Inclán Chair of the USC;
- Lalia-Series Maior; Limiar;
- Publications of the 'José Ángel Valente' Chair of Poetry and Aesthetics;
- Publications of the Department of Geometry and Topology;
- Publications of the Juana de Vega Chair. Minutes
- Publications of the Juana de Vega Chair.
- Research Notebooks; Publications of the Juana de Vega Chair. Monographs
- Publications of the Juana de Vega Chair. Faladoiros;
- Verba.Annexes
Works of external scientific responsibility
In all other cases, works published outside the collection, institutional publications, conference proceedings, tributes, etc. are the exclusive conceptual and scientific responsibility of the institution, department, institute, group or research project that promotes them and, therefore, finances them in their entirety.
The conceptual and scientific quality is guaranteed by means of a confidential "double-blind" peer review (author-reviewer; reviewer-author) that establishes a triple filter: an internal reviewer from the USC (but external to the Edicións USC team) and two reviewers from outside the USC.
Internal evaluation
The internal reviewers are appointed by the Academic Editorial Committee, at the proposal of the Ediciones USC management, and are prestigious professors of the USC belonging to 18 subject areas.
From the reception of the original and the corresponding automatic acknowledgement of receipt, the deadline for the internal evaluation of the original and its communication to the author is one month.
The internal reviewer's report is basically aimed at determining whether or not the original, according to the characteristics initially observed (formal, style, structure, opportunity, interest and updating), is in a position to pass on to the second phase of external evaluation.
According to the result of the internal reviewer's opinion:
- a) the original passes to the external evaluation phase in its current state;
- b) the original may pass to the external evaluation phase, subject to the incorporation of a set of modifications and proposed corrections, for which the author has a period of one month from the date of communication of the internal reviewer's opinion;
- c) the original does not pass to the external evaluation phase.
From the approval of the original (cases la) and, eventually, in the second case, the deadline for sending the external evaluation is 15 days.
External evaluation
The external evaluation phase is entrusted to two specialists in the specific subject of the original. These specialists are proposed by the internal reviewer, who, where appropriate, must include in their evaluation form a list of five names, listed in order of preference, to be chosen by the editorial team of Ediciones USC.
These two specialists submit the original to a meticulous theoretical, conceptual and methodological dissection of all those aspects that could be improved, according to criteria such as suitability for the proposed purpose, originality of processing, updating and timeliness, structural coherence, appropriate epigraphic architecture, in accordance with the system's evaluation form.
The deadline for the external evaluation, from the date of acceptance by the reviewer, is three months.
Depending on the result of the external evaluation:
- a) The original, based on a positive evaluation by both informants, must incorporate all their proposals for modifications and corrections.
- b) In case of a clear discrepancy in the evaluation of the informants (one positive and one negative), a third evaluation report will be requested (from the list of specialists provided by the internal reviewer), which, again, will be received within three months from the date of acceptance.
- c) The editing of the original, based on a negative evaluation by both informants, is rejected.
The Academic Editorial Committee is the body responsible for assessing the external evaluation of the original and accordingly ruling. Once the reviewers' reports have been received, the deadline for their submission to the Academic Editorial Committee is 3 months from the date of receipt of the last of the two reports.
The opinion of the Committee, together with a copy of the confidential reports of the external reviewers, will be communicated by the management of Edicións USC to the author within a maximum period of 15 days following the date of the meeting of the Academic Editorial Committee.
In the case of a positive assessment, the author has a maximum period of one month from the date of communication of the decision to submit the new version of the original, modified in accordance with the suggestions and indications of the reviewers.
The editorial team of Edicións USC, which coordinates the entire process, will finally check that the new version is in line with the suggestions and indications of the reviewers and will have a maximum period of 6 months to edit and produce the work.
All the editorial procedures described are transparent for the parties involved (authors, internal reviewers, external reviewers, collection editors, members of editorial boards of collections, editors and technical editors), although obviously confidential when necessary, as they are executed in the technological context of the Lib{USC}, management platform, developed under the OMP software, which, on the one hand, allows the parties to carry out their tasks and roles online and, on the other hand, records and archives the complete editorial history of each original (communications, reports, files in their different versions, etc. ).
In accordance with Spanish and European laws, regulations and directives on open access to knowledge, and with the conditions and limits set out in intellectual and industrial property legislation, the University of Santiago de Compostela promotes the free dissemination of scientific content in digital format. In this line, it is at the discretion of the author/s of the original monographs and journal editors to decide whether their works or journals will be published under commercial conditions of exploitation (therefore, with access conditional on payment for acquisition) or in free and open access.
This freedom of decision has, in either case, two limitations:
- Doctoral theses are compulsorily, and by legal imposition, published in open access (with the restrictions due to patents or confidentiality clauses with companies.
- Each volume or issue of the journals that, by decision of their editors, are published commercially will become open access within 6 months of their publication.
The copyright of the works published in open access is owned by the University of Santiago de Compostela, which is responsible for the legal protection of its contents. In addition, the works published by Ediciones USC in open access incorporate a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence, which specifies the specific conditions under which rights are limited. Consequently, any form of reproduction, distribution, public communication or transformation of the work not included in the Creative Commons licence may only be carried out with the express authorisation of the owners, except for the exceptions provided for by law.
The Academic Editorial Committee is composed of
- Chairman Vicente Pérez Muñuzuri. Vice-Chancellor for Science Policy.
- Members
- Juan L. Blanco Valdés. Director of Ediciones USC.
- From the Art and Humanities area:
- Carmen Villarino Pardo.
- Daniel Lanero Táboas.
- From the Science area:
- M.ª Teresa Flórez Arias
- Rosa M.ª Crujeiras Casais.
- From the Health Sciences area:
- Carmen Isabel Álvarez Lorenzo.
- Eva Yebra Pimentel.
- From the Social and Legal Sciences area:
- Dolores Riveiro García.
- Francisco Rodríguez Lestegás.
- From the Engineering and Architecture area:
- Diego Cabello Ferrer.
- Alberto Rojo Alboreca.
Secretary. Aurelio F. Barreiro González. Publications technician of Ediciones USC.