Revista Ecuatoriana de Medicina y Ciencias Biológicas. (REMCB) Editorial Board is comprised of researchers who specialize in a specific knowledge area within the Medical or Biological Sciences and are affiliated with various national and international institutions.

REMCB’s review process follows the blind peer-review method, thus ensuring anonymity between authors and reviewers. This process takes place through the REMCB OJS platform.

Reviewers have the responsibility of critically and constructively evaluating the manuscript's content (including aspects of originality, thoroughness, and presentation). The reviewer's efforts lead to the selection of high-quality manuscripts for publication.

1. Commitments of Peer Reviewers
2. Knowledge and academic experience supporting their competence to evaluate a manuscript.
3. Availability of time to thoroughly evaluate the content of the manuscript.
4. Conflict of interest. If the reviewer identifies the authors due to academic or family closeness, they must declare a conflict of interest and recuse themselves from the review.
5. Confidentiality commitment. It is imperative that the content of a manuscript remains confidential and not be disclosed to third parties.

If the review cannot be conducted for any of these or other justifiable reasons, the Editor must be notified through the OJS Platform.

2. General Criteria for Manuscript Evaluation

Content aspects

Relevance and currentness of the topic

Contribution to knowledge

Currentness and pertinence of the references used

Clear objectives

Adequate methods to achieve the objectives

Coherence in the application of data analysis procedures

Reliability of the presented data

Relevance of the discussion, results, and conclusions

Compliance with the format established by REMCB

Structure and organization of the paper

Adequate balance in the length of the sections in relation to the content

Quality of the writing and style used

Accurate presentation of tables and figures

Compliance with the Council of Science Editors’ N-Y format in both the text and the references.

 

3. Relevant Dimensions of Evaluation

Reviewers will thoroughly analyze the manuscript, assessing the provided information, reviewing the scientific literature that justify the document, and informing the Editors about the advisability of accepting the paper.

The manuscript will be evaluated based on the criteria outlined in the protocol, and its score will be associated with the quality of the content.

4. Ethical Issues
5. a) Plagiarism: If the Reviewer suspects that an article is a substantial copy of another publication, the Reviewer will inform the Editors, citing the original work in as much detail as possible. Both Reviewers and Editors use the Turnitin plagiarism and self-plagiarism detection system.
6. b) Fraud: In cases of actual or suspected fraudulent results in an article, it is imperative to report them to the Editors.
7. Manuscript Evaluation Process in OJS

Once an expert becomes a part of the Board of Reviewers, they are added to the OJS platform. From that point forward, they may receive requests for article evaluations. Upon receiving an email requesting a review, the Reviewer must respond within 8 days through the platform, either accepting or rejecting the request.

To communicate their decision, the Reviewer must log in with the username and password provided upon inclusion (in case of a forgotten password, a new one can be automatically requested if the username is known). After selecting the role of Reviewer, they can access the screen with the list of  “Active Submissions”.

Clicking on the item to be reviewed will display information about the submission, including deadlines for review submission, conflict of interest statement, and data storage authorization.

The Reviewer must click to either accept or reject the review request.

Once the Reviewer has read and reviewed the guidelines, they can download the files for review.

Reviewers can download the manuscript, appendices, tables, figures, and supplementary information as appropriate, as well as upload their review. In this section, Reviewers may include a message addressed to the Editors and Authors. Additionally, Reviewers should upload the Review Protocol document and the article file with specific comments in the Reviewer's Files section. In the Recommendation section, Reviewers should provide their verdict by selecting one of the recommendation options.

In the Finish section, Editors may optionally request approval of the corrected manuscript.

Completing step 4 concludes the evaluation of the article. The review will be then assessed by the REMCB’s Editors, who will make a decision based on the evaluations and criteria of the experts. One possible decision is to initiate a new round of review (second round), for which the collaboration of the same Reviewer could be requested again, following the steps described above.

 

 

6. Report to the Editors

The report should encompass key elements of the review, addressing the points indicated in the previous section.

Reviewers' comments must be respectful and constructive, avoiding personal remarks or data. Clear information about any comments on the manuscript should be provided so that Editors and Authors can comprehend the feedback.

Reports can be sent to the Authors as prepared by the Reviewer. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to formal aspects (organization, clarity, wording, spelling, etc.). It should be noted that reports often include evaluations and requests for modifications regarding the formal aspects of the articles, so maintaining the format of the journal is essential.

These will be the evaluation criteria:

1. Acceptable without changes: 50 points
2. Publishable with modifications, listing comments and specifying paragraphs and pages where modifications are suggested: 40-49 points
3. Resubmit for revision, listing comments and specifying paragraphs and pages where modifications are suggested: 25-39 points
4. Not publishable due to detected deficiencies, which should be justified and reasoned with qualitative and quantitative evaluation. Reviewers' comments should be more extensive if the manuscript obtains less than 24 out of 50 points.
5. Manuscript Evaluation Protocols for Reviewers

Reviewers are obligated to possess a thorough understanding of the publication guidelines, available at https://remcb-puce.edu.ec/, to ensure that the evaluated manuscripts adhere to them. Reviewers should also highlight any significant deviations observed.