Evaluation Process

Receipt 

The evaluation process commences upon receiving the submission. The RMI will acknowledge receipt of the submitted material via an email addressed to the corresponding author within a span of no more than 2 days after reception. Following this, the work will embark on a 3-stage evaluation process.

Stage 1: Editorial Evaluation Process

All submissions will undergo an evaluation by the editorial team to ensure that the manuscript meets the following criteria in the specified order:

  1. Anti-plagiarism policy
  2. Extension, Format, Structure, and Content According to the Instructions for Authors
  3. Citation standards
  4. Metadata on the OJS platform
  5. Requested letters (originality and copyright transfer)

Upon completion of this evaluation stage, the corresponding author will be informed of one of the following potential outcomes, within an estimated time frame of 5 days from the acknowledgment of receipt:

  • Accepted
  • Accepted with suggested modifications
  • Not accepted

In case of Accepted, the manuscript will proceed to stage 2. If Accepted with suggested modifications, the author will receive the suggestions, and once addressed, the work will proceed to the next stage.

Stage 2: Internal Evaluation Process

All submissions will undergo an evaluation by the Internal Editorial Committee to ensure that the manuscript adheres to the following criteria:

  1. Relevance to the declared field of knowledge by the author
  2. Clear scientific writing
  3. Appropriate and complete structure
  4. Presents a novel/interesting idea, concept, or hypothesis

This stage has a duration of 5 - 10 days. Upon completion, the corresponding author will be informed of one of the following potential outcomes:

  • Proceed to review
  • Address suggestions
  • Reject

If the outcome is to Proceed to review, the manuscript will be forwarded to initiate stage 3. If the outcome is to Address suggestions, the corresponding author will receive these suggestions and will have up to 15 days to address them; once addressed, the work will proceed to the next stage.

Submissions made to the Book Reviews section are not subjected to a further peer review process (Stage 3), thus the evaluation process concludes at this stage. 

Stage 3: Peer Review Process

Research articles, review articles, theoretical papers, and educational experience systematization articles will be assessed by national and international experts in their respective fields through the double-blind review system, maintaining the anonymity of both authors and reviewers.

The assessment is conducted according to the following evaluation format:

  • If two positive reviews are obtained, the work will be published in the Mesoamerican Journal of Research
  • If both reviews are unfavorable, the work will not be published
  • In case of a split decision, a third referee will be consulted for a final decision

At the conclusion of this peer review stage, the corresponding author will be notified of one of the following potential outcomes:

  • Publish without modifications
  • Publish with minor modifications
  • Publish with major modifications
  • Do not publish

If the work is Approved with major changes, in accordance with the RMI's adherence to DORA, publication will be subject to the submission of an improved version, which will undergo a new round of peer review.

The decisions of the referees are final. The Chief Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance of any text in the Journal.

Evaluation Time

The evaluation process until manuscript acceptance for publication takes approximately 3 to 6 months.

After Evaluation 

Once the manuscript is accepted, the time required for proofreading, formatting, and galley review is around 1 to 3 months. As the RMI follows a policy of continuous publication, once the galley is accepted, the work will be published within a maximum period of 7 days.