Submissions

Author Guidelines

Download HERE the Good Practice Code in PDF
Download HERE the Authorship Form in PDF

1. FOCUS AND SCOPE

Revista Española de Documentación Científica is a journal edited by Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). It has been published quarterly since 1977. The main objective of this journal is to contribute to the dissemination of knowledge amongst researchers in the field of Library and Information Science and those involved in the use of scientific, technical and strategic information for science policy and decision making. REDC includes research papers dealing with experimental and theoretical topics. The articles published in REDC include titles, abstracts and key-words in English in order to facilitate their international visibility.

Within the thematic scope of the journal, REDC publishes articles that present methodological or conceptual innovations. Specifically, papers proposing new methodologies or indicators applied to fields related to library and information science, knowledge exchange and transfer, and science policy are welcome. Studies involving analysis of scope, reliability, coverage or usefulness of new information sources and resources with a rigorous development will also be accepted. In this line, authors are advised to avoid sending merely descriptive texts (i.e. metric reports on scientific production of institutions, disciplines, topics, etc.) with little scientific value. Likewise, the REDC does not contemplate the publication of case studies whose results are only of local interest and cannot be extended to other contexts. On the other hand, bibliographic or state-of-the-art reviews will only be accepted when they are rigorously elaborated and provide a novel and reflective vision that contributes to the understanding of the evolution of a thematic area or discipline.

2. OPEN ACCESS

REDC is an open access journal. Unless otherwise indicated, all contents of the electronic edition are distributed under a license of use and distribution “Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International” (CC BY 4.0). You can consult the informative version and the legal text of the license. This circumstance must be expressly stated in this way when necessary.

The deposit in repositories, personal web pages or similar of any version other than the one published by the publisher is not authorized.

3. ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Previously published material is not accepted. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission for the partial reproduction of materials (text, tables or figures) included in other publications, and for accurately citing their origin. Permission should be sought from the owner of such material.

Conflicts of interest: A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment regarding a primary interest (such as the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony) are the most readily identifiable conflicts of interest. However, conflicts may occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships or academic competence.

4. AUTHORSHIP

This journal applies the CRediT taxonomy for identifying authorship contributions based on the assignment of specific roles to research articles. For more information see "Submissions/Authorship identification". Such information should be incorporated even if there is only one authorship.

It is the collective responsibility of the authors, and not of the journal to which the paper is submitted, to determine that all persons named as authors meet the four criteria.

Corresponding author

The corresponding author is the person who assumes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the submission, peer review, and editorial process and should be the same person who makes the submission. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission, peer review, and copyediting processes to respond to editorial queries in a timely manner and should be available after publication to respond to criticisms of the work and to cooperate with the journal editorial office regarding any requests for additional data or information about the work that arise after publication.

5. ARTIFICAL INTELIGENCE

Editorial CSIC, following the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as its main reference, understands that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI assisted tools can serve as auxiliary technology, a useful support, provided that they are used responsibly and prudently, their use is disclosed in detail, and their outputs are reviewed, corrected, and accepted by human beings. This duty of transparency is also in line with the principles of open science, which promote the traceability and reproducibility of research.

Editorial CSIC understands that AI tools do not meet the requirements for authorship, as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest, nor can they manage copyright and licensing agreements. Those who sign an article are fully responsible for the accuracy, precision, validity, integrity, and originality (specifically, the absence of plagiarism) of its content, including any parts generated by an AI tool. They must use AI in accordance with the ethical principles of COPE and all guidelines outlined in the Good Practice Guide for Scientific and Academic Publishing by Editorial CSIC, as they are accountable for any violations of the standards set forth therein.

Declaration of AI use

The use of any type of AI or AI-assisted tools and technologies, especially generative AI and large language models (LLMs), must be systematically and thoroughly disclosed by authors, as well as by those who review and edit the texts.

Any use of AI must be disclosed, whether for writing assistance, generating images or graphic elements, data collection and analysis, or other purposes. The disclosure should be detailed and clear, specifying the results obtained and the criteria used, both for accepting or rejecting AI-generated suggestions and for mitigating unethical practices such as bias, misinformation, and plagiarism, as well as for protecting sensitive data.

This declaration must first be made to the editor, providing the necessary data and documentation when submitting the original text, which will be analyzed during the review and evaluation process. Authors must also indicate AI use in the Authorship, Good Practices, and Copyright Transfer Declaration form, available on the journal’s website in the submission guidelines.

The use of AI must also be disclosed to readers in two specific locations within the original work: in the abstract and in the “Declaration of AI Use” section.

In the article’s abstract, authors must mention that an AI tool was used, briefly specifying which tool and for what purpose (e.g., as a writing assistant or for analytical work). If AI technology was used to translate the abstract, the following statement must be added at the end: “This translation was generated using AI”, including the details of the tool used. Authors are reminded that they must review and take full responsibility for the AI-generated translation.

Detailed information must be provided in the “Declaration of AI Use” section. For articles, this section should be placed at the end of the text, immediately after the “Conflict of Interest Declaration”. For books, it should appear as a dedicated subsection within the introduction.

If AI use extends beyond document editing and is part of the research itself (for example, in analytical work)it must also be described in the section detailing the “Materials and Methods” used.

Given the rapid development of these technologies, it is essential to include as much detail as possible to accurately identify the tool used. This includes the tool’s name, manufacturer or developer, software version, and the date of use. Authors must also specify whether a free or paid version was used and whether it was a general model or a custom version developed from a general software (for example, in an environment where sources are limited and controlled by the author).

Providing comprehensive information is crucial because these tools are constantly evolving and do not allow for exact replication of queries and results, except in highly controlled environments. If a generative AI tool was used, authors must include the prompts (instructions, questions, or texts input into the program, including both initial and secondary prompts), all fine-tuning and replication parameters (model, negative prompts, iterations, etc.), and the responses or outputs generated by the AI. These explanations may be accompanied by screenshots showing the entire “conversation” with the AI. Due to the potential volume of this documentation, it may be published as “Supplementary Material” on the article’s than being included in the main body of the work. However, a reference to this annex and the corresponding URL for download must be included in the text.

For more information, see the section on IA in the Guide to Best Practices for Academic Scientific Publishing available at:

https://revistas.csic.es/public/publication_guidelines_CSIC.pdf

6. USE OF INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE AND GOOD PRACTICES IN GENDER EQUALITY

At REDC journal we have an unwaivable commitment to equity, diversity and respect for all people. Authors should use bias-free language, avoid stereotypes, and commit to inclusive language. In particular, the concealment of women behind the masculine generic and the use of initials in bibliographic citations, in which the full names of the authors cited, must be included. Authors of research involving the participation of population should considerer the relevance of incorporating sex or gender as a variable of analysis in the research design and establishing whether it has had an influence on the results obtained.

As a more general orientation, the journal REDC recommends the CSIC Press recommendations for an inclusive and non-sexist language (2022) and the Guide for a non-sexist use of the language of the Autonomous University of Madrid (2019), also adopted by the CSIC.

7. MANUSCRIPT SUBMISION

Authors should submit manuscripts through the REDC website:

https://redc.revistas.csic.es/index.php/redc/about/submissions

IMPORTANT

- The article is adapted to the Microsoft Word template provided by the journal.

- Submissions may not exceed 20 pages, including titles, abstracts, keywords, author names, affiliations, tables, figures and bibliography.

Submissions for publishing in the REDC must comply with these rules:

- Only original works that have not been previously published in any language.

- The manuscript has not been sent to other journals will be accepted.

- All persons named as authors have critically reviewed the manuscript, approved the final version, and consented to its publication.

- It is the collective responsibility of the authors, and not of the journal to which the paper is submitted, to determine that all persons named as authors meet the criteria described in the instructions for authors.

- Authors agree to automatic assignment of copyright to the publisher (CSIC) if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication.

- Authors have obtained written permission from the copyright holder for materials from other copyrighted sources.

- Papers will be accepted in English if any of the authors are from an English-speaking country. In the case of authorship from Spanish-speaking countries, publication in English will be accepted if the texts have been professionally translated (by providing a translation certificate), which will appear in the “Acknowledgements” section.

The following documents must be uploaded:

- FULL MANUSCRIPT, following the Word template with all the authors' data.

- ANONYMIZED MANUSCRIPT in a pdf file without any data that could identify the authors, including the acknowledgement data.

- Compressed file with figures and tables.

- - Authorship declaration form.

- Document with the suggestion of 2-3 reviewers. These reviewers should have no conflict of interest with the authors or the article, and the Editorial Board reserves the right not to use any of the reviewers suggested by the authors.

8. ARTICLE'S TEXT

Manuscripts should follow the usual format for scientific papers:

1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Methodology
4. Results
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
7. Supplementary material (if applicable)
8. Data availability (if applicable)
9. Acknowledgements
10. Declaration of conflicts of interest (mandatory)
11. Sources of funding (if applicable)
12. Declaration of authorship contribution (mandatory)
13. References

8.1. Abstract

Manuscripts will have an abstract in Spanish and English with a length of 100 to 150 words. In addition, at least four keywords should be included.

8.2. Tables and figures

Manuscripts should include only tables and figures that are useful, clear and representative. All tables and figures must be cited within the main text, otherwise they will not be considered necessary.

Figures and tables should be sent in a separate zipped file. Headings should be concise and sequentially numbered (tables with Roman numerals, figures with Arabic ones). All figures should be in JPG file format and 300 dpi. The approximate location for figures and tables should be specified in the text.

8.3. Supplementary material

In case there is supplementary material, a brief description of the content and the URL where the content is located shall be provided.

8.4. Data availability

If applicable, a description of the data available, as well as how to access them, shall be provided.

8.5. Acknowledgements

In this section, mention may be made of persons who have contributed to the preparation of the document but do not meet the requirements for authorship, for example, translators, external reviewers, etc.

8.6. Declaration of competing interest

In the event of conflicts of interest, the declaration set out in the Good practice guide of CSIC must be followed.

If there is no conflict of interest, the following model should be used:

"The authors of this article declare that they have no financial, professional or personal
conflicts of interest that could have inappropriately influenced this work."

8.7. Sources of funding

In case the article has been carried out with public or private funding. The code and title of the project/grant/contract..., name of the funding entity developed (optional acronym) must be mentioned.

Example:

Work carried out under Project PG2019-097739-B-100, “La construcción de una cultura fiscal en León”, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation MICIN.

8.8. Authorship contribution

This journal applies the CRediT taxonomy for identifying authorship contributions based on the assignment of specific roles to research articles. For more information see "Submissions/Authorship identificacion". Such information should be incorporated even if there is only one authorship.

This information should be incorporated into the document, under the heading "Authorship contribution statement", located just before the bibliography, in the following format:

Authorship contribution statement

First author's Name and Surname: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

Second author's Name and Surname: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing.

8.9. Notes

Notes will be placed in a separate section before the reference section.

8.10. References

8.10.1. In text citation Style

Bibliographic references will be cited in the text in parentheses according to the author-date style (APA), with author's last name and year of publication in parentheses (Day, 1998). If there are two authors, both last names will be cited separated by "and", and if there are more than two, only the last name of the first author will be cited, followed by the expression "et al.". If two or more documents have the same first author and year, they will be distinguished from each other by adding lower case letters after the year (1998a, 1998b, 1998c, etc.). To indicate the position in the source document (i.e. the specific pages cited), the page numbers will be included after a colon ":" without any additional abbreviation (Day, 1998: 28-33). The IA will be referenced as follows: (OpenAI, 2025).

8.10.2. List of references

They will be limited only to the works already cited in the text and will be included at the end of the article. In this section, references will appear in alphabetical-chronological order, according to the 7th edition of the APA (American Psychological Association) style.

Other sources (published or unpublished):

Although the proposed solutions in the APA standards should be consulted, in general almost all the possibilities go through indicating: the authorship(s), as has already been specified; date of publication, with a greater precision when necessary (in blogs, articles or press releases, reports, etc. [i.e. (2020, March 8)]; the title of a part or fragment, regardless of its content, in round lettering; proper title of the monographic or serial publication (complete, as opposed to a fragment), in italics; the mention of the source, previously printed (place and publisher, and since the last edition of APA only the second ones) but now mostly online, through URI, DOI, etc.; the inclusion of notes about the publication status (i.e. in press, unpublished doctoral thesis, unpublished manuscript, etc.) or about the media or other particularities of the source (i.e. reviews, movies, audiobooks, reports, scholarships, lectures, posters, software, mobile apps, etc.).

AI reference:

Open AI. (2023). ChatGPT (version 3.0 of March 14) [large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

9. REVISED MANUSCRIPTS

Once the editorial decision has been sent to the authors, they should submit their revised manuscripts indicating the changes in the text and accompanied by a letter containing a detailed response (point by point) to the reviewers' and editor's comments. The review period will be one month.

The review files should be uploaded in the OJS application, in the review section. The following files should be uploaded in this section:

- FULL MANUSCRIPT, following the Word template with all the authors' data and the changes made.

- ANONYMIZED MANUSCRIPT in a pdf file with the changes made.

- Compressed file with figures and tables.

- Response document to reviewers' and editor's comments.

10. PROOFS OF ARTICLES CORRECTION

Proofs of articles are sent to authors by e-mail in PDF format. Corrected proofs (using Acrobat) must be returned within seven days by e-mail. Proofreading occasionally generates additional queries for the author. If corrections are not received in a timely manner, the editorial team reserves the right to make corrections as it deems appropriate.

Articles are published in three formats: PDF, HTML and XML. Given the difficulty of proofreading all three types of proofs, authors are kindly requested to check only typos or syntactical errors, but not to modify the manuscript.

11. CHECKLIST FOR MANUSCRIPT SUBMISION

Authors should check all the items below, and papers that do not conform to these guidelines may be returned:

- The work described has not been previously published in any language (except in a book of abstracts, in the proceedings of a scientific meeting, or as part of a thesis).

- The manuscript is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

- All persons named as authors have critically reviewed the manuscript, have approved the final version, and have consented to its publication.

- No person responsible for the manuscript and meeting the criteria for scientific authorship has been omitted from the list of authors.

- Each of the authors has been identified including the following data:

- Name (full) and surname(s)
- Institutional affiliation
- Contact e-mail address
- Open Researcher and Collaborator Identifier (ORCID)

- All sources of funding provided for this study should be listed in the sources of funding heading of the FULL MANUSCRIPT, with a concise mention of the funding organization and the identification code.

- The article should follow the Microsoft Word template provided by the journal and not exceed the 20 pages allowed.

- Authors will designate a list of two to three potential reviewers, providing their full contact address and e-mail address.

These reviewers should have no conflict of interest with the authors or the article, and the editorial board reserves the right not to use any of the reviewers suggested by the authors.

- The manuscript will not be published in any other language without the consent of the copyright holders.

- The authors have obtained written permission from the copyright holder for materials from other copyrighted sources.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Below you will find instructions for the following procedures:

- How to register at Revista Española de Documentación Científica

- How to send an original manuscript to Revista Española de Documentación Científica

- How to check a revision report and submit a revised version of a manuscript

How to register at Revista Española de Documentación Científica

1.- On the journal's website, click on the link "Register":

2.- On the registration page you will have to fill in all the fields (the "Family name" field is optional, although highly recommended) using lower case only for your email, username and password. After reading the Privacy Statement you will need to consent to the collection and storage of your data and complete the Captcha. Receiving notifications of new publications and notices is optional.

3.- You will receive a message with a link to activate your account at the provided email address. Once activated, you will be able to log in to your account with the credentials you created.

How to send an original manuscript to Revista Española de Documentación Científica

1.- On the magazine's website, log in by clicking on "Login":

2.- Enter your username and password. Once you return to the magazine's homepage, click on the "Make a Submission" button:

Before submitting, please review the "Submission Preparation Checklist" and read the "Author Guidelines", the "Copyright Notice" and the "Privacy Statement". When you have all the required documents ready, click on the link "Make a new submission".

In subsequent logins, you will be taken to your user dashboard. There press the ‘New Submission’ button to submit a new article. You will be shown any articles received and in process under the ‘My Queue’ tab):

3.- As you will see on the new submissions page, submitting a manuscript is a four-stage process, in addition to a final section with information on follow-up:

3.1.- "1. Start"

At this stage you must select the language in which the article is written and the section of the journal in which you think it would fit, you must indicate that you have prepared all the items on the "Submission requirements" list and, optionally, you may send comments to the editor. You must comply with the terms of the Copyright Statement and the collection and storage of your data as the author of the article in accordance with the Privacy Statement of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC).

Then press the "Save and continue" button.

3.2.- "2. Upload submission"

In this phase, the files that make up the article and its additional documentation will be uploaded to the management module.

There are three parts to upload each file. In the first one, we will select which component of the article we are going to contribute and we will upload the corresponding file. Once uploaded, click on the "Continue" button. In the second part we will see the file metadata, with the possibility to edit them, but we will click "Continue" without making this edition.

In the third part, select "Add Another File", going back to "1. Upload file" and, without modifying the default option "This is not a revision of an existing file", select the new "Article Component" identifying what it is and uploading the file. Click "Continue" until you reach, once again, step "3. Confirm". This process must be repeated until all the files have been sent, and only when all the material has been uploaded should the "Complete" button be selected.

If after "Completing" the submission we realise that we have forgotten to upload a file, we can do so by selecting the "Upload File" button located in the upper right-hand corner of the "2. Upload Submission" tab:

Once all the submission files have been uploaded, we will press the "Save and continue" button.

3.3.- "3. Enter Metadata"

In this phase the author will enter the metadata of the article according to the journal guidelines. These are:

- Title in Spanish and English. If the article is written in another language, it will be introduced first this language and then in English.

- Summary or abstract in the same languages as the previous item.

- List of contributors. Although it was not necessary when registering as a journal user, in this section it is compulsory for authors to have their ORCID identifier and affiliation correctly indicated. If necessary, the information of additional authors will be added using the link "Add contributor":

- Keywords. The article keywords will be inserted in both languages. The entire list cannot be copied, must be entered one term at a time pressing "Enter" after each one.

- Funding data. The entities that have supported the research published in the article must be indicated. After selecting "Add funder", the name of the funder should be inserted again, which will trigger an internal search that will return the institution standardised name and DOI. If the institution does not have a DOI, it will not be able to register in this field. After entering the grant numbers, click on "Save".

To finish this phase of entering metadata, click on the "Save and continue" button.

3.4.- "4. Confirmation" y "5. Next steps"

In this last phase we will confirm the submission metadata recording linked to the uploaded files. Before clicking on the "Finish Submission" button, we can go back to the previous phases and review the information and files provided to check that they are all correct.

Once we click on the "Finish Submission" button, the article will be sent to the journal and its staff will contact you to continue with the process, as indicated in the "5. Next Steps" section.

How to check a revision report and submit a revised version of a manuscript

Once your submission has been reviewed, the journal's staff will send you a review report. Once received, you must log in to the journal and, in the "Submissions" section of your dashboard, you will be able to check that your submission is in the Review phase and, if the editorial staff has requested, whether it is necessary to make any modifications or revisions to the manuscript:

By clicking on the title of your submission, you will be taken to the workflow of your submission and you will be able to check the information related to the its review. You will find the notifications that the editorial staff has sent you, the attachments that the reviewers may have attached and, if requested, the possibility to provide a new version of the manuscript with the requested modifications by clicking on the "Upload file" button:

Research data policy

We recommend authors depositing data obtained from the research developed for the preparation of their article in repositories of recognized prestige, specific to the discipline or of a generalist nature. In any case, it must be a FAIR repository (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), preferably in open access.

There are several repositories destined to conserve and disseminate concrete data such as results of surveys, observations, interviews, simulations, automatically collected data, samples, models ... If necessary, authors can consult the Registry of Research Data Repositories re3data taking into account that each repository has its own deposit rules.

Those CSIC authors who would like to deposit their datasets in Digital.CSIC may do so by following these guidelines. They can use the Servicio de Archivo Delegado made available by the Technical Office of DIGITAL.CSIC and the Red de Bibliotecas CSIC.

DIGITAL.CSIC generates DOIs for datasets and associated software and is certified as data repository in re3data and Repository Finder. More information at Política de datos en Digital.CSIC.

If the author has deposited datasets in a repository, he should mention it in the article providing a brief description of the type of data deposited, the name and URL of the repository, the identification code and the data of the license for use and distribution. This information must be included at the end of the article, immediately before the bibliographic listing, under the heading "Data availability".

Download HERE the Good Practice Code in PDF
Download HERE the Authorship Form in PDF