Editorial Policies

C&T Riqchary Journal

1. Open Access Policy

The C&T Riqchary journal provides free, immediate, and unrestricted Open Access to all of its scientific content. Based on the principle that research funded by public or institutional funds should be freely accessible, readers can read, download, copy, distribute, and print articles without the need to register or pay subscriptions.

2. License

All articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This allows others to share, copy, and redistribute the material in any medium or format, provided that authorship is acknowledged, it is not used for commercial purposes, and the content is not modified.

3. No APC Policy (Article Processing Charges)

The journal explicitly and formally declares its commitment to scientific publishing without economic barriers:

• Total Free Access: Publication is completely free for both internal (UNAMBA) and external authors. The journal does not apply Article Processing Charges (APC) or Submission Charges.
• No Hidden Costs: There are no fees for peer review, copyediting, layout, DOI assignment, or early online publication (Online First).
• Institutional Funding: The operating costs of the journal are fully covered by the Publishing Fund and the National University Micaela Bastidas of Apurímac, as part of its policy to promote research and scientific dissemination.
• Transparency: This policy is public and can be verified by any author or indexer in the "Journal Policies" section and in the submission form of the OJS platform.

4. Manuscript Types Policy

The journal accepts the following types of manuscripts, provided they are unpublished and not under evaluation in another journal:

• Original Research Articles: Works presenting results of unpublished empirical or theoretical research (suggested length: 12 pages).
• Review Articles: Systematic reviews or state-of-the-art reports that provide a critical and updated synthesis of a topic (suggested length: 12 to 15 pages).

5. Peer Review Policy

Peer review is the pillar of Riqchary's scientific quality. The process is governed by the principles of transparency, impartiality, confidentiality, and academic integrity (COPE).

• Review Model: A double-blind peer review model is applied. Authors do not know the identity of the reviewers and vice versa. Authors must submit an anonymized version of their manuscript.
• Process Stages:
  1. Administrative Verification (3-7 days): The editorial team verifies compliance with formatting rules, originality (anti-plagiarism software), and thematic scope.
  2. Editorial Evaluation / Desk Review (7-14 days): The Editor evaluates the relevance and minimum quality of the manuscript.
  3. External Peer Review (3-6 weeks): Two external expert reviewers in the field, holding a Ph.D. or Master's degree, not affiliated with the publishing institution or the authors, are assigned.
  4. Editorial Decision: Based on the reports, the Editor decides: Accepted, Accepted with minor corrections, Resubmit for new review (major corrections), or Rejected.
• Reviewers' Responsibilities: They must declare conflicts of interest, maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript, not use generative Artificial Intelligence tools to write their reports, and submit their evaluation within a maximum period of 30 days.
• Appeal Policy: If an author believes there was a procedural error or an undeclared conflict of interest, they may send a formal communication to the Editor, who will evaluate the case with the Editorial Board.

6. Ethics and Scientific Integrity Policy

The journal adheres to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to ensure the integrity of the editorial process:

• Originality and Plagiarism: All manuscripts are verified using similarity software. Works with unjustified similarity indices or with practices of plagiarism, self-plagiarism, or data fabrication will be rejected.
• Authorship: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the study. All authors must approve the final version and assume public responsibility for the content.
• Conflicts of Interest: Authors, reviewers, and editors must declare any conflict of interest (financial, institutional, or personal) that could influence the evaluation or publication of the work.
• Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI): Authors must declare in their manuscript if they have used generative AI tools in the writing or data analysis. AI cannot be listed as an author.

7. Digital Preservation Policy

The C&T Riqchary journal guarantees the long-term preservation, integrity, and continuous access to its scientific contents, using a two-layer preservation strategy:

• Preservation in the Editorial System (OJS): The journal uses the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform as its primary management and publication system. The metadata and complete files of each article are kept on UNAMBA's institutional servers, ensuring immediate availability of the contents.
• Second preservation in the Institutional Repository: As a second backup measure and to guarantee long-term permanence, all published volumes of the journal are deposited and preserved in the Institutional Repository of the National University Micaela Bastidas of Apurímac.

8. Plagiarism Detection Policy

All received manuscripts are subjected to a similarity analysis using specialized tools (such as Turnitin or similar) before being sent for peer review. A maximum similarity limit of 25% is established (excluding quotes and references). Manuscripts that exceed this threshold without adequate justification will be returned to the authors or rejected.

9. Submission Policy and Author Guidelines

• Mandatory Use of Template: Authors must use the official template available on the journal's website. Manuscripts that do not comply with this format will not be accepted.
• Layout by the Author: The layout, formatting, and final format of the manuscript are the exclusive responsibility of the author submitting the work. The author must deliver the document already laid out according to the template; the editorial team does not perform design or text restructuring tasks, it only verifies compliance with the format.
• Submission: Manuscripts must be submitted exclusively through the journal's OJS platform.
• References: They must strictly follow IEEE standards.
• Documentation: An Originality Letter and a Declaration of Conflicts of Interest signed by all authors must be attached.