Focus and Scope

Educación Química is a quarterly magazine with an international character published by the Faculty of Chemistry of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. It is an open access, peer-reviewed, electronic, academic journal that aspires to fill the communication and expression gap that exists between students, teachers, and researchers in science education, and in particular chemical education. It seeks to gradually constitute a forum for orientation and analysis that favors the improvement of the chemistry teaching and learning process, through the application of the findings of reflection, didactics and educational research, without forgetting the dissemination of new or forgotten topics.

        The magazine turned thirty years old in 2019 and is indexed in various databases, among others by Chemical Abstract Services since 1993 and by Scopus since 2010. It has an editorial committee with representatives from three educational institutions and an advisory committee international. In recent years, most of the articles published in the magazine have been written by authors from different countries. Through chemistry and good teaching, he intends to collaborate with the social, economic, environmental and cultural development of our Ibero-American region, in the context of global society. To do this, it publishes original articles in our two own languages, Spanish and Portuguese, in addition to doing so in English.

        Its creation, in 1989, was promoted by Andoni Garritz its founding director until 2015. From 2014 it became an exclusively electronic magazine. From its foundation to 2015 it had two periods and more than 1500 articles were published. From the third period on, Chemical Education has an editorial board made up of several chemistry educators, most of them from the former editorial boards and from an International Advisory Council made up of distinguished colleagues.

Peer Review Process

It should be noted that all articles are reviewed by external reviewers outside the editorial team and the publishing institution.

Technical review

The writing submitted for publication will be read and evaluated first by the editor-in-chief, who will decide whether the article should go to the review stage, as long as it complies with the editorial standards. This process takes about a week.

Dictamination

The double-blind peer review consists of the submitted research being examined by two experts specialized in the central theme of the article. The term granted at this stage is approximately three weeks. There are three possible outcomes: publishable, non-publishable, and publishable with modifications. In the latter case, we will continue with the next step: the observations and / or suggestions made by the reviewers will be sent to the author in order to make the necessary modifications.

Author's Corrections

The author has a maximum of 30 days to make the pertinent changes and corrections suggested by the reviewers and to send the final version. The article will be revised to corroborate the changes suggested in the opinion.

Edition

Before the issue is published, the articles are submitted for editing. This editorial work is carried out with the aim of converting the article into a digital object (PDF, HTML and eBook). The process of editing a number of Chemical Education lasts approximately between one and two months according to the length of the texts.

Publication

Once the galleys of the article have been reviewed and accepted, it will be published in the number determined by the editor-in-chief.

Review guidelines

It is convenient that the authors know the criteria that are asked of the referees during the evaluation process. The editors have agreed to judge the contributions according to the following guidelines:

1. Is the topic of the article relevant? Will it collaborate in a clear way to improve chemistry education in the region? Is it indicated how, with reading the article, you can do it?
2. Is the objective of the work explicitly stated? Is the question you are trying to solve or is the objective you are trying to develop significant? Is it fully justified?
3. Is the development of the writing adequate? Can you continue without problem? Is every step taken justified? Is it properly illustrated? Is the argument conclusive?
4. If it is a qualitative or quantitative field research, is the theoretical framework and the methodology from which it is carried out identified? Is the definition of the sample, its statistical validity, the techniques and the method of analysis adequate?
5. Is there rigor, relevance and originality in the conclusions? Are they strictly derived from what was contributed during the development of the article? Are predictable conclusions drawn from the start? Are there innovations?
6. Is the wording and language correctness appropriate? What words, paragraphs or portions of the text need to be improved in this regard?
7. Is the cited bibliography relevant? Is it long enough? Is most of the previous contributions in the field considered? Are references to Ibero-American magazines incorporated?

Based on the above, the referees will recommend one of the following options:

1. Acceptance.
2. Acceptance conditional on making small changes.
3. Acceptance conditional on making big changes.
4. The rejection of the article, but with the suggestion to submit it again for evaluation in the following six months.
5. The definitive rejection of the article.

In the second and third cases, the questions to be eliminated, corrected or added will be explicitly mentioned. In the fourth, the referee will issue a justification based on the breach of any of the established criteria. Any discrepancy between the referees will be resolved by the Editorial Committee.

NOTE: Selected and published works will remain the property of the journal, unless the main author submits in writing the decision to withdraw the article for publication.

Periodicity

Since July 1989, Educación Química has been published quarterly at the Faculty of Chemistry of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Our readers will be able to find a new issue in January, April, July and October.

Sections

In this new era, the different sections of Educación Química in which the received articles will be located will be focused, more than on the topics, on the forms. They are intended to reflect the various ways of approaching the educational fact. From little more than forty of the previous eras, it went to four, which integrate them in one way or another and which are the following:

• Reflections. Solidly documented theoretical research on the various topics related to chemistry education. It is the place for articles of a historical, philosophical, technological and social nature where their relationship with education must be made explicit. In-depth reviews on explicit chemistry education topics will also be considered here. It brings together the old sections of: Dust Off, Nobel Laureates, Emerging Subject Areas in Chemistry Education, Green Chemistry, Women in Chemistry.
• Didactics. Proposals on the various ways in which chemistry can be taught, learned and / or enjoyed. Appeals to teaching techniques and methods, to curricular or evaluation modifications, to the incorporation of new modalities and / or new instruments and / or new practices. They are proposals used partially or totally by their authors, but not necessarily subject to extensive and / or deep validation, therefore the quality of the argumentation and the documentary strength that sustains them is very relevant. Many of the articles from the old sections would fit here: How it is modeled, How it is synthesized, How it is experienced, Curricula, Teacher training, Science Technology and Society.
• Investigations. Solidly documented and clearly evaluated educational research. Here it is necessary to identify the theoretical framework and the methodology from which the research is carried out. The articles in this section correspond totally or partially to those that were classified in the old sections of Educational Research, Chemistry Didactics, Educational Evaluation.
• Communications. This section seeks to document for a non-expert public, a certain topic of the many that can be considered chemical. It groups together the old sections of Teachers to the Day, Elementary, Chemiotriviarejecta, ICT and chemistry education, Dissemination of chemistry and of course the Reviews.

The journal will have other sections not open to free authors and which will be defined by the Editorial Committee, in which articles will be received by invitation such as that of the Nobel Prize - on the research of the Nobel Prizes awarded in December of the previous year, whether in Chemistry, Physics or Medicine— or the editorials themselves or those dedicated to information for readers.

Free for publication and reading of articles

Educación Química does not charge for any of the academic-editorial tasks that it carries out or is carried out through it. Neither the opinion nor the correction of style, nor the publication of the articles or any other content entail any cost for the author (s). Also, we express our openness to the participation of authors outside the publishing entity.

The online reading of any of the articles and other works that he publishes is free.

Copyright

This journal will retain the rights of reproduction and distribution of the documents published in it and gives the author the right to withdraw his manuscripts during the editorial process prior to publication, as long as the main author submits the decision to withdraw the article in writing. In addition, this journal is open access inasmuch as these documents will be available to the scientific community as long as copyright is respected through the corresponding citation.

Cession of rights

The author (s) will undertake to sign a letter of assignment of rights that they must send to the magazine Educación Química and give their authorization for the publication of their article.

Code of ethics

The Editorial Committee of Educación Química will only submit for an opinion of its portfolio of referees, articles that have not appeared in printed or online publications and that are not in the editorial process in other magazines or books, neither printed nor electronic. On the first page of the article the author must declare that it is original, has not been published and is not being considered elsewhere.

Our code has the following purposes:

1. Establish the criteria to be followed by all members of the editorial team, the authors, the reviewers and the collaborators involved in the process of editing and publishing the papers that are intended to be published.
2. Eliminate those practices that affect the functions of the editorial team, as well as the processes of edition, opinion and publication of articles.

Responsibility.

Editorial team:

• Publicize the peer review processes so that the authors know what the evaluation criteria are.
• Basing the decision to accept or reject a work for publication considering only the importance of the writing, the originality, clarity and relevance that the work represents for the magazine.
• Guarantee the quality of the material that is published.
• Do whatever is necessary to correct promptly and with due importance when any significant inaccuracies have been posted.
• Not tolerate plagiarism or any other unethical conduct and, where appropriate, remove any article that does not meet these standards.

Authors:

• They must disclose any conflict of a financial nature or other interest that could influence the results or interpretation of your manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project must be disclosed.
• Immediately notify the editor-in-chief of the journal when you discover a significant error or inaccuracy in your published work, and cooperate with him to retract or correct the error or inaccuracy.
• Contemplate and strictly apply the editorial standards.

Dictaminators:

• They must notify the editor-in-chief of the journal or the section editor of any conflict of interest.
• The reviewers should not evaluate the writings in which they have conflicts of interest.
• Notify the editor-in-chief in the shortest possible time if he is qualified to review the research of a writing, or if he is not in the possibility of making the revision.
• Immediately notify the editor-in-chief of any information sufficient to reject the publication of the article or any other writing.
• Evaluate only the intellectual content of each article or work.

Transparency.

1. Any doubts from the authors must be answered promptly, offering them a solution at all times.
2. Notify the authors of a brief description of the review process, as well as justify any change in said process, if applicable.
3. Properly inform the author of the phase of the editorial process in which the submitted text is found, as well as the resolutions of the opinion.

Confidentiality.

1. Keep and treat the information related to each writing confidentially.
2. Guarantee the confidentiality of the evaluation process: the identity of the authors may not be revealed to the reviewers; and vice versa. The identities of the authors and the reviewers will be protected.
3. No information about an original submitted will be disclosed to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, or other editorial consultants.
4. Do not use unpublished materials, disclosed in an original, in personal research without the express written consent of the author.
5. Insider information or ideas obtained through peer review will be kept confidential and will not be used for personal gain.
6. Editors must make fair and impartial decisions and ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process.

Indexes, catalogs and databases