Author Guidelines

Luna Azul is an electronic journal published and funded by the Universidad de Caldas (Colombia), a public institution of national scope. This journal is a peer-reviewed academic publication issued biannually that publishes original articles related to environmental or ecological topics. These articles may come from any discipline or field of knowledge, provided they address ecological and environmental issues—understood in the broadest sense—from some perspective.

The journal’s publications are open access and free for authors and readers, thanks to funding from the University of Caldas, which is why its open-access route is Diamond.

The journal publishes editorials, scientific and technological research articles, reflections derived from research, and reviews, whose general characteristics are:

• Editorial. A document written by the editor, a member of the editorial board, or a guest researcher providing guidance on the journal’s thematic scope.

• Scientific and Technological Research Article. A document that presents, in detail, the original results of completed research projects.

• Reflection Article. A document that presents the results of completed research from the author’s analytical, interpretive, or critical perspective on a specific topic, drawing on original sources.

• Review article. A document resulting from completed research that analyzes, systematizes, and integrates the results of published or unpublished research on a field in science or technology, with the aim of reporting on advances and development trends. It is characterized by presenting a careful literature review of at least 50 references.

Document Requirements

The document must be submitted in Word format, with graphs, tables, photographs, and other elements included in the text exactly where they are intended to appear in the final version. The font must be Times New Roman 12, with 1.15 line spacing and a maximum length of 10,000 words, excluding the bibliography. If the document size exceeds 10 MB, it must be sent compressed in zip format. The file must be named using the first five words of the article’s title. If abbreviations are to be used, ensure that the first time they appear, the full name is provided followed by the abbreviation that will be used thereafter; ideally, abbreviations should not be used.
The Luna Azul Journal publishes articles written in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.
The different sections of the article must meet the following requirements:

• Title: must be clear and concise. It must not contain abbreviations.

• Authors: The first and last names of all authors must be included, and for each author, an automatic footnote at the end of the text must provide their academic titles, institutional affiliation, contact email address, ORCID code, and Google Scholar profile link. Articles with up to five authors are accepted; if there are five authors, the role of each in the research must be clarified to clearly justify the authorship.

• Abstract: a structured text of up to 300 words that must include: introduction, objective, method, most significant results, and most relevant conclusion. It must be submitted in Spanish and English.

• Keywords: between three and five words included in the Environmental Thesaurus for Colombia (http://www.invemar.org.co/redcostera1/invemar/docs/tesauro_ambiental/naveg.htm). They must be provided in Spanish and English.

• Introduction: includes the rationale and objectives of the research, as well as a summary of the theoretical framework.

• Materials and Methods: describes the type of study and its design, as well as the population, the sampling technique, and the sample selection process. The instruments and procedures used for data collection and analysis must be specified.

• Results: must be presented in an orderly, clear, and concise manner.

• Discussion: may be presented separately or within the same chapter as the results; includes an analysis of the relationship between the results obtained and those generated by other authors; highlights the similarities and differences found and emphasizes new aspects; and examines the implications of the findings, their limitations, and their implications for future research.

• Conclusions and recommendations: a section to present the most relevant findings of the research from the perspective of the subject of study; these may be drafted based on the objectives proposed in the research.

• Bibliographic references: Bibliographic references must follow APA style guidelines and include all elements required by the standard, such as providing the source link, correctly placing commas and parentheses, and using italics appropriately. In direct quotations, the page number of the reference must be clearly identified.

• Notes: These should be listed consecutively at the end of the text and used for clarifications, comments, discussions, or suggestions by the author; under no circumstances should they include bibliographic sources.

• Acknowledgments: A section for authors to express their gratitude to collaborators or funding institutions that supported the research in any way.

• Potential conflict of interest: a statement by the authors regarding the possible existence of a conflict of interest in the conduct of the research.

• Funding sources: sources of funding used to carry out the research.

• Appendices: only if essential.

The Luna Azul Journal evaluates the degree of similarity with existing publications and tolerates a maximum similarity of 15%.

Submission of documents

Contributions must be submitted via the “Submit an Article” link after registering as an author on the OJS platform.
It is important that the email address provided is active to receive any responses or messages that may arise.
The submission must specify the type of article being submitted: scientific and technological research, reflection derived from research, or a review.

The submission of the article must be accompanied by:

A separate Word file containing the CV of each author (see format). The file must be named using the author’s first name and last name.

The authors’ statement of commitment, duly signed by all authors and in the order of authorship established in the article (see format). The file must be named using the first five words of the article’s title.

A list of at least four potential reviewers, who must hold a master’s or doctoral degree, work at institutions other than those of the authors, and have an H-index of at least 2. For each potential reviewer, provide the full name, whether they hold a master’s or doctoral degree, email address, nationality, and H-index (see format).

Evaluation of submissions

Initially, the article will be evaluated by the Editor to determine whether it meets the requirements outlined in “Document Characteristics” and “Submission of Documents.” The result of this evaluation will be communicated to the submitting author via the OJS platform. If the submission is incomplete, a period of 8 days will be granted to complete it; if this is not done, the submission will be rejected.

Subsequently, the Editor conducts a similarity check using Turnitin with the following filters: the text is compared against content from the Internet, newspapers, journals, and other publications; the bibliography and direct quotations are excluded. A similarity rate exceeding 15% results in the rejection of the article, and no extensions or opportunities for revision will be granted.

If the article meets the aforementioned requirements, its abstract will be sent for evaluation by the Editorial Committee to determine whether its subject matter aligns with the journal’s policies and whether it meets the minimum requirements for peer review: originality, novelty, relevance, and methodological quality. The results of this evaluation will be communicated to the author who submitted the article via the OJS platform. In this process, the Editorial Board will not know the name of the author(s).

Following this approval, the article will be sent to two peer reviewers, who must hold a master’s or doctoral degree with an H-index of at least 2; this third evaluation will include the following aspects: originality, conceptual and methodological rigor, text structure , treatment of the topic, relevance, and formal aspects of the writing. This evaluation will be communicated to the author of the article via email, so that the necessary adjustments requested by the reviewers can be made. Evaluations below 380/500 will result in the rejection of the article.

Upon receipt of the article with the corrections made, the Journal Editor will verify compliance with the reviewers’ suggestions and analyze the justifications for any that were not taken into account.
Once this phase is approved, the article will be sent for stylistic editing and then returned to the author for any necessary adjustments.

Finally, the revised and formatted document will be sent to the author for approval before proceeding with publication.

Final statements

Luna Azul magazine reserves the rights to print and reproduce the material in whole or in part, as well as the right to accept or reject it and to make any editorial modifications it deems appropriate.
Articles in this journal may be reproduced in whole or in part, provided the source and author are cited; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the journal and are published under the authors’ responsibility.
The estimated average timelines for the editorial process are as follows:

• Receipt of the submission via OJS: two weeks

• Review of compliance with the article’s requirements: two weeks

• Review by the Editorial Committee: two weeks

• Peer review: three months
Copyediting: one month

• Layout: one month

Guide for peer review

The evaluation of articles published by the Luna Azul Journal follows the double-blind principle and uses the criteria of originality, relevance, methodological rigor, quality of the text’s structure, rigor in the treatment of the topic, and formal quality of the writing. Peer reviewers (two per article) must hold a master’s or doctoral degree, work at institutions other than those of the authors, and have an H-index of at least 2.
The peer review is recorded on a form (see template) that includes a quantitative score for each aspect and its corresponding qualitative justification; it also includes a final overall assessment recommending whether or not the article should be published.

The first column of the form specifies the item to be evaluated; the second column lists the maximum score for each item; the third column provides space to enter the assigned score; and the fourth column is for the justification of the assigned score.

In the evaluation, the peer reviewer must explicitly state their declaration of conflict of interest, as well as their stance on confidentiality and plagiarism.

In order to improve the journal’s quality, visibility, and academic recognition, peer reviewers must attach their CV (see template), which must include their ORCID code, a link to their Google Scholar profile, and a link to CvLac (the latter only if they are Colombian).

The journal’s editor will issue a review certificate upon receiving the review and will send it to the corresponding reviewer via email.

Metadata and digital preservation policy

The Luna Azul Journal complies with interoperability criteria, as article submissions are made through OJS, which automatically generates metadata tags for the article’s key information. The information is deposited in the institutional repository (UCaldas Library), which in turn deposits it in RedCol (national level) and LA Referencia (Latin American level).