About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Acta Odontológica Colombiana is a serial, biannual (January-June, July-December), peer-reviewed journal, edited by the School of Dentistry of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. It is available electronically and for download in PDF format. The journal is intended for an audience of scholars, researchers, students, and professionals who are interested in the current issues and results of scientific and research activity in dentistry at the national and international level.

The Acta Odontológica Colombiana journal only publishes original papers that have not been previously published and are not under consideration in any other journal.

The Acta Odontológica Colombiana journal aims to publish research results evidencing the development of academic, technical, scientific, and ethical knowledge in dentistry, oral health, or general health. This research could be related to aspects of clinical practice, public health, bioethics, education, basic sciences, biotechnology, and dental materials. Similarly, it aims at consolidating the exchange of knowledge, experiences, and researchers at the national and international level. The journal accepts articles that are the result of qualitative or quantitative studies, literature reviews, case reports, essays, letters to the editor, and book reviews. Documents may be written in English or Spanish.

The Acta Odontológica Colombiana journal has an Editorial Committee, an international Scientific Committee, and a clear and rigorous peer-review process for all the documents proposed for publication.

Peer Review Process

With the purpose of ensuring the quality of the articles published, the journal implements an initial selection process, which is carried out by the Editorial Committee, and then, a peer-review process. The evaluation process to which articles are subject consists of the following steps:

Originality check (using the Turnitin® software) and compliance with the basic criteria for submission defined in the authors’ guidelines (article structure, referencing, word count, among others). After this revision, the first comments and requests for adjustments are made (if necessary). Once the required adjustments have been made, authors must send the revised version of their article.
First review by the Editor and Editorial Committee. As selection criteria, the submitted document’s scientific soundness, originality, relevance, and potential impact are considered. At this stage, it is decided whether the article will continue to the following stage for peer review.
The journal works in collaboration with external reviewers who are unrelated to its editorial team and the editing institution. Peer review is conducted through a double-blind process and is implemented for all research articles. Finding the appropriate reviewers (two per article) and the evaluation itself take approximate 8 to 10 weeks. This period may increase in case of opposed or contradictory evaluations between the two initial reviewers.
If the initial review process results in opposed or contradictory evaluations between the two reviewers, the Editorial Committee will invite a third reviewer to assess the manuscript. After considering his/her opinion, the Editorial Committee will make an initial decision and send to the authors the reviewers’ comments and a request for amendments. The Editorial Committee’s decision could be: a) The text is publishable without modifications, b) The text is publishable with minor modifications, c) The text requires major modifications and a new evaluation, d) The text is not publishable.
Once the required adjustments are made, the authors must send the revised version of their article, along with a letter in response to all the comments made by the reviewers, indicating the section of the document where the changes were made or, if necessary, the arguments stating the reason why the suggested changes were not made.
The revised version of the article and the response letter will be sent to reviewers for a second evaluation round, looking to obtain a final verdict. In case of additional suggestions from the evaluators, these will be relayed to the authors.
Approval of the article by the Editorial Committee upon the consideration of the final peer evaluations. After this approval, the article is submitted to a style correction.
Publication of the article. For this last step, authors must complete the form called “Statement of originality, property rights, authors’ rights and authorization for publication,” which will be sent to the authors before publication.

Open Access Policy

Once the articles are approved and ready for publication, and the transfer of rights is obtained, the Acta Odontológica Colombiana journal provides free access to its content, under the principle of making available and free of charge, research results, case studies, reflections, or reviews to the public and to the academic and scientific community in general.

Anti-plagiarism policy

To guarantee quality, integrity, and originality, the journal analyzes the manuscripts submitted for revision and possible publication with the Turnitin® software, to verify and identify possible plagiarisms or copyright violations. The journal is committed to the strict compliance of the citation rules, following the Vancouver referencing style in its current version. Additionally, the journal is committed to the scientific integrity criteria, a requirement imposed on every submitted manuscript.

Publishing ethics

The Acta Odontolgógica Colombiana journal and its entire editorial team adopt the guidelines established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (www.icmje.org), by Equator Network (http://www.equator-network.org/) and by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (http://publicationethics.org/) to guarantee the quality, transparency, and integrity of scientific publications and the compliance of ethical principles governing biomedical research.

The Acta Odontolgógica Colombiana journal will make all efforts to ensure that research articles are the result of projects carried out following research ethical rules, both national and international, according to the type of research conducted, such as Resolution 008430 of 1993, Resolution 2378 of 2008, or Law 84 of 1989 (for research with non-human animals), at the national level; and the Helsinki Declaration of 2013, the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights of 2005, the CIOMS 2016 Guidelines, the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights of 1977, and everything related to copyrights and scientific integrity, at the international level.

If necessary, the journal will publish corrections, clarifications, errata, retractions, and apologies.

Conflicts of interests

Authors of articles published in the Acta Odontológica Colombiana journal must guarantee that they have no conflicts of interests, that the results presented to the readers are free from external interferences or pressures from institutions or sectors of any kind. This way, the Acta Odontológica Colombiana journal will offer society, professionals, the science, and academic world publications with integrity, veracity, transparency, and ethically sustained.

Funding model and costs for authors and readers

The Acta Odontológica Colombiana journal is funded by the National University of Colombia through the School of Dentistry in all the aspects related to publishing management. In this sense, the journal does not charge authors for submission, evaluation, diagramming, and publication. Similarly, the journal does not charge readers to access the electronically-available material or for downloading it. It is a not-for-profit open access publication.

Reviewer Guidelines

Reviewers who accept collaborating with the journal must register in our Open Journal System (OJS) platform to start the evaluation process. Once logged in with their user name and password, they will have access to the assigned article. Then, they must download the article file from the platform to review it and, subsequently, complete the virtual evaluation form on the OJS platform.

The form comprises five sections. First, the title and abstract of the article must be evaluated: here, it must be stated if the title synthesizes the core of the article and, regarding the abstract, whether it reflects the objective, methodology, results, and main conclusion of the study. Second, the introduction is evaluated: reviewers should assess if the research problem is identified, the background literature supporting the problem is presented, and if the objective of the study is clearly expressed.

The third point assesses methodology, results and discussion: the reviewer is expected to determine if the article proposes a rigorous methodology that is in line with the research problem and the objective proposed. In addition, it is important to examine if the results are presented clearly and consistently with the objective of the article. As regards the discussion and conclusions, the reviewer should indicate if these are in line with a rigorous analysis of results and if the conclusions are coherent with the objective proposed for the study.

The fourth point deals with references: are references sufficient, up-to-date, and relevant? Lastly, a general balance of the article is requested (its argument and contribution): the reviewer must account for certain fundamental aspects of the article, namely, whether it is original and if the argument is organized logically and progressively, whether the article uses scientific terms correctly, and if it contributes or enriches a field of interest in dentistry and/or health. Finally, the reviewer must issue an opinion suggesting to the editor whether the article should be accepted, requires revisions (minor or major) or, if it should be rejected.