Author Guidelines

General Information

MODULEMA. Scientific Journal on Cultural Diversity, edited by the University of Granada and the Research Group “Curricular Innovation in Multicultural Contexts" (HUM-358), is a multidisciplinary and international open access scientific journal that publishes scientific articles on Cultural Diversity on a continuous basis. Its legal deposit is ML-37-2017 and its ISSN is 2530-934X.

MODULEMA is a peer-reviewed journal that submits all articles received to a double-blind peer-review process.

Topics

MODULEMA accepts original and unpublished scientific papers on any topic related to Cultural Diversity. These papers should not be under review in other journals or have been previously published. It is the responsibility of the authors to comply with this rule. Both theoretical and research papers are accepted.

Contributions

MODULEMA journal publishes papers written in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese. Innovation in the field, relevance and originality of the topic, reliability, and validity of the study (in research papers), its presentation and organization, as well as compliance with all the rules of the journal will be assessed.

Papers for each of the following journal sections are accepted:

A. Editorials

Editorials will be published at the request of the Editorial Board or interested parties, subject to evaluation by the Editorial Board. They do not necessarily need to express the official position of the journal's Editorial Board, unless this is explicitly stated in the article itself. Editorials should be no longer than 1500 words, with up to ten references and a maximum of two tables or figures (see style guide); they should include a brief abstract and up to five keywords. These publications will be evaluated by the Editorial Board of the journal, and should include the following sections:

• Title of the editorial. The title should be included in Spanish and English and, if the editorial is written in another language, a third one should be included in the language used in the text. It cannot be longer than 12 words.
• Authorship. Full name and surname, in the order of signature. If the authors belong to different centres or institutions, a superscript number will be used to indicate the affiliation of each one. For example: Ana Gómez Pérez1, Juan González Fernández2. Additionally, all the authors of the editorial should be registered in the journal's platform and have an ORCID Digital Identifier.
• Institutional affiliation data. Institution, centre, city, and country of the institution where the authors work.
• E-mail address. The email address of the primary or correspondence author must be included. Optionally, the e-mail addresses of the other authors may also be added.
• Summary. It should be written in the same languages as the Title. Each one will have a limit of 250 words. It will be clear and concise, indicating the relevant information to be communicated.
• Key words. Between 3 and 5 words should be included, separated by commas, and following the UNESCO Thesaurus. They will be included after the abstract in each of the languages of the editorial.
• Body of the editorial. It should have a maximum length of 1500 words.
• Bibliographical references: References should be presented in alphabetical order and follow APA standards in their latest version (apastyle.org). The journal's style guide can be used for reference.

B. Research Articles

The articles should be original and unpublished, and not be in the process of being evaluated or submitted to any other journal. Regarding the content, they should refer to a topic related to Cultural Diversity. All papers will follow a double-blind peer-review process.

The articles should be written in accordance with the specific template designed for this purpose, whose structure is as follows:

• Title of the article. The title should be included in Spanish and English and, if the article is written in another language, a third one should be included in the language used in the text. It cannot be longer than 12 words.
• Authorship. Full name and surname, in the order of signature. If the authors belong to different centres or institutions, a superscript number will be used to indicate the affiliation of each one. For example: Ana Gómez Pérez1, Juan González Fernández2. Additionally, all the authors should be registered in the journal's platform and have an ORCID Digital Identifier. Finally, the contribution made by each author in the submitted paper should be indicated.
• Institutional affiliation data. Institution, centre, city, and country of the institution where the authors work.
• E-mail address.. The email address of the primary or correspondence author must be included. Optionally, the e-mail addresses of the other authors may also be added.
• Summary. It should be written in the same languages as the Title. Each one will have a limit of 250 words. It will be clear and concise, indicating the relevant information to be communicated. The IMRYD format will be followed: Introduction, which will include the objective or purpose of the research; Methodology, which will include the basic procedures (design, selection of samples or cases, methods and techniques of experimentation or observation, and analysis); Results, main findings (specific data and their statistical significance, when applicable); Discussion and conclusions.
• Key words. Between 3 and 5 words should be included, separated by commas, and following the UNESCO Thesaurus. They will be included after the abstract in each of the languages of the editorial.
• Body of the article. It should be between 4000 and 6000 words long. It will contain the following sections: Introduction (the objectives of the work will be detailed at the end), Methodology, Results, Discussion and Conclusions, and Bibliographical references, which should be presented in alphabetical order and follow APA standards in their latest version (apastyle.org). The journal's style guide can be used for reference.
• Acknowledgements (if applicable).
• Funding source. If the research has been funded by an organisation, please indicate the funding source of the research resulting in the work being presented.
• Contribution of each participant. The contribution of each author of the manuscript should be indicated.
• Conflict of interest. Indicate whether there is any conflict of interest.
• A brief Curriculum Vitae. It should be submitted by all the authors. In a maximum of 100 words, full name, academic training, place of work, lines of research, and recent publications or publications of interest will be stated. In this case only the title, publisher or journal, and year of publication are required. A recent photograph may be attached. Likewise, profiles to research social networks may be added (e.g. Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Publons...).

In order to comply with good editorial practice on gender equality, authors of research articles that consider the sex variable are encouraged to report on whether the conclusions have taken into account possible differences between the sexes.

C. Reviews

This type of text will critically analyse a work of special interest for the subject matter of the journal and recently published, no more than three years after it was first published.

Reviews should be written according to the following structure:

• Title of the work reviewed. The bibliographic data should be provided (in the case of an article in a journal: author, year, title of publication, journal, volume, initial and final page number, and ISSN; in the case of a book: author, year, title of publication, city, publisher, and ISBN). Additionally, the images of the front cover and of the editorial data page are required (JPG or PNG format, resolution 72 ppi, size 320x280 px).
• Subtitle (if applicable).
• Authorship. Name and surname of the author of the review.
• Institutional affiliation data. Institution, centre, city and country of the institution where the author works.
• Content. The review should not exceed 1000 words, from the title to the bibliographical references.
• Bibliographical references. Other bibliographical references may be included if they appear in the body of the text. In this case, they should be presented in alphabetical order and follow the latest version of the APA guidelines (apastyle.org). The journal's style guide can be used for reference.
• Brief Curriculum Vitae of the author of the review indicating, in a maximum length of 100 words, full name, academic training, place of work, lines of research, and recent publications or publications of interest. In this case, only the title, publisher or journal, and year of publication are required. Optionally, a recent photograph may be attached.

Editorial Process

Manuscripts will be submitted through the digital platform of the University of Granada Journals. It can be accessed through the following link. If the authors are not registered in the journal, they can do it from this other link. It is important that all the authors of the manuscript are registered.

In the case of manuscripts addressed to the articles section, three documents must be included in the submission:

• Text of the article
• Authorship details
• Responsible declaration

A. Required documents

TEXT OF THE ARTICLE

The text of the article will be anonymised to ensure that the peer review is carried out anonymously. To this end, before uploading the article, please check that the following steps related to the text and article properties have been followed.

• Delete the names in the text and check whether "Author" (year) has been used in references, citations, and footnotes instead of the author's name, title, and other elements identifying authorship.
  • In Microsoft Office documents, the author identification should also be removed from the file properties.
    • Pre-2016 Word documents. Click on "Save as", then click on "Tools", then on "Security" and tick "Remove personal information from file properties when saving". Save the document.
    • For Word 2016 and later. Once the document has been opened in Microsoft Word, click on "File", then click on "Information" in the new menu, click on "inspect document", keep the "Comments, revisions, versions and annotations" checked, as well as "Document properties and personal information", and click on "Inspect". Afterwards, in the new window, click on "delete all" for both of the above options. Save the document without personal information.
• When the document is uploaded, the "Article text" option will be indicated in the application.

AUTHORSHIP DOCUMENT

The authorship document must include the following information for each of the authors of the manuscript:

• Name and surname
• Affiliation
• ORCID
• E-mail address of the contact person
• Source of funding
• Brief curriculum vitae
• When uploading the document, please indicate the option "Other" in the application.

RESPONSIBLE DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

The responsible declaration of authorship document will also reflect authorship, as well as originality, ethical responsibilities, and declaration of conflicts of interest.

• When uploading the document, please indicate the "Other" option in the application.
• It must be signed by all authors in the manuscript.

B. Stages in the editorial process

The editorial process is made up of four phases.

STAGE 1. SUBMISSION

It will be carried out following the previous indications. The submitter of the article will send, via the platform, the three documents previously mentioned (text, authorship, and responsible declaration) and will fill in the data requested in the submission forms.

In the start section, all the requested data will be filled in. Once completed, click on continue, going on to the upload section.

The three documents mentioned previously must be uploaded, indicating in each one which type of component it belongs to.

Firstly, the manuscript with the text of the article will be uploaded.

Once this upload has been completed, click on “send another file”. The Authorship document will then be uploaded following the same steps as previously indicated. It is important to remember that the "Other" option must be selected as the article component.

The same steps will be followed to upload the Responsible Declaration document.

Once the process has been completed, the section will be shown as in the following image.

Save the data and continue with section 3 " Enter metadata".

All the requested data must be provided. In the case of the title, abstract and key words, please remember that they must be included in Spanish and English. Additionally, the language in which the document is written must be indicated.

Similarly, it is important to add whether the article is part of any funded research; in this case, it should be indicated in the "Funding agencies" section. The reference of the funded project must be correctly included.

The names and surnames of all the signatories of the manuscript will be added. Click on "Add contributor". It is important to fill in all the requested data, as well as to indicate in the appropriate boxes who the primary contact is and if they are in browse lists.

Once you have filled in all the data, click on "Save and continue" to go to the “Confirmation section”.

You can now go back to review all previous information and complete the submission.

STAGE 2. REVIEW

Once the new submission has been received by the journal, a member of the editorial committee will review the aspects included in the document “Editorial pre-evaluation form”.

Once the review is completed, the same member of the editorial committee may return it for modification and/or rectification of those aspects that do not conform to the journal's standards, assign external reviewers to the manuscript, or reject the submission. In the latter case, the review process ends and the contact person will be informed and the manuscript will be archived. In the first case, the signatories will have a maximum of 10 days to respond to the publisher's requirements. After receiving the response, the editor may return the manuscript again, send it to external reviewers or reject it. During this process, the document will be analyzed by the Turnitin anti-plagiarism system, and a high percentage of plagiarism may be cause for rejection.

Once the submission has been accepted by the editorial committee, the manuscript will be sent to members of the national, international or journal's own committee for evaluation. These members will follow the evaluation protocol established by the journal, which is available at the following   link. The evaluations received must conform to one of the following modalities: Accept submission, Accept submission with modifications or Reject. In all cases, a justification must be attached and sent to the signatories of the manuscript.

In order for a manuscript to be publishable, it must have two "Accept for Submission" ratings. In case of obtaining an "Accept submission with modifications" rating, the assigned member of the editorial committee will contact the responsible person so that, within 10 days, the manuscript can be re-uploaded according to the evaluators' ratings and comments.  If the manuscript obtains an acceptance and a rejection evaluation, it must be resubmitted to a new reviewer. In the case of obtaining two rejection evaluations, the decision will be communicated to the contact person, and the article will be rejected and archived.

STAGE 3. EDITORIAL

Once a manuscript is accepted after the inclusion of the requested modifications, it will go to the editorial phase. During this period, a member of the editorial team will review the document according to criteria of form and linguistic aspects. If the changes are minor (for example, a missing punctuation mark, a stress mark...), the publisher will be able to make the changes. In the case of major changes, the manuscript will be sent to the signatories so that they can revise it and adjust it to the publisher's proposals. The signatories will have a maximum of 10 days.

STAGE 4. PRODUCTION

When the manuscript has completed this phase and met all the criteria, it will move on to the production phase. At this point, the layout team will format the final article. At the end of this process, the signatories will be contacted to give their approval or to attend to possible errors detected in this phase. Only what is indicated by the layout designer will be taken into account, and no additional modifications can be made.

When the approval of the signatories is received, the final document will be sent to the editor-in-chief so that it can be scheduled for publication and incorporated into the current issue. At that time it will be assigned a DOI and will also be incorporated into the institutional repository of the University of Granada DIGIBUG, assigning it a handle.

Presentation and structure of contributions

All manuscripts to be published in the article section must follow the journal's template. It can be downloaded from the following link. In addition, they must follow the rules indicated in the Style Guide of the journal that includes aspects on:

• How to cite in the text
• How to reference citations in the Bibliographic References section

Documents should preferably be submitted in Microsoft Word, although open source programs such as OpenOffice can be used.

The title, abstract and keywords should be included in both Spanish and English. If the manuscript is written in a language other than the above, it should also be included in the corresponding language. All text should be in Times New Roman 12 pt with 1.5 line spacing and 2.5 margins.

Tables and figures (images, diagrams, graphs...) should be included in their corresponding place in the manuscript, with their title and following the indications of the manuscript template.

The structure, depending on the type of manuscript, has been presented in section 3.

The management and editorial board of the journal are not responsible for the ideas and opinions expressed by the authors of the various articles and editorials.

Etical responsibilities

The signatories of the manuscripts should indicate in the methodology section, within the data collection procedures, that the data have been obtained with the consent of the research participants, if any.

MODULEMA Journal adopts the ethical codes of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The guidelines can be consulted in the following links:

• Spanish version
• English version
• Portuguese version

In addition, the journal adheres to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). The declaration can be found at the following links:

• Spanish version
• English version
• Portuguese version
• French version

Duties of authors

1. Compliance with quality requirements. Authors must be authors of original research and must present a clear and precise exposition of the work carried out, as well as an objective discussion of its importance. The data supporting the work must be clearly reflected in the manuscript. The manuscript must have well detailed references in a way that allows in a sufficient way that other authors can reproduce the research and verify the results. Any false or intentionally inaccurate statement will be judged as an ethical misconduct and will be grounds for exclusion.
2. Access to research data. Authors should be able to provide their research data with the manuscript for editorial evaluation. If necessary, they should also make such data public. In any case, it is understood that it is the researchers' obligation to make such data available to the scientific community, provided that confidentiality of the participants is guaranteed and that there is no impairment of any institutional rights that may exist.
3. Originality, plagiarism and sources. Manuscripts must be original works, which will make reference to the work of other authors by means of pertinent citations. It should also cite and refer to the work of authors who have been decisive in defining the nature and objectives of the work.
4. Multiple, superfluous or simultaneous publication. In general terms, papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Likewise, the same paper should not be submitted to several journals. This will be grounds for exclusion. Manuscripts that have already been published in other journals should not be submitted. This is without prejudice to the author always and at all times maintaining full copyright of the published work and, therefore, of reproduction and transmission as he or she considers appropriate.
5. Authorship of the article. Authorship should be limited to people who have contributed significantly to the conception, elaboration or interpretation of the work. All people who have done so should be listed as co-authors. The principal author undertakes to ensure that only such people are listed as co-authors and no others. Likewise, he or she is obliged to submit the latest version of the article to the co-authors for approval and to obtain their authorization for publication.
6. Conflict of interest. Authors should declare the sources of funding for their work and should try to avoid any conflict of interest that might affect the results or the interpretation of their conclusions.
7. Fundamental errors in the published work. In the event that the author discovers important errors or inaccuracies in his or her published work, he or she has the duty to diligently inform the editors and to collaborate in the correction or, if necessary, rectification of what has been published.

Copyrights

MODULEMA Journal provides unrestricted open access to its contents from the moment of publication in the journal. In addition, the articles are incorporated into the Institutional Repository DIGIBUG of the University of Granada. All contents are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY NC SA 4.0) license. The legal text of the license can be found at the following link.

Use of inclusive and non-sexist languaje

The journal MODULEMA, as a space for the analysis of cultural diversity, suggests to the signatories of the manuscripts to make use of inclusive language in which prejudices are exempted. Being attentive to cultural, as well as biological, economic and also social differences, implies being sensitive to their peculiarities. Therefore, any publication in MODULEMA is requested to follow these guidelines when referring to studies associated with culture, functional diversity, gender, sexual orientation, beliefs, ideology or socio-economic status.

In addition, the use of non-sexist language is encouraged in the texts submitted for publication in MODULEMA. Although the Royal Spanish Academy recognises the use of the masculine as an unmarked gender for collective mentions, there are currently demands for the use of formulas that make the role of women and non-binary people more visible. For this reason, it proposes the use of inclusive linguistic formulas.

With the intention of assisting in these good practices, the following are some of the most frequently used forms, although they are not unique, so you can choose others that favour inclusive and non-sexist language. The Guide of a non-sexist language of language (UAM, 2019) is taken as a reference.

• If you know the names of the women or men you are referring to, you should use the grammatical gender that represents their sex.
  • Example in spanish:
  • Las docentes encargadas del aula 3 [Alicia García y Matilde Muñoz] comenzarán la evaluación a las quince horas.
• In the case of a group of women and men, both female and male should be used, if it is known that the majority are women; or male and female, if it is known that the majority are men. If the degree of participation is not known, you can start with either of the two formulas and use them alternatively, or decide to use alphabetical order (male and female students, or female and male doctors).
  • Example in spanish:
  • Las ministras y los ministros de Pedro Sánchez juran hoy sus cargos. [Si hay mayoritariamente mujeres]
  • Los Rectoresde las Universidades firmantes del II Convenio se reúnen hoy en la UIMP. [No hay rectoras].
  • Las vicedecanasy los vicedecanos informarán sobre el desarrollo de los planes de estudio. / Se hará cargo del cierre de actas el gestor o gestora de cada Departamento.
  • Los egresados y las egresadas universitarias / Las egresadas y egresados universitarios / Los y las egresadas universitarias / Las y los egresados universitarioscon un expediente que supere el 9 de nota media, recibirán una invitación a la charla informativa sobre excelencia. [Alternancia a lo largo de la redacción].
• Se aconseja el uso de sustantivos genéricos o epicenos (persona, sujeto, individuo, personaje, miembro, ), colectivos (ciudadanía, alumnado, equipo) y abstractos (arqueologíapor arqueólogo/a, autoría por autor/a, dirección por director/a).
  • En lugar de: El rendimiento íntegro deberá imputarse al titular o a la titular del derecho.
  • Podemos decir: El rendimiento íntegro deberá imputarse a la persona titular del derecho.
  • En lugar de: La normativa se dirigía a los alumnosy les explicaba los derechos y obligaciones de obligaciones de los mismos.
  • Podemos decir: La normativa se dirigía al alumnado y les explicaba sus derechos y obligaciones.
  • En lugar de:  El directordeberá dirigirse a todo el personal mediante un correo.
  • Podemos decir:  La direccióndeberá dirigirse a todo el personal mediante un correo.
• Periphrases and syntagmas also favour more egalitarian formulas (examples in Spanish: personal investigador instead of investigador/a; or titular de una beca instead of becario/a), as well as pronouns without gender marking: neutral forms as opposed to pronouns that are accompanied by a masculine or feminine article (el que or la que for quien); generic formulas - pronouns without gender marking - instead of indefinite pronouns (instead of uno or una, it would be better to use alguien or nadie). Adjectives without gender marking are also preferable (for example, diferente, instead of distintos and distintas; ilustres, insignes, excelentes, célebres, instead of prestigiosas or prestigiosos; cualquier or cada, instead of todo, etc.).
  
  • En lugar de:  El abajo firmante.
  • Podemos decir: Quien abajo firma.
  • En lugar de: Todos los alumnos pueden participar en el concurso.
  • Podemos decir: Cualquier estudiante puede participar en el concurso.

• SImpersonality, omission of the subject, use of the second person singular (tú or usted) or the first person plural, or the imperative form of the verb can be used. It is also advisable to replace passive verbs with active verbs or impersonal forms with “se”.
  • Instead of writing in Spanish: Los alumnos pueden cancelar la matrícula antes del 23 de octubre.
  • We can write: Se puede cancelar la matrícula antes del 23 de octubre.

• In cases where the particle that accompanies the noun determines the gender, it is proposed: 1) to eliminate one of the two articles (the one of the gender that comes second), although this option cannot be applied in the case of using invariable nouns; and 2) instead of splitting the determiners, adjectives and participles with which the noun agrees, one can resort to concordance by proximity:
  
  • Instead of writing in Spanish: Las profesoras y los profesores serán convocadas y convocados por orden de entrega de la documentación.
  • We can write: Se convocará a los profesores y profesoras por orden de entrega de la documentación.
  • Instead of: Los profesores que se presentaron al concurso serán convocados por orden de entrega de la documentación.
  • We can write: Serán convocadas* las profesoras y profesores que se presentaron al concurso por orden de entrega de documentación.

• The use of splitting can be employed. Although this is the best known option, its use must be prudent, as its abuse can cause the language to lose economy and the reading to lose agility. If they are unavoidable, it is advisable to alternate the feminine and masculine forms in the first place throughout the text.

• The @ symbol should not be used, nor should slashes or dashes. Spanish grammar does not yet accept non-binary formulas such as the substitution of -o/-a by the suffixes -e or -x.

  Use of explanatory appositions: In the case of an unavoidable use of the generic masculine, it is convenient to make use of these additions to clarify the universal sense of it. As in the case of splitting, their use can make reading difficult and can even be redundant when this clarification is unnecessary.