Specula Revista de Humanidades y Espiritualidad

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Declaration of principles of transparency and best practices

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and theWorld Association of Medical Editors  (World Association of Medical Publishers (WAME)) are academic organizations that have seen an increase in the number and wide scope of quality in membership applications.

Specula. Journal of Humanities and Spirituality

Specula is a magazine edited by the Catholic University of Valencia San Vicente Martyr. It is directed and coordinated by the Institut Isabel de Villena d'Estudis Mediaevals i Renaixentistes (IVEMIR).

Specula publishes original works in the thematic field of the Humanities and Spirituality studies, from various approaches, following the mediaeval "specular" tradition: theology, philosophy, history, culture, literature, text editing, art history, popular devotion, innovative projects in digital humanities of mediaeval spiritual texts, comparative literature, always with the ultimate purpose of studying the Humanities-Spirituality binomial. The periods covered by the journal's scope of study will be from the 13th to 17th centuries, in all the Romance languages.

Specula adheres to the criteria of transparency and best practices.

Bibliographical identification and periodicity

Title: Specula. Journal of Humanities and Spirituality

Abbreviation: Specula

International journal published quarterly.

Publisher: Catholic University of Valencia San Vicente Mártir

ISSN: 2386-8295.

Other identifications: Every article within Specula has its own DOI identifier.

Manuscripts will not be submitted by email, but by logging on to OJS platform after registering, so that the application is duly recorded.

Criteria for acceptance of manuscripts

Manuscripts submitted to Specula should represent a significant advancement of knowledge, and fulfill these basic criteria for all research articles:

Originality and novelty of results, relevance (the article must be useful and advance knowledge in its area), methodological quality resulting in reliability and academic validity, and good presentation: clear and precise writing, logical consistency and good material presentation.

Editorial priority

Excepting in its periodical monographs, Specula’s editorial priority is chronological: articles are posted in the order of their final acceptance. Final acceptance is given after academic peer reviewing: once reviewers have given the complete approval to the manuscript, or once the author has delivered his/her manuscript revised in accordance with the modifications suggested by the reviewers.

Research and Publication Ethics

Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), revised in 2013). According to point 23 of this declaration, an approval from the local institutional review board (IRB) or other appropriate ethics committee must be obtained before undertaking the research to confirm the study meets national and international guidelines. As a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board must be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ of the article.

For non-interventional studies (e.g. surveys, questionnaires, social media research), all participants must be fully informed if the anonymity is assured, why the research is being conducted, how their data will be used and if there are any risks associated. As with all research involving humans, ethical approval from an appropriate ethics committee must be obtained prior to conducting the study. If ethical approval is not required, authors must either provide an exemption from the ethics committee or are encouraged to cite the local or national legislation that indicates ethics approval is not required for this type of study. Where a study has been granted exemption, the name of the ethics committee which provided this should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ with a full explanation regarding why ethical approval was not required.

A written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients. Data relating to individual participants must be described in detail, but private information identifying participants need not be included unless the identifiable materials are of relevance to the research (for example, photographs of participants’ faces that show a particular symptom). Patients’ initials or other personal identifiers must not appear in any images. For manuscripts that include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent for publication from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submitting to the journal. Patient details must be anonymized as far as possible, e.g., do not mention specific age, ethnicity, or occupation where they are not relevant to the conclusions. A template permission form is available to download. A blank version of the form used to obtain permission (without the patient names or signature) must be uploaded with your submission. Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

You may refer to our sample form and provide an appropriate form after consulting with your affiliated institution. For the purposes of publishing in Specula, a consent, permission, or release form should include unlimited permission for publication in all formats (including print, electronic, and online), in sublicensed and reprinted versions (including translations and derived works), and in other works and products under open access license. To respect patients’ and any other individual’s privacy, please do not send signed forms. The journal reserves the right to ask authors to provide signed forms if necessary.

If the study reports research involving vulnerable groups, an additional check may be performed. The submitted manuscript will be scrutinized by the editorial office and upon request, documentary evidence (blank consent forms and any related discussion documents from the ethics board) must be supplied. Additionally, when studies describe groups by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, disease, etc., explanation regarding why such categorization was needed must be clearly stated in the article.

Sex and Gender in Research

We encourage our authors to follow the ‘Sex and Gender Equity in Research and to include sex and gender considerations where relevant. Authors should use the terms sex (biological attribute) and gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances) carefully in order to avoid confusing both terms. Article titles and/or abstracts should indicate clearly what sex(es) the study applies to. Authors should also describe in the background, whether sex and/or gender differences may be expected; report how sex and/or gender were accounted for in the design of the study; provide disaggregated data by sex and/or gender, where appropriate; and discuss respective results. If a sex and/or gender analysis was not conducted, the rationale should be given in the Discussion. We suggest that our authors consult the full guidelines before submission.

Publication Ethics Statement

Specula is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We fully adhere to its Code of Conduct and to its Best Practice Guidelines.

The editors of this journal enforce a rigorous peer-review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to ensure to add high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and the like, do arise. The editors of Specula take such publishing ethics issues very seriously and are trained to proceed in such cases with a zero tolerance policy.

Authors wishing to publish their papers in Specula must abide to the following:

Any facts that might be perceived as a possible conflict of interest of the author(s) must be disclosed in the paper prior to submission.

Authors should accurately present their research findings and include an objective discussion of the significance of their findings.

Data and methods used in the research need to be presented in sufficient detail in the paper, so that other researchers can replicate the work.

Raw data should preferably be publicly deposited by the authors before submission of their manuscript. Authors need to at least have the raw data readily available for presentation to the referees and the editors of the journal, if requested. Authors need to ensure appropriate measures are taken so that raw data is retained in full for a reasonable time after publication.

Simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not tolerated.

The journal accepts exact translations of previously published work. All submissions of translations must conform with our policies on translations.

If errors and inaccuracies are found by the authors after publication of their paper, they need to be promptly communicated to the editors of this journal so that appropriate actions can be taken. Please refer to our policy regarding Updating Published Papers.

Your manuscript should not contain any information that has already been published. If you include already published figures or images, please obtain the necessary permission from the copyright holder to publish.

Plagiarism, data fabrication and image manipulation are not tolerated.

Plagiarism is not acceptable in Specula submissions.

Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source.

Reuse of text that is copied from another source must be between quotes and the original source must be cited. If a study's design or the manuscript's structure or language has been inspired by previous works, these works must be explicitly cited.

All submissions are checked for plagiarism using the industry standard software Turnitin. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, an investigation will take place and action taken in accordance with our policies.

Image files must not be manipulated or adjusted in any way that could lead to misinterpretation of the information provided by the original image.

Irregular manipulation includes: 1) introduction, enhancement, moving, or removing features from the original image; 2) grouping of images that should obviously be presented separately (e.g., from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels); or 3) modifying the contrast, brightness or color balance to obscure, eliminate or enhance some information.

If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed during the peer review process, we may reject the manuscript. If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed after publication, we may correct or retract the paper.

Authors are expected to comply with the best ethical publication practices when publishing with Specula.

Citation Policy

Authors should ensure that where material is taken from other sources (including their own published writing) the source is clearly cited and that where appropriate permission is obtained.

Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work.

Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.

Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications.

Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.

In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations.” This condition also applies to an author’s own work. COPE have produced a discussion document on citation manipulation with recommendations for best practice.

Editors and Editorial Staff as Authors

Editorial staff or editors shall not be involved in processing their own academic work. Submissions authored by editorial staff/editors will be assigned to at least two independent outside reviewers. Decisions will be made by other Editorial Board Members who do not have a conflict of interest with the author. Journal staff are not involved in the processing of their own work submitted to Specula.

Conflicts of Interest

According to The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, “Authors should avoid entering into agreements with study sponsors, both for-profit and non-profit, that interfere with authors’ access to all of the study’s data or that interfere with their ability to analyze and interpret the data and to prepare and publish manuscripts independently when and where they choose.”

All authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include but are not limited to financial interests (such as membership, employment, consultancies, stocks/shares ownership, honoraria, grants or other funding, paid expert testimonies and patent-licensing arrangements) and non-financial interests (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, personal beliefs).

Authors can disclose potential conflicts of interest via the online submission system during the submission process.

The corresponding author must include a summary statement in the manuscript in a separate section “Conflicts of Interest” placed just before the reference list. The statement should reflect all the collected potential conflicts of interest disclosures in the form.

Examples of disclosures:

Conflicts of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stocks in Company Y. Author C has been involved as a consultant and expert witness in Company Z. Author D is the inventor of patent X.

If no conflicts exist, the authors should state:

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Peer Review Process

Specula aspires to the highest academic excellence.

The review process of articles will be made anonymously through the double-blind system, ensuring mutual anonymity of reviewers and authors.

Articles will be subject to a preliminary review by the editorial board that will check whether the article meets the thematic and formal criteria laid down in the rules of publication. If so, the item will be submitted to a double-blind peer review, by at least two specialists in the subject area of the article.

Reviewers will: 1. Approve the publication of the article in the version as submitted. 2. Request significant changes in the article (which will prompt a second review by the same evaluators or by others). 3. Indicate its suitability for publication after making minor changes. 4. Reject article in the case of a doubly negative assessment. In case of marked divergence between the assessments of two reviewers, the text will be sent to a third reviewer, whose assessment, added to the previous two, decides for or against publication.

The peer-reviewers will be completely external to the editorial board and the publisher, the Universidad Católica de València.

Publication Frequency

This is a quarterly journal which publishes its issues in January, May and September.

Open Access Policy

Specula allows readers to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of its articles.

This journal offers free, immediate access to its contents, following the principle that to make research freely available to the public encourages a greater interchange of global knowledge.

Copyright of all documents remain with their authors, under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Creative Commons License

CC-BY Atribution 4.0 Internacional.

Specula is also free of charge for authors: they don't have to pay neither for the reviewing nor for the publishing processes.

Archiving

This journal uses the LOCKSS system in order to create records distributed between its participating libraries, which allows them to create permanent records of Specula for preservation and restoration purposes.

Roles and responsibilities of the academic board

Selection Procedure: The journal’s editor is appointed by the Director of the Publications Service of the Universidad Católica de Valencia, having been elected by the editorial board, and with the approval of a majority of the academic board.

Duties: The journal’s editor is its main academic manager: s/he channels proposed articles to the editorial board for a first review (formats and language quality), and to potential peer-reviewers for a second (academic quality and contents). In the choice of reviewers, the editor can seek the advice of the members of the academic board.

 

Reproduction rights and subscription

Copyright: All documents in OJS are free and owned by their authors, by license Creative Commons CC BY 4.0

Subscriptions: Via RSS alerts.

Price: This is a free-of-charge journal in open format

 

Diffusion

As an Open Journal Systems journal, Specula has a global diffusion. Its editorial team are committed to further the journal's dissemination by applying for inclusion to all possible indexes and databases (see Indexing).

Authors who publish in Specula must commit themselves to disseminate their articles in those repositories to which they have access (green way of global diffusion), and in researchers' social networks; at least in Humanities Commons (https://hcommons.org/) Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.es/) and Academia.edu (http://www.academia.edu/).

Specula is present on Twitter too, where announcements are published.

Information is sent periodically via email to all mailing lists of medieval, romance and hispanic subjects

 

Ethical principles in research and publication

Ethical principles in publication

Academic fraud

There is academic fraud when a publication is not true in whole or in part, and is the product of deception. Ways of academic fraud: making up results out of fabricated data; falsifying data; deliberately omitting facts or data, and plagiarism. There is plagiarism when an author introduces results, ideas, or data created by others as his/her own. Also, when a text is copied without appearing within quotation marks or without indication of source. Also when this preexistent text appears as the author’s own with a few words changed, or in paraphrase, and lacks acknowledgement of the significant assistance of others.

Measures to be taken

Specula warns that this practice will not be tolerated. If detected in the editorial process, publication will be immediately rejected, and the journal will reprimand the author, reminding him/her that this is a very serious criminal practice. If the way of academic fraud is plagiarism, the paper will be sent immediately to the real author, so that the latter can undertake appropriate legal action.

If the journal detects academic fraud once the work has been published, it will add within the article a statement in which the author’s fraud will be denounced in full. This statement will also appear on the journal’s website under ‘Announcements’; and also, following the ICMJE recommendations, in a statement visible at the bottom of the following issue’s table of contents (including the bibliographical reference to the said article), in which the statement text added to the article will be reproduced, containing the following sections:

A title beginning with the word “Statement” and including the reason. For example: “Statement: falsifying of data”. Then the fraud committed will be specified in full.

In the event of a severe fraud, Specula holds the right to denounce it to the academic and the judicial authorities.

Duplicate Publication

Redundant (or duplicate) publication is publication of a paper that overlaps substantially with one already published. In this, Specula follows the ICMJE rules, and therefore does not accept manuscripts that would result in duplicate publication. The author, therefore, has the duty to warn in the journal, when s/he submits her/his work, of any factor that could represent conflict in this area. If there is any overlap with prior publications by the author, this also should be made explicit in the text of the paper submitted to Specula.

The following are not considered duplicate publications, and therefore may be published in Specula without conflict: (a) a work developed out of an oral conference paper (but not if the paper has already been published); (b) the translation or adaptation of an article first published in another language (but in this case the editor of the first version’s written agreement must be produced). However, in both cases the author must declare the circumstance when submitting his/her work to Specula and this fact must also appear within the text, for example in a footnote.

To prevent duplicate publication, the journal requires the author’s declaration of originality, as well as a statement that it is not being sent simultaneously elsewhere, when s/he submits her/his work. An attempt at redundant publication without notification will be looked upon severely by the journal, which will take measures identical to those set out in the case of academic fraud, whether the case is discovered in the editorial process, or when the article is already published. In the latter case, the journal will make a statement of redundant publication in its pages (identical in all respects to that indicated for cases of academic fraud, and appearing in all the same places, but with the title “Statement: duplicate publication”) with or without the author’s consent.

Authorship

In the event of multiple signatures of an article, it must be specified who can be considered the author or co-author of a work: s/he must be able to publicly take responsibility for the content of an article; able to point out how and why remarks have been made, and how conclusions have been drawn from results; able to defend her/his work against possible criticism. S/he can only do so if s/he has participated in the study’s design, observation, and interpretation of findings, and in the article’s writing. In cases of multiple signatures, Specula may ask authors to specify what has been each one’s contribution. In authorship issues, Specula follows the ICMJE guidelines.

Limit to the number of co-authors:

As multiple co-authorship is not common in most areas of the humanities, the journal considers this limit will only need apply very occasionally. Therefore, a limit to the number of co-authors is not established, always bearing in mind the previous section’s guidelines for justified authorship.

However, the Table of Contents will only show the first four at most.

Order of authors

In cases of joint authorship, the journal will respect the order of signature decided by the authors, whether alphabetical, hierarchical, etc. In this respect, the journal will reproduce authorship order as it appears on the first page of the submitted paper.

Peer Reviewer responsibilities and functions

Reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited.

 

Conflicts of interest

In this section, Specula again follows ICMJE standards, which state that there will be a conflict of interest when any of the agents involved in the publication process have financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence his or her actions, especially their ability to judge, no matter if this inappropriate bias has existed or not. Here financial relationships with industry are mainly understood, but also reasons such as personal relationships, academic rivalries or intellectual passion.

The authors, reviewers and editorial staff should follow ICMJE guidelines when declaring potential conflicts of interest.

The journal asks authors to declare possible conflicts of interest when submitting their article. They are also asked to declare, should they deem it necessary, what reviewers they would prefer to be excluded from their article out of conflict of interest. The same statement is expected of potential reviewers, if they think that to evaluate a particular text would cause a conflict of interest.

If the conflict of interest is detected after publication, the journal will follow identical statement steps to those indicated in the case of academic fraud, which will appear in all the same parts, but with the title “Statement: declaration of conflict of interest”). An additional note by the author acknowledging the case and apologizing may also be admitted.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts submitted to Specula should be treated with absolute confidentiality, as is required of a serious academic journal at all phases of the publishing process, both in the reviewing and in the publishing stages. For this reason, too, our choice is a double-blind peer-review system.

Evaluating manuscripts: policy and criteria

Criteria for acceptance of manuscripts

Manuscripts submitted to Specula should represent a significant advancement of knowledge, and fulfill these basic criteria for all research articles:

Originality and novelty of results, relevance (the article must be useful and advance knowledge in its area), methodological quality resulting in reliability and academic validity, and good presentation: clear and precise writing, logical consistency and good material presentation.

Selection of reviewers

Specula keeps a bank of reviewers external to the journal’s editorial board, with their nominal and institutional identification, email address and areas of specialization, number of reviews that have been requested of each one, number of reviews delivered by each one, quality of reviews, and meeting of deadlines in delivering their reports.

This bank of reviewers is created out of suggestions by the editorial and academic boards, other reviewers, and the authors themselves.

When submitting their manuscripts, authors can suggest names of potential reviewers, or indicate which experts should not participate in their paper’s review owing to rivalries or other conflicts of interest (see above under “conflict of interest”).

Reviewers’ responsibilities and functions

Reviewers are specialists in the various fields covered by the journal, helping the editorial board judge the quality of papers submitted for publication. Their function is to help to keep the journal’s high standards assisting authors with constructive criticism.

Consequently, these are their responsibilities and guidelines:

Competence: the reviewer must be qualified to judge the article assigned to him/her. If s/he does not think her/himself suited to this task, s/he should not accept it, or decline as soon as possible and, if requested by the journal, suggest a substitute. Reviews should be serious; comments, specific; criticism should be accompanied by concrete suggestions for alternatives.

Confidentiality: the reviewer must refrain from commenting on the work s/he is judging with anybody, as well as from taking advantage of its ideas or data until the text is released, as in the process the text is the private property of the author. If the reviewer should need to consult with another expert on a particular point, s/he should first get permission to do so from the journal’s editor.

Impartiality and honesty: it is the reviewer’s duty to review the manuscript avoiding any prejudice. For this reason, the reviewer must let the journal know if there is any conflict of interest (see above under “Conflicts of interest”) that may bias his/her opinion of the reviewed manuscript, and must self-exclude him/herself when s/he thinks his/her objectivity might be affected.

Diligence: the reviewer must comply with the deadline set by the journal. If s/he cannot comply with it, s/he must notify the editor immediately, in order to negotiate a short extension or to be replaced by another reviewer.

Final decision

When an issue is published, the journal will inform reviewers and authors who have collaborated in it. Thus reviewers will be able to see if the reviewed article has finally been published, as well as the author’s identity.

Exchange of reviewers’ reports

The journal will only show the report of one reviewer to another (always anonymously) in the event of marked conflict. Otherwise, given the level of specificity of the questions asked in the review questionnaire, there is no need to make the work of the reviewers public.

Recognition of the work of reviewers

The journal will only show to a reviewer the review of another (always anonymously) in the event of overt conflict. Otherwise, and bearing in mind the reviewing form’s specific questions, there is no need to show a reviewer’s work.

Crediting the reviewers’ task

The journal will credit the meritorious work of its reviewers in two ways: on the one hand, it will certify the reviewer’s task when s/he needs it in order to comply with the Research Reference Framework or its equivalent (sexennia, accreditations, etc.). On the other hand, it will publish on its web in the future a list of its reviewers.

Assessment of reviewers’ quality

As stated above in the section “Selection of reviewers”, within the journal’s bank of external reviewers, every reviewer’s record registers the result of monitoring his/her work: number of reviews delivered, quality of reviews, and ability to meet deadlines. This material serves as assessment of every reviewer’s work.

Complaints or claims of authors

Authors’ rights will presuppose compliance with the rules of Specula. If an author feels the need to make a complaint, s/he should direct it to specula@ucv.es. The editorial board will then study whether there is a legal basis for this complaint within the journal’s rules, and will respond to the author as soon as possible: either indicating that there is no case for complaint under the rules, or otherwise by communicating which steps will be taken by the board in order to solve the conflict. See also above, under “Conflicts of interest”. As for blind review, the commonest area of conflict, it should be born in mind that, just as the reviewer has a duty to work with impartiality and to issue a useful and constructive report, so too must the author be willing to accept comments and suggestions.

Integrity, responsibility and communication

Editorial freedom and integrity

Specula complies with the principle of editorial freedom and integrity. The editorial board will oppose any external attempt to compromise its editorial policy or content. The editor will have complete authority and responsibility for the journal’s content. Specula is published by the Universidad Católica de Valencia. Regarding editorial freedom against the rights and obligations of the sponsoring organization, Specula follows the ICMJE recommendations.

Disclaimer about authors’ statements

Specula is not responsible for opinions included in articles published in its pages, which are the sole responsibility of their authors.

Copyright

Specula is a publication committed to the promotion of open knowledge. To avoid any obstacle to the spreading of their work, authors are the owners of their articles, under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Creative Commons Licence

Relationship with the media

As a scholarly journal, Specula does not foresee a close relationship with the mass media. Even so, it must be able to anticipate the potential distortions which lay writers might cause in the occasional spreading of content published by the journal. To this end, Specula intends to keep a blog and to have a presence in the social network Twitter, so as to inform the general public of each new issue and make any clarifications, as well as to receive comments and suggestions.

Advertising

Specula does not include advertisements.

Journal control system, audits and self-assessment

A journal should assess itself periodically, in different ways. Each year, Specula editorial board will hold a physical or virtual meeting, in which it will assess the overall quality of its evaluation criteria, forms, and web protocols, evaluation reports, works published and the quality of reviewers. In light of the data and opinions collected from various agents (readers, reviewers, authors, editorial board and academic board), it will consider the possibility of improvements in the journal’s various aspects.

Feedback from readers

Opinions of readers will be collected continuously through Specula presence in social networks and its blog. Through these platforms, views on originality, significance, novelty, timeliness and methodological quality of Specula’s articles will be collected, and considered at the editorial board’s annual self-assessment.

Editorial board’s opinion

Members of the editorial board also undertake a continuous process of evaluation by different agents: they collect readers’ opinions, interact with authors, collecting their opinions too in the process; they assess the reviewers’ work on receipt, as well as the work of the academic board, which will advise on the journal’s editorial policy. All these elements, as mentioned, are considered in the journal’s annual self-assessment, and where appropriate lead to changes.

Reviewers’ opinion

The journal asks every reviewer for opinions and suggestions for improvement within its evaluation form, every time they file a report. These opinions are evaluated, and where appropriate incorporated, within the annual self-assessment meeting.

Authors’ opinion

Once an issue is been published, Specula will take a brief survey from its authors, for them to give their opinions on these aspects of the editorial process: criteria for assessment of manuscripts, timeline for reviews, reviewing protocols and their quality.

Publication languages

Specula will accept articles in Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Italian, Portugu. It may also publish articles in other languages, provided that it has competent reviewers able to evaluate them, and that the authors agree to cover the editing costs.

Digital archiving policy

Specula uses the Universidad Católica de Valencia's institutional repository, RIUCV (https://riucv.ucv.es/) as its main digital archive base, and in DOAJ.

Our authors are also committed to upload their articles to their respective institutional repositories, as well as to researchers' social networks.

Privacy policy

The data collected from registered and non-registered users of this journal falls within the scope of the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals. It includes information that makes communication possible for the editorial process; it is used to informs readers about the authorship and editing of content; it enables collecting aggregated data on readership behaviors, as well as tracking geopolitical and social elements of scholarly communication.

This journal’s editorial team uses this data to guide its work in publishing and improving this journal. Data that will assist in developing this publishing platform may be shared with its developer Public Knowledge Project in an anonymized and aggregated form, with appropriate exceptions such as article metrics. The data will not be sold by this journal or PKP nor will it be used for purposes other than those stated here. The authors published in this journal are responsible for the human subject data that figures in the research reported here.

Those involved in editing this journal seek to be compliant with industry standards for data privacy, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for “data subject rights” that include (a) breach notification; (b) right of access; (c) the right to be forgotten; (d) data portability; and (e) privacy by design. The GDPR also allows for the recognition of “the public interest in the availability of the data,” which has a particular saliency for those involved in maintaining, with the greatest integrity possible, the public record of scholarly publishing.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution No Commercial NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.