Focus and Scope

Objective:

Disseminate original technical research studies developed by national and international researchers to contribute to the scientific development of society.

Scope:

The documents submitted for consideration by Maskay Journal may be of a theoretical, technical, or application nature. They must be the product of research, practical experience of the profession, or a review of a specific topic and must be framed within one of the following fields:

1. Telecommunications
2. Automation and control
3. Networks and data communication
4. Electromagnetism and applied optics
5. Signals processing
6. Digital systems
7. Electronics systems
8. Electric systems
9. Power electronics
10. Renewable energy electrical systems

To meet the criteria of scientific quality, the documents sent to the Editorial Committee of the Journal must meet one of the following typologies:

• Scientific and technological research paper: a document that presents, in detail, the original results of completed research projects. The structure generally contains five essential sections: introduction, theoretical foundations, methodology, results, and conclusions.
• Reflection paper: a document that presents the results of completed research from an analytical, interpretative, or critical perspective of the author on a specific topic, using sources.
• Review paper: a document resulting from completed research where published or unpublished research results are analyzed, systematized, and integrated into a field in science or technology to account for progress and development trends. It is characterized by presenting a careful bibliographic review of at least 50 references.
• Short paper: a short document presenting preliminary or partial original scientific or technological research results generally requiring prompt dissemination.
• A case report is a document that presents a study's results on a particular situation. It publicizes the technical and methodological experiences considered in that case and includes an annotated systematic literature review on similar cases.
• Editorial: a document written by the Editor, a member of the editorial committee, or an invited researcher on orientations in the thematic domain of the journal.
• Reflection papers are not derived from research related to academic networks or collaborative work. Instead, they should be carried out within committees, working groups, or communities that work on the topic.

Authors must register with the journal before submitting a paper. Interested authors should also review the journal's policies and form requirements before submitting the paper for evaluation.

Peer Review Process

The paper reviewing process of the Maskay Journal is established as follows:

• The Editorial Committee will first assess the relevance of the received papers.
• If the Editorial Committee initially accepts the paper, at least two peer reviewers will be assigned to conduct a single-blind review.
• Through the platform implemented for this purpose, each peer reviewer will inform the journal whether articles are acceptable for publication, require corrections, or are unsuitable.
• Based on the reviewers' comments, three decisions can be made:

1. Accepted without changes. 
2. Accepted with minor changes. 
3. Requires new revision with major changes. 
4. Rejected (The article does not meet the quality or sufficient innovation to be published).
5. Rejected (Full rewriting is necessary; encourage document resubmission).
6. Rejected (The document does not meet the journal's criteria. Do not encourage its resubmission.)

• In all cases, the authors will be informed of the decision.
• The editor-in-chief will inform the authors of the publication's volume and the number of papers accepted. The authors must also complete the article's originality certification form and copyright transfer.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate free access to its content, based on the principle of making research freely available to the public, which fosters a greater global knowledge exchange.

The journal is an open-access contribution distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows unrestricted exploitation by any means as long as the source and author are acknowledged and this notice is maintained.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Open Access and Article Processing Charge

Maskay is an open-access electronic journal whose article processing and submission are free of charge.

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice

Maskay is a peer-reviewed scientific journal inspired by the Code of Ethics for Publications developed by the Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE).

Editors Responsibilities

a) Publication decisions

The journal editor is responsible for deciding whether or not to publish the articles. The Editor relies on the Scientific Committee of the journal and is subject to the requirements of the applicable laws regarding defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The Journal Editor may communicate with other editors or reviewers to make his/her own decisions.

b) Equity

The journal editor evaluates articles proposed for publication based on their content without discrimination based on the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political orientation.

c) Confidentiality

The Editor and any member of the journal Editorial Team may not disclose any information about a manuscript submitted for journal evaluation to anyone except the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial consultant, and section editors as appropriate.

d) Conflicts of interest and disclosure

The Editor-in-Chief and the journal's Editorial Committee must have no conflict of interest concerning the texts presented. Unpublished materials in a submitted manuscript should not be used in research by the Editor or a member of the journal's Editorial Team without the author's express written consent.

 

Reviewer Responsibilities

a) Contributing to the editorial decision

The peer-review process helps the journal editor make editorial decisions. Editorial communication with the author also helps improve the quality and text of a manuscript submitted to the journal. The reviewers undertake to conduct a critical, constructive, and honest review of the scientific quality of a manuscript.

b) Respect for review deadlines

The reviewer who feels inadequate to carry out the proposed task or believes that they cannot review it in the time required by the journal must inform the Editor immediately.

c) Confidentiality

Any text assigned for reading will be considered confidential. Therefore, these texts should only be discussed with other people with the express permission of the Editor.

d) Objectivity

Peer review must be done objectively. Any personal judgment about the author is inappropriate. Reviewers must adequately justify the judgments and comments made on a manuscript.

e) Recognition of information sources

Reviewers undertake to indicate accurately the bibliographic references of critical works that the author might miss. These recommendations should be made transparently without wanting to increase citations to works done by the same reviewers. The reviewer must also inform the Editor of any similarity or overlap of the received text for review with other known works.

f) Conflicts of interest and disclosure

Confidential information or feedback obtained during the peer review process should be considered confidential and cannot be used for personal purposes. Reviewers are required not to agree to review articles for which there is a conflict of interest due to collaborative or competitive relationships with the author and their institution of origin.

 

Authors Responsibilities

a) Access and retention of data

If the Editor considers it appropriate, the authors of the articles should also make available the sources or data on which the developed research is based so that they can be kept for a reasonable period after publication and possibly made visible.

b) Originality and plagiarism

Authors must guarantee that they have written entirely original works. If they have used others' work and/or words, they must indicate or cite it correctly in the manuscript.

c) Multiple, repetitive, and/or concurrent publications

The author should not publish articles describing the same research in multiple journals. Proposing the exact text to multiple journals simultaneously is ethically wrong and unacceptable.

d) Source specifications

The author should always provide the correct indication of the sources and contributions mentioned in the article. An article must contain enough details and references to allow a response.

e) Authorship of the work

The authorship of the work must be correctly attributed, and all those who have contributed significantly to the conception, organization, implementation, and reworking of the research that is the basis of the article must be indicated as co-authors. If other people have participated significantly in certain phases of the research, their contribution must be explicitly acknowledged. In case of multiple contributions, the author who submits the text to the journal must declare that he has correctly indicated the names of all the other co-authors and that he has obtained the approval of the final version of the article and their consent for its publication in the journal.

f) Conflicts of interest and disclosure

All authors should indicate in their manuscript any financial or other conflicts of interest that may be interpreted in a way that influences the results or interpretation of their work. All sources of financial support for the project must be adequately disclosed.

g) Errors in published articles

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work, they should immediately notify the journal Editor to remove or correct the text.

Plagiarism detection

Maskay Journal encourages authors to be honest about their publications. In this sense, once the Editor-in-Chief submits a new article, he passes it through the Compilatio similarity detection system. This system analyzes the complete content of each manuscript and generates a report about its originality. After this process, the Editor-in-Chief analyzes this report and, based on these results (percentage of similarity) and always considering that the copyrights of third works are respected, determines whether the submitted article can continue with the peer-review process.

• Manuscripts with a similarity percentage of less than 20% and that respect the copyrights of third parties will be processed directly.
• Manuscripts that present a similarity percentage of less than 20% where it is evidenced that the copyrights of third parties have not been respected will be returned to their authors with the respective comments so that they can make the pertinent corrections.
• Manuscripts that present a moderate percentage of similarity, that is, between 20% and 50%, will be returned to their authors with the respective comments so that they can make the necessary modifications to reduce the percentage of similarity. Besides, the authors will be asked to send a letter justifying a moderate similarity percentage.
• Manuscripts with a high similarity percentage, greater than 50%, will be rejected, and their authors will become part of a list of risky authors in the journal. Once the authors have entered this list, they may request to leave it as long as they present a letter where the high percentage of similarity achieved is extensively justified.

Handling complaints and appeals

The Maskay journal follows a structured process for handling complaints and appeals to ensure fairness, transparency, and proper resolution.

1. Receiving Complaints or Appeals

• Complaints: Authors, reviewers, or readers can file complaints about issues such as the peer review process, editorial decisions, ethical concerns, or publication errors.
• Appeals: An appeal often refers to an author contesting a decision, such as a rejection or a request for revisions.

2. Acknowledgment of the Complaint/Appeal

• When a complaint or appeal is received, the Maskay journal acknowledges receipt within a set period (e.g., 7–10 business days).

3. Preliminary Review

• For Complaints: The editorial team conducts a preliminary review to understand the nature of the complaint. This involves checking whether the complaint concerns journal policies, a violation of ethical standards, or issues with the editorial process.
• For Appeals: If an appeal is filed against a decision (e.g., rejection of an article), the journal typically re-examines the decision in light of the appeal, ensuring that the editorial process was followed correctly.

4. Investigation or Review

• Ethical Issues: If the complaint involves ethical violations (e.g., plagiarism, conflict of interest), the journal will consult an ethics committee and the manual of good research practices of the Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE.
• Appeal of a Decision: To ensure impartiality, an appeal will be reviewed by a different editor or even an independent panel. The Maskay journal will revisit the decision based on the available evidence to determine whether the proper process was followed and whether it was fair.
• The editorial board may contact reviewers or the involved parties for clarification if needed.

5. Decision on the Complaint/Appeal

• After thorough investigation or review, the journal decides on the outcome, which can include: Upholding the decision, Reversing or modifying the decision, or taking corrective action.

6. Communication with the Complainant/Author

• The journal communicates the outcome to the person who filed the complaint or appeal. 
• The Maskay journal will justify the decision to ensure transparency if the complaint or appeal is not upheld.

7. Appeals Process

• An independent editorial panel or external experts in the field will handle the appeals process.
• The final decision on the appeal is binding.

8. Final Resolution and Follow-Up

• Once the complaint or appeal has been resolved, Maskay Magazine will follow up to ensure a satisfactory resolution. Depending on the nature of the complaint, Maskay Magazine may, in some instances, make a correction or retraction available to the public. 

Journal History

Maskay is a six-monthly journal edited by the Department of Electrical Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering at Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE from Sangolquí, Ecuador.
The Editorial Board of this journal selected "Maskay" as its name since it is a "Quichua" word (the native language of Ecuadorian aborigines) that synthesizes the journal's scientific purpose and simultaneously assigns it a local identity.

The Secretaría Nacional de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación, through official letter No. SENESCYT-SGCT-CO-0483-2011, dated October 24th, 2011, communicates the assignment of ISSN 1390-6712 to the Maskay Journal of the Department of Electrical Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering at Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE.

The first issue of Maskay Journal was published on November 1st, 2011. Currently, Maskay journal is indexed in various databases: SciELO-Ecuador, Latindex v2.0, LatAm-Studies Latin American Studies, RootIndexing, MIAR (Information Matrix for the analysis of Journals), DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), Directory of Research Journals Indexing (DRJI), Dialnet, and the Ibero-American Network of Innovation and Scientific Knowledge (REDIB) to disseminate the publications made in this journal internationally. Besides, to better disseminate its contents, Mackay magazine has a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) number legitimately registered and validated by Crossref, allowing the accessible location of its contents on the web.