Editorial Guidelines

1. Scope and Purpose of Publications

IPSUMTEC publishes original, unpublished research articles that have not been previously published nor are under simultaneous review at another journal. Manuscripts must present the results of research clearly, precisely, and verifiably, with the aim of contributing to educational, scientific, or technological development in the corresponding field of knowledge. The state of the art must engage with international literature indexed in Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus, not only with local or regional production.

The theoretical and methodological framework must be supported by up-to-date scientific literature (preferably from the last five years, except for duly justified foundational works), and methodological decisions must be clearly explained, with evidence of the validity and reliability of the instruments used. Quantitative, qualitative, or mixed approaches are accepted with equal academic relevance, provided that the findings are shown to broaden or deepen understanding of the topic studied and contribute at least one quantifiable datum or finding in the Results section.

WoS/Scopus Note: The state of the art must demonstrate engagement with internationally indexed literature; it is recommended that at least 50% of references come from sources indexed in WoS or Scopus (see section 3.5).

2. Types of Contributions

2.1. Research Article

A document presenting the complete and original results of a study, structured according to the IMRaD format (Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion). Total manuscript length: between 4,000 and 9,000 words, excluding references, with a maximum of 25 pages including tables, figures, and references. Exceptionally, longer works may be accepted, in which case an additional charge will apply for each page over the limit, subject to prior authorization by the Editorial Committee.

2.2. Other Contributions

The journal may also consider systematic reviews or literature reviews (with an explicit search protocol, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and a PRISMA-type flow diagram when applicable), as well as case studies and technical notes, provided they meet the methodological rigor and originality criteria required by this template.

3. Manuscript Preparation

3.1. Title Page

Must include the following information, in accordance with the official template:

• Full manuscript title in Spanish and English, each between 10 and 14 words, using indexable terms preferably drawn from the UNESCO Thesaurus (vocabularies.unesco.org).
• Full name of each author (no abbreviations), up to a maximum of 5 authors.
• Complete institutional affiliation of each author (institution and country), with no abbreviations or acronyms.
• Institutional email address and an active, verified ORCID iD (https://orcid.org) for each author.
• Designation of a single corresponding author, marked with an asterisk (*).
• Declared discipline: Technological Engineering or Education and Innovation.
• Short title (maximum 20 words) for page headers.

3.2. Abstract and Keywords

The abstract must be written in the third person and past tense, in both Spanish and English, with a length of 200 to 300 words per language. For research articles and systematic reviews, the abstract must follow the OMRC structure:

• Objective: the central purpose of the study.
• Methodology: design, sample, and instruments, with evidence of validity.
• Results: at least one quantitative datum or concrete finding (not vague statements).
• Conclusion: synthesis of the main contribution to the field.

The English Abstract must be a faithful translation of the Spanish resumen, reviewed by a native speaker or certified translator. Authors must include 4 to 6 keywords in Spanish (UNESCO Thesaurus) and their English equivalents (IEEE Thesaurus or MeSH), listed alphabetically in both languages.

3.3. Structure of the Main Text

The text must be organized into clearly identified sections with headings (maximum of three hierarchical levels), following the IMRaD structure:

• Introduction: background with recent international references (less than 5 years old), a global state of the art, a clearly defined research problem, theoretical/conceptual framework, and precise, measurable objectives.
• Method: justified research design; sample size argued with inclusion and exclusion criteria; instruments with evidence of validity and reliability; data collection procedure; statistical analysis specifying software and version; declared methodological limitations.
• Results: presented in logical sequence corresponding to each objective, without interpretation. Statistical reports must include measures of dispersion (SD), 95% confidence intervals (CI), and effect size.
• Discussion: interpretation of each result in relation to the theoretical framework, contrasted with at least three previous international studies indexed in WoS/Scopus. Must include limitations, strengths, and areas for improvement of the study, without repeating the results.
• Conclusions: derived directly from the results, responding to each stated objective, indicating practical or theoretical implications for the discipline, and proposing future lines of research.

Exceptionally, authors may modify this structure depending on the design or type of research, subject to justification before the Editorial Committee.

3.4. Mandatory Statements in the Body of the Manuscript

As part of the integrity and transparency standards required by the WoS and Scopus indexes, the Methodology section and final sections must explicitly include:

• Generative AI use statement: if artificial intelligence (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) was used to draft text or analyze data, the model, version, and purpose of use must be specified. The intellectual and analytical content must be produced entirely by the human authors.
• Responsibility for data accuracy, guaranteeing the absence of hallucinations, bias, or manipulation of results.
• Data Availability Statement: declaring whether the data are available, available with restrictions, or unavailable, indicating the repository (OSF, Zenodo, Figshare, GitHub, etc.) with DOI/URL, or the reason for the restriction.
• Funding source: funding body and project code, or an explicit statement of no external funding.
• Conflict of interest: explicit statement of existence or absence.
• Ethical approval: protocol number from the relevant committee, or a statement of "not applicable" when no humans or animals were involved.
• Author contributions (CRediT Taxonomy): a table with the 14 standard roles (Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, and Funding acquisition), assigned to each author according to their actual contribution.
• Acknowledgments (optional): of a professional or institutional nature, not personal.

3.5. Tables and Figures

Tables: must be created directly in Word (not as images), single-spaced, with a descriptive title in italics, consecutive numbering (Table 1, Table 2…), and a clearly indicated source.

Figures: include photographs, graphs, diagrams, or schematics, referred to as Figures in the text. They must be submitted in high-resolution .png format (minimum 300 dpi), with a recommended width of 8 to 15 cm, numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals. No table, figure, or image may be submitted as a screenshot, and each must be explicitly referenced in the text (e.g., "see Table 1" or "as shown in Figure 2").

Suggested maximum: the combined number of tables and figures should not exceed eight (8) elements per manuscript, unless methodologically justified before the Editorial Committee (for example, systematic review articles with a PRISMA flow diagram, which may include one additional element). This limit reflects a proportionality criterion between visual apparatus and total permitted length (25 pages, including tables, figures, and references — see section 2.1), and is generally distributed as follows: up to 5 elements in the Results section; 1 to 2 in Method; exceptional use in the Introduction or Discussion, only when providing a synthesis not otherwise available in Results. Elements included in appendices do not count toward this limit and are numbered independently. Redundancy between tables, figures, and text should be avoided: the same data should not be repeated in more than one format.

3.6. References

References must strictly follow IEEE style, in order of appearance in the text, and meet the following indexing criteria:

• Minimum of 20 up-to-date, relevant references.
• At least 50% of references must be indexed in WoS or Scopus.
• At least 60% of references must be less than 5 years old, except for duly justified citations of foundational works.
• Self-citation must not exceed 10% of total references.
• Every reference must include a DOI or verifiable link; references with a DOI are preferred and, where possible, required.
• All references cited in the text must appear in the final list, and vice versa.
• Unpublished sources or personal communications should not be included in the reference list; they should be mentioned parenthetically within the text.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy, veracity, and verifiability of each reference.

3.7. Format and Presentation

• Line spacing: 1.5 lines in the body text (the abstract and tables are single-spaced).
• Alignment: justified.
• Font: Times New Roman, 12 pt for body text (11 pt for section subheadings, 10 pt for abstract, tables, and figures, per the official template).
• Margins: minimum 2.5 cm, letter-size format.
• Use of the International System of Units (SI).
• Non-standard abbreviations defined the first time they appear.
• Symbols inserted via Insert → Symbol or the corresponding Unicode character.
• No more than three hierarchical levels of headings.
• Removal of automatic reference fields and deactivation of Track Changes before submission.
• Final file in .docx format, named as: LastName_FirstAuthor_IPSUMTEC_YEAR.docx, adjusted to the current official template, with all gray notice boxes and instructional text removed.

3.8. XML-JATS Compatibility

To ensure the interoperability, digital preservation, and international visibility of published content, the IPSUMTEC Journal adopts the international JATS (Journal Article Tag Suite) standard, defined by the ANSI/NISO Z39.96 norm, as the XML markup format for the final published version of each article.

Scope for authors. Authors should not submit the manuscript in XML format. Submission is made according to the official .docx template (see sections 3.1 to 3.7). XML-JATS tagging is the exclusive responsibility of the IPSUMTEC editorial layout team and is applied after final acceptance of the manuscript by the Review Committee, as part of the production workflow toward continuous publication.

Correspondence between manuscript elements and JATS tags. To ensure a correct conversion from Word to XML-JATS, the elements submitted by authors in accordance with section 3.5 must correspond to the following tagging structure:

• Numbered table with title and source → table-wrap element, containing label, caption, and table.
• Figure (.png, minimum 300 dpi) → fig element, containing label, caption, and graphic with a reference to the file.
• In-text cross-reference ("see Table 1") → xref element with a ref-type attribute corresponding to table or fig.
• Mathematical formulas → disp-formula or inline-formula with MathML.
• Author metadata (ORCID, affiliation) → contrib, contrib-id of type orcid, aff.

Technical requirements that facilitate tagging. For the conversion to JATS to be valid and not generate layout errors, the following requirements already established in section 3.5 are reiterated: no table, figure, or image may be submitted as a screenshot; figures must have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi in .png format; every table and figure must be consecutively numbered and explicitly referenced in the text; symbols and special characters must be inserted using Unicode, in accordance with section 3.7, to avoid data loss during conversion to UTF-8.

Rationale and compatibility with indexing systems. The adoption of JATS enables interoperability of IPSUMTEC content with digital preservation systems (LOCKSS) and with regional (SciELO, Redalyc) and international indexing portals that have adopted this standard as the basis of their open-access publication workflow.

4. Editorial Process

For a manuscript to be accepted for publication in the IPSUMTEC Scientific Journal, it must complete the following stages, aligned with the integrity standards required by WoS and Scopus:

4.1. Originality and Academic Integrity

• Plagiarism report (iThenticate, Turnitin, or an equivalent system) with a similarity index below 20%, attached to the submission.
• Statement that the manuscript is not under simultaneous review at another journal (originality and exclusivity).
• Content must be produced entirely by human authors; the use of generative AI tools must be declared in accordance with section 3.4, and texts generated entirely by AI are not accepted.

4.2. Scientific Review

Every manuscript will undergo double-blind peer review, with at least two national or international reviewers. The Review Committee will determine its relevance, methodological quality, and scientific validity, and may issue a decision of acceptance, acceptance with modifications (minor or major), or rejection.

4.3. Editorial Review

The text must fully conform to the current official template and satisfy the entire final checklist (section 5), including structure, mandatory statements, format, and references, before proceeding to the layout process.

4.4. Payment and Invoicing

Authors must cover the Article Processing Charge (APC) of $5,000 MXN (for up to 5 authors), as established by the journal. The corresponding invoice will be issued by the administrative office once payment is confirmed and the manuscript is accepted.

5. Communication with Authors

The corresponding author will receive an acknowledgment of receipt by email upon submitting the manuscript to revistaipsumtec@itmilpaalta.edu.mx, and will be kept informed of the progress of the editorial process, review decisions, and the final decision via the same channel. Authors are advised to keep a copy of the final submitted version, as well as of the plagiarism report, for future reference.

6. Final Checklist Before Submission (Summary)

Before submitting the manuscript, authors must verify compliance with the following points, in accordance with the official template checklist:

Failure to meet any of these criteria may result in the manuscript being returned for correction before proceeding to the review process.

Last updated: July 30, 2026.