About the Journal | REHMLAC +, Journal of Historical Studies of Latin American and Caribbean Freemasonry plus

Focus and Scope

REHMLAC+ is an electronic, multidisciplinary, and biannual journal, created in 2009 for the scientific dissemination of the global history and cultural studies of Freemasonry. It publishes research papers, interviews on new PhD thesis research, reviews of academic activities, reviews of publications and profiles. This journal is published at the University of Costa Rica and is addressed to all interested in the subject, members from the academic community and the public. REHMLAC+ is a journal under Creative Commons.

Section Policies

REHMLAC+ receives seven types of articles / papers regarding academic studies on Freemasonry:

Editorials: the publication’s thematic issues and in turn the editorials of its guest editors; depend on the approval of REHMLAC+’s scientific council.
Manuscripts: must be submitted for approval to the Peer Review Process and Assessment standards.
Thesis Research: are interviews of prepared by the Editorial Team of REHMLAC+ who wrote their master’s or PhD thesis on Freemasonry. These are all published.
Interviews: conducted by expert researchers on Freemasonry or members of the organization; their publication depends on the approval of the REHMLAC+ scientific council.
Reviews of academic activities: academic criticism of activities related to studies of Freemasonry; its publication depends on the approval of the REHMLAC+ scientific council.
Book reviews: academic criticism of academic publications on Freemasonry, book descriptions are not published, and their publication depends on the approval of the REHMLAC+ scientific council.
Profiles of outstanding academics of the studies of Freemasonry; its publication depends on the approval of the REHMLAC+ scientific council.

The seven types of articles are indexed, they are accepted in all the languages of the journal (Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, and Italian) and only manuscripts are submitted to peer review.

Peer review process

Proposals for papers are received in the journal throughout the year. The journal has two semester issues. From May 2009 to May 2019, the first issue was May-November and the second to the December-April. Since 2020 the numbers correspond to the January-June and July-December of each year. The journal is published every January 1st and July 1st. Assessment results are delivered no later than six weeks before each publication.

Assessment standards:

1. Originality. The author must send the Submissions Letter (sworn statement), attached to the paper, signed, and transferring the rights for the dissemination of the paper (s).

2. The papers should deal with Freemasonry, the para-masonic societies, their members or the relationships of all these in history.

3. Papers are also accepted for methodological purposes such as recent theoretical and epistemological proposals, evaluations of sources, related to historical studies on Freemasonry.

4. The reception of papers does not presuppose publication.

5. Papers must include the academic or scientific affiliation of their author or authors.

6. The papers must include the title, the abstract and the keywords in two languages, in its original language, be it in Spanish, French, Portuguese or Italian, and in English; but when the original language is English, the second language must be Spanish.

7. For the keywords in Spanish and English it is recommended to use the UNESCO Thesaurus, Web address: http://databases.unesco.org/thessp/

8. The submitted paper must not be postulated for simultaneous publication in other journals or editorial boards.

9. REHMLAC+‘s evaluation of papers consists of a four steps process:

The author must complete the data of the paper and his/her own information on the Open Journal System, otherwise the proposal does not reach the editor of the journal.
The editor checks the compliance with REHMLAC+ requirements in the paper.
The paper is submitted to the process of opinion by academic peers external to the University of Costa Rica, chosen by the Scientific Council of the REHMLAC+, according to the thematic axes and the specialization of the paper, and under the double blind modality (anonymous) and using the formula: REHMLAC+ Review.
The reviewers can recommend modifications to the paper or adjustments of another nature, which will be a conclusive for the evaluation. The author will have two weeks to include these modifications in the paper and forward it to the journal.

10. The entire evaluation process takes approximately six weeks.

11. The final decision of the publication or not of the paper is of the Scientific Council of the REHMLAC+.

Open access policy

The contents of the REHMLAC+ are protected by legislation such as the Berlin Declaration (2001), it shares initiatives such as the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), it has a Creative Commons license of type “Attribution - Non-Commercial - Share Equal” 4.0 International and applies the OAI_PMH protocol of the "Open Archives Initiative". In addition, this publication is adhered to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).

Editing and publication rights belong to the journal and the intellectual property of the papers belongs to the authors. Papers published in the journal may be freely used for educational and scientific purposes, provided the correct bibliographic reference is made. The commercial use of the papers published in this journal is punishable by international regulations.

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

Free publication

REHMLAC+ is a free journal. Its registration, submission and evaluation of papers (see the four steps in the section: Peer Review Process, as well as the editorial process, are completely free. The University of Costa Rica oversees the costs of each publication, so in no case, whoever proposes a paper, essay or review to the journal, will be asked to make any or similar payment.

Each item is assigned a DOI identification code.

The editorial process of REHMLAC+ does not include translations. We do not translate papers or provide translation services.

Preservation policies

REHMLAC+ has implemented the digital preservation CLOCKSS system (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) to guarantee the permanence and security of the journal papers. CLOCKSS is based on the open source LOCKSS software developed at the Stanford University Library. This software allows libraries to keep their chosen web journals. Each file is constantly validated against other caches from the same libraries, and if the content is found to have been corrupted or lost, the other caches or journal memories are used for restoration. REHMLAC+ is included in the LOCKSS file system of the University of Costa Rica.

Code of ethics and plagiarism detection system

REHMLAC+ adheres to national and international ethical regulations on the publication of documents. This journal is supported by the regulations of the Committee on Publication Ethics COPE and uses the tools of the Turnitin platform to detect academic and professional plagiarism.

The editorial process of REHMLAC+ is carried out by editors, authors, and reviewers.

The editors are responsible for the transparent and impartial compliance of the journal’s rules and regulations.

The authors are responsible for sending original, novel, and unpublished research only to our journal while the peer review is taking place and for the clarity of sponsors, methodology and sources used.

The authors are responsible for the content of their published papers.

And the reviewers undertake to communicate possible anomalies, plagiarism, or fraud in the assigned papers. They must evaluate them according to the regulations and the times set by the journal and present their opinions in accordance with the journal’s evaluation forms, arguing possible rejections or contributions to improve the quality of the submitted document. Also, they must abstain from the use of the information in the submitted papers until their publication in the REHMLAC+.

When anomalies, plagiarism, or fraud are identified in any of the documents received, the direction of REHMLAC+ will notify the author of the rejection and therefore, the non-publication of the document sent it. This person will be denied the acceptance of new submissions to REHMLAC+ for the next five years.

Indexed or summarized

REHMLAC+ Contact

rehmlac@ucr.ac.cr

Sponsors

REHMLAC+ is part of the Latin American Network for the Historical Studies of Freemasonry, based at the University of Costa Rica, Pacific Regional Headquarters. This academic network includes:

University Costa Rica

Sources of help

University of Costa Rica and each member of the journal team collaborates ad honorem.

History of the journal

In 2007 and 2008 a group of researchers of the history of Freemasonry in Latin America and the Caribbean met at the initiative of Professor Eduardo Torres-Cuevas of the University of Havana, in Cuba. Since then, informally recognized as the Havana Group, the success of our meetings was clear when sharing multiple papers written thanks to the accumulated experience in Europe and finding there was a need for a new generation of Latin American researchers to scientifically study the Masonic phenomenon in Latin America. However, in spite of this success there were no funds to even publish the proceeds of our Latin American conferences. Then, Ricardo Martínez Esquivel from the University of Costa Rica proposed an online journal thus making the most of Internet and its “free” service. The initial objectives were the construction of a space to provide visibility for researchers, regardless of their place of origin, but with a clear commitment to Latin America and the Caribbean masonic studies.