About the Journal

Aims and Scope

GeoFocus (ISSN:1578-5157) is an international scientific and technical journal which focuses on Geographical Information Science and Technology and its different applications. In particular, it accepts contributions in the following areas of interest:

• Geographical Information Systems.
• Mapping.
• Positioning Systems and Global Satellite Navigation Systems.
• Geostatistics.
• Remote sensing.
• Spatial Analysis and Modeling.
• Spatial Data Infrastructures and Geoinformation standards.
• Geoinformatics.
• Teaching in Geographical Information Science and Technologies

Contents are organized into several sections: editorial, original papers of theoretical or practical research, which constitute the main body of the magazine, short subjects (reflections, descriptions, etc., of a maximum length of 2 pages, on technical and professional applications or studies), reviews (of books, maps, data sets and Geographical Information Science software, etc.) and summaries of doctoral theses.

Regarding papers, all contributions must be original and are subjected to a process of external and anonymous evaluation. This evaluation is performed by specialists from the international scientific community. The Editorial Board assists the Director and Associate Editors to an optimal selection process. In addition, an International Advisory Board establishes the strategic framework of the magazine and supervises the running and results annually.

GeoFocus has been continuously published since 2001 in an electronic format, and it is open to contributions from the international scientific community, being a reference publication in the theory, methods, developments and applications of the discipline. Two annual issues are published and the official publication languages are Spanish, Portuguese and English.

The journal is indexed and is present in summaries in a large number of databases, directories, portals and national and international scientific repositories (see Indexed, impact and GeoFocus recognition). Since its beginning, GeoFocus is an open access journal and there are no publication fees; through the upper menu you can access the full text of the magazine in PDF format (sections Current Issue and Archives).

GeoFocus is the Journal of the Geographical Information Technologies Working Group of the Spanish Geographical Association. It receives institutional and technical support from RedIRIS (Spanish Academic and Research Network funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness), FECYT (the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology) and Grumets (Methods and Applications in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems Research Group).

Additional details about Originality, Language, Peer Review Process, Code of conduct / Ethics, Publication Frequency, Open Access Policy, Archiving, Indexing and Ownership and management are provided in the following sections.

Originality

GeoFocus publishes original research papers that have not been published before and are not in the process of evaluation or publication in any other journal or publication.

Language

Papers can be submitted in Spanish, English and Portuguese. 

Peer Review Process

1. The original research papers follow an anonymous peer review process, double-blind method, by at least two specialists from the national and international scientific communities, proposed and coordinated by the Editorial Board. This process seeks to ensure the scientific and technical quality of the contents.
2. GeoFocus is an open access journal without publishing costs. These characteristics, obviously advantageous for authors, can only be sustainable through a total responsibility by them regarding the formal quality of the originals. Consequently, articles that are submitted with formatting errors and / or a presentation non-compliant with the guidelines of the journal or showing evident orthographic and / or syntactical mistakes will not pass to the review phase.
3. When receiving a paper meeting all the formal requirements, this will be acknowledged and the evaluation process will start.
4. In a first phase, editors make a general review of the quality and adequacy of thematic work. Those works whose quality is notably low or not matching the journal areas of interest can be rejected directly without starting an external evaluation. At this first review, editors may require the assistance of the members of the Editorial Board.
5. Works passing this first review will be sent to two specialists in the field of research. In those cases where reviewer recommendations differ substantially, or for any other necessary reason, the text may be sent to a third evaluator.
6. According to the reports of the evaluators, publishers may select one of the following decisions, which will be communicated to the corresponding author:
a) Submission Accepted (or with minor modifications).
b) Revisions Required. In this case, the author will address all changes recommended by the reviewers and/or editors. The deadline for such changes is one month, and authors must attach a brief report explaining the changes and how they conform to the recommendations of the editors and / or evaluators.
c) Resubmit for review. Rewrite and resubmit the paper after a thorough review. In this case, forwarding a new version does not imply any guarantee of publication, but the evaluation process will start from the beginning.
d) Submission declined.
7. When a work is accepted for publication, the printing proof must be reviewed by the author within a maximum of one week.
8. GeoFocus publishes every two years a list of all people who have made anonymous evaluations.
9. GeoFocus may publicly report, when necessary, the following bad scientific practices: plagiarism, falsification or invention of data, individual appropriation of collective authorship and duplicate publication.
10. The Editors and the Editorial Board have agreed to add GeoFocus to the UNESCO recommendations regarding non-sexist language, and recommend the authors take this into account.