Submissions

Author Guidelines

FOCUS/PURPOSE AND SCOPE

• Enfoque UTE is a scientific journal that publishes engineering research articles. It welcomes original and unpublished works, in English, from national and international researchers. All works undergo a rigorous peer-review process.
• Enfoque UTE adheres to the principles of open access and promotes open science with the ideal of disseminating knowledge and making it accessible to society.
• Enfoque UTE publishes four issues per year, the first days of January, April, July, and October.

TOPICS

The submitted manuscripts are original works of scientific and technological research in engineering. The topics considered are environmental engineering, food engineering, agricultural engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, computer science, industrial engineering, and manufacturing engineering.

TYPES OF ARTICLES

Enfoque UTE publishes two types of articles:

• Research articles. These are primary, research-based articles, 5,500–6,500 words in length, including the title, abstract, descriptors, body, tables, figures, and references. An average of 30 references.
• Reviews. These are narrative review articles, 6,000–8,000 words in length, including the title, abstract, descriptors, body, tables, figures, and references. This comprehensive review offers a comprehensive review of the state of the art on a recent and current research topic. An average of 60 references.

SECTIONS

Enfoque UTE has three sections:

• Monograph. This section is dedicated to a specific topic, previously established and announced through a call for papers. This section is coordinated by the Guest Thematic Editors, who are experts in the subject matter. Only research articles are presented in this section.
• Research Articles. This section consists of research articles on a variety of topics that fall within the scope of the journal.
• Review Articles. Section composed of review articles on a variety of topics within the scope of the journal.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

Enfoque UTE is a scientific journal that provides immediate open access to its contents, enabling free and open access, with the goal of achieving knowledge exchange for the well-being of society globally (more information).

LICENSE OF USE

All digital content in Enfoque UTE is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. This means that anyone can reuse the articles in whole or in part for any purpose, free of charge, even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and the original source are properly cited and referenced (more information).

COPYRIGHT

Authors who publish in Enfoque UTE retain all their copyrights. The authors retain their trademark and patent rights, as well as any process or procedure described in the article (more information).

OPEN SCIENCE

Enfoque UTE believes that open science reflects the true values of science and contributes to a more collaborative and accessible scientific community for the benefit of society. Furthermore, it fosters transparency, facilitates collaboration, increases reproducibility, and increases the impact of research on society. Therefore, Enfoque UTE encourages its authors to publish their open data as part of their articles. Enfoque UTE also encourages and allows the use of preprints (more information).

REVIEW PROCESS

The editorial process begins with the submission of the manuscript through the journal's platform, after confirming the "Checklist." The editorial process has five stages:

• Editorial Review. Led by the Editor-in-Chief, the basic criteria of the Enfoque UTE editorial guidelines are taken into account: originality, timeliness, relevance, language, clarity, style, among others. This review includes the use of anti-plagiarism software to detect text similarity. If the manuscript does not meet the requirements or has serious deficiencies, it is rejected. Uncertainty or omission of metadata leads the Editor to suspend the process until the author(s) resolve the issue within three days. After that, if it is not resolved, the manuscript is rejected. This phase lasts approximately two weeks after the manuscript is received through the journal's system.
• Peer Review. Led by an editor-in-chief, who is the expert closest to the subject of the manuscript. The editor in charge reviews the manuscript and, if deemed deficient or not in compliance with the journal's objectives, rejects it. Otherwise, the editor seeks peer reviewers and conducts the revision/correction process until it is considered accepted or rejected. The review process consists of one or more rounds of revisions with two or more reviewers, who provide their comments and corrections until the editor deems the journal's objective has been achieved. In general, the author must return requested corrections within an appropriate timeframe, no more than one week, after which the editor may report the work as abandoned. This phase varies in length, from two to four months, depending on the availability of reviewers and the author's promptness in responding to corrections and comments.
• Approval. The editor in charge reports the review process and results to the Editorial Board. If the Board deems the process appropriate and there are no issues or comments, the manuscript is approved, and the date and notification to the author are recorded. If there are any issues, the manuscript may be rejected or returned for review. This phase lasts a maximum of two weeks.
• Copyediting, layout. The approved manuscript is sent to production, where it is reviewed by an editor for copyediting and then layout. At this stage, the Editor may request the original illustrations from the author. If the author does not send the original illustrations, the editing process is halted, and if more than two weeks pass without a response, the manuscript is withdrawn from editing. The galley proof is prepared with the version approved by the Committee and sent to the author for final review. At this stage, the document is called an Article in Press and lasts a maximum of two weeks.
• Galley proof and consent to publish. The editor in charge of copyediting and layout, after making the appropriate corrections, sends the galley proof to the author for review and expressly confirms its approval for publication in a letter of approval. This letter of consent is mandatory for publication of the work. This phase lasts a maximum of one week.
• Rejected manuscript. Rejection of the work can occur at any stage of the process. It is done through the journal's platform via Not Publishable communications. Messages are sent to all authors and are accompanied by a brief description and explanation of the reasons. Rejection is final.
• Discussion between author and Editor. All requests for corrections or changes are made through the platform at their respective levels and are duly recorded.

EDITORIAL ETHICS

Authorship. Enfoque UTE considers that to be considered an author of a work, the author must meet the following conditions:

1. Has made a significant intellectual contribution to the theoretical development, design of systems or experiments, development of prototypes, and/or analysis and interpretation of data associated with the work contained in the article; and
2. Contributed to writing the article or reviewing and/or correcting it for intellectual content; and
3. Approved the final version of the article as accepted for publication, including references; and
4. Agrees to be personally responsible for the author's own contributions and will ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved, and that the resolution is documented in the literature.

Author Ethics. Enfoque UTE considers that all work submitted to the journal followed the highest technical and ethical principles established in national and international standards, both for the preparation of the work and for the research that supports it (more information).

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Cover Letter

Authors must submit a letter along with the manuscript, stating that they have read and agree with the policies and comply with all the guidelines mentioned in the GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS. It must be signed by all authors. It must also include information about the authors and the manuscript.

Author Information and Declarations

• Author Names
• Institutional Affiliation
• Email
• ORCID
• Credit
• Funding Sources. State the name of the entity that funded the research and the project or fund code. If the work did not receive funding, state: "This research did not receive specific funding."
• Conflicts of Interest. State if any conflicts of interest arose during the conduct of the research, during the preparation of the manuscript, or during the journal's peer review process. For example, the researchers were employed by a company involved in the research, or one of the authors is a member of the journal. If no conflicts of interest are present, state: "The authors declare that they had no conflicts of interest during the research or preparation of the manuscript".
• Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The use of artificial intelligence in relation to the collection or processing of results must be explicitly declared in Materials and Methods. The use of AI to improve writing should be indicated in Acknowledgments.

(Cover Letter Template).

(CRedit Author Contribution Template).

Manuscripts submitted to Enfoque UTE must be submitted using templates:

• (Word).
• (LaTeX).

References to articles or books should use the IEEE format:

• ( IEEE-Reference-Guide.pdf ).

Research Article Structure.

Text of articles have a length of 2500–3500 words, including title, abstract, keywords, body, tables, figures, and references. An average of 30 references. The article should include the following sections:

• Title. This should be brief and concise. Submitted in Spanish and English (Title).
• This is a very important element of the document being evaluated, so it must meet the following requirements:
  • Submitted in English.
  • Describe the work completed in 200–230 words. The author should use their summary skills to distinguish the importance from the secondary.
  • Highlight the most relevant points of the work and include the main conclusions reached.
  • Create reader interest. The author should present those points of view or angles of the approaches to the topic in broader contexts, thereby motivating the reader to read the entire document.
• Keywords. Six words that serve as descriptors of the work. Present in Spanish and English (Keywords).
• Introduction. Present the content of the entire work, its objective, background, current status of the problem, hypothesis, and proposed objectives. The introduction provides information on the purpose, importance, and current status of the topic; the introduction of related work is especially relevant.
• Material and Methods. Explain how the research was conducted. The procedure followed to test the hypothesis and the resources used should be accurately described. A research project should be repeatable, and this section provides the necessary information for the experiment to be replicated.
• Results. Explain the results clearly. Measurement or quantification data may be presented. In this section, consider integrating figures and tables to facilitate understanding of the manuscript. All figures, tables, diagrams, and graphs should be presented as part of the text.
• Discussion. Interpret the results according to similar studies, that is, correlate the results of the study with others, highlight the advantages of the study and its contributions, and avoid using adjectives that praise the results.
• Conclusions and recommendations. Specify the results obtained and whether they achieved the objectives, propose further study perspectives, and apply the results.
• Funding: The Board of Scientific Editors encourages authors to specify the source of funding for their research. During review, they may be designated as XXX to maintain anonymity.
• References. References may be arranged alphabetically or in order of appearance, following the IEEE format. The IEEE has developed a style manual for citing this standard, available at (IEEE-Reference-Guide.pdf).

Review Article Structure.

Review articles should offer a critical, organized, and up-to-date overview of the state of the art on a journal topic. Their purpose is to synthesize, compare, and analyze previous work, identifying trends, knowledge gaps, challenges, and future research directions. The recommended structure for manuscripts of a review is as follows:

• Article title. It should be concise, informative, and clearly reflect the thematic focus of the review. Avoid overly general titles. It is recommended to include key terms such as "Survey," "Review," "Comparative Analysis," or "Taxonomy."
• Length: 200–230 words. It should summarize the topic and its relevance, explain the objective of the review, the methodological approach (in systematic reviews), main topics covered, conclusions, or key contributions.
• Include between 4 and 6 keywords. Select terms from the IEEE Taxonomy when possible.
• Introduction. Present the general context and importance of the topic. Justify the need for a review in the area. Define the scope of the work: what aspects are included or excluded? Indicate the main contributions of the article, for example: A new classification of existing approaches. A synthesis of contradictory results. A gap analysis in the literature. Conclude with a paragraph describing the structure of the manuscript.
• Review methodology (optional but recommended). Explain how the sources were collected and selected: Databases used (IEEE Xplore, Scopus, etc.). Keywords and search strategies. Time period covered. Inclusion and exclusion criteria. In the case of a systematic review, it is recommended to include a PRISMA-type flowchart. Justify the selection and representativeness of the articles analyzed.
• Main body of the article. Organize the content into thematic, chronological, methodological, or application-area sections. It should include:
  • Classification of approaches or technologies: propose a taxonomy or categories to organize the literature.
  • Comparative analysis: Identify similarities, differences, strengths, and weaknesses of different approaches.
  • Comparative tables and figures: Help visualize trends, results, or common methodologies.
  • Critical synthesis: Beyond summarizing, the author should offer a thoughtful assessment of the state of the art.
• Discussion of gaps and challenges (Open Challenges/Research Gaps). Identify unresolved issues in the field. Point out contradictions or limitations in the current literature. Describe areas with potential for new research. This section can be combined with the Conclusions or addressed independently.
• Conclusions. Recapitulate the key findings of the review. Reinforce the value of the classification or analysis performed. Avoid repeating the summary. Include recommendations for researchers or practitioners. It is suggested that you do not include new information or references.
• Acknowledgments (optional)
• References. Use the IEEE citation style: numbered in the order they appear in the text.

About References

• Most references (80%) are expected to meet the following requirements: (1) have a DOI; (2) come from a scientific journal or conference; (3) be less than 5 years old.
• References must have a permanent DOI identifier. In the case of theses, Handle is usually used.
• References must conform to IEEE style. It is the authors' responsibility to ensure this. Reference management systems such as RefWorks, Mendeley, or EndNote may be considered, provided their results are reviewed by the authors.

About Illustrations

• Tables and figures should be incorporated into the text after being cited, referring to them by name: Table 1 / Figure 1 (it is incorrect to refer to them, for example, as "in the following table," as this is ambiguous). Essentially, they should be oriented vertically and fit on a single page, maintaining their informative and graphic quality: good resolution, adequate spacing between elements, and no distortion.
• Figures must be of print quality and have been created and adapted specifically for the article. In the case of photographs, their explanatory value must be clearly demonstrated. Generally, for example, photographs of people presenting or handling a product or equipment are not relevant.
• Tables should be included as Excel or Word spreadsheets, never as images or screenshots.

PUBLICATION COSTS

Enfoque UTE does not charge for any Article Processing Charges (APC) or for the publication of articles.