Brief Background
The history of the journal Em Questão dates back to 1986, when the first issue of Revista de Biblioteconomia & Comunicação was published, a journal created experimentally by students of the course Projeto Experimental em Jornalismo II and coordinated by professors Rosa Nívea Pedroso and Rubens Constantino Volpe Weine. According to Pedroso and Weine (1986), the objective of the first issue was to encourage the discussion of theoretical trends in the areas of Communication and Library Science and to open a space for the dissemination of studies and researches of students and professors of the Faculdade de Biblioteconomia e Comunicação of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (FABICO/UFRGS). Being created on experimental basis, there was no certainty, in the moment of creation of the first issue, of the permanency of the journal. According to professor Rosa Nívea Pedroso (editor of the journal until its seventh issue), the first issue had so much impact that the then head mistress of FABICO, professor Lourdes Gregol Fagundes da Silva, decided to make it a publication of the School and disengaged it from the course Projeto Experimental em Jornalismo II. The Editorial Board, initially formed by professors from FABICO, added professors from other universities in the third issue, in 1988. The journal soon achieved scientific recognition and was granted na ISSN in its fourth issue, in 1989. From then on, the journal started receiving texts from different national institutions (Pedroso, 2000). In 1994, from the sixth issue on, the journal was sponsored by the Programa de Apoio à Editoração de Periódicos of UFRGS. The editorial of this issue highlights the importance of maintaining the periodicity. The seventh issue of Revista de Biblioteconomia & Comunicação, in 1996, published the first international texts of the journal and created the International Editorial Board. The publication of the journal was discontinued from 1991 to 1993, in 1995 and from 1997 to 1999. In 2000, in celebration of FABICO’s 30th anniversary, the journal Revista de Biblioteconomia & Comunicação was published again. Coordinated by its editor, professor Jussara Pereira Santos, the celebratory issue brought together works from professors and administrative staff linked to FABICO. The number of contributions was significantly high, which gave strength for the endeavors on behalf of the journal to be renewed. Still, the journal failed to maintain periodicity and was only published again in 2003. The year 2003 was very important for the journal. Its name underwent a major change, from Revista de Biblioteconomia & Comunicação to Em Questão. Still under the command of professor Jussara Pereira Santos, the journal started being published every six months, and efforts were directed to the dissemination of studies in the areas of Information and Communication and related fields. Another important change was the option of electronic publishing, which allowed Em Questão to improve its features and prioritize the visibility and easy access to its contents. In 2003, starting from the ninth issue, Em Questão became a space for publishing abstracts of theses and dissertations defended in the Programa de Pós-graduação em Comunicação e Informação of UFRGS (PPGCOM/UFRGS), as well as theses and dissertations defended by professors and technicians from FABICO. The tenth issue, of 2004, initiated the publication of articles originated from undergraduate dissertations defended in FABICO. With this initiative, the journal intended, for a short period, to democratize the access to the world of scientific production to young professionals – encouraging them to participate in the academic life –, as well as to publish these articles coming from academic work as pre-publications, and making them available as soon as they were approved as to content and form (Santos, 2004). From 2005 on, the editorial staff of the journal came to be coordinated by professor Cida Golin. It was then that Em Questão stated the will to strictly follow the Qualis criteria of the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), seeking constant improvement and relevance in the area (Golin, 2005). The list of Scientific Board grew in number and expanded its scope of specialties. Since 2006 the journal uses the Sistema Eletrônico de Editoração de Revistas (SEER), developed by the Public Knowledge Project of the University British Columbia. And from 2007 onwards, all the issues (since 2003) were inserted in the 2.0 version of the system. This initiative was a result of following technological innovations, recommended by development agencies, in the context of dissemination of scientific production. Through SEER the journal gained speed and transparency in editorial procedures, since the submission, evaluation, until online publication and indexing. The use of OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative – Protocol of Metadata Harvesting) also enables metadata exchange, research support tools and mechanisms for preservation of content. The first special issue was published in 2010, celebrating FABICO’s 40th anniversary. Organized by the editor, professor Valdir José Morigi, the issue “Porto Alegre Imaginada” published several scientific studies about the city that houses Em Questão. In 2012, coordinated by the editor, professor Alexandre Rocha da Silva, the journal began to be published exclusively in its eletronic form with the objective of following international trends for scientific journals, optimizing resources and accelerating the process of publication of content. The results of the work developed were materialized when the journal was evaluated as a Qualis B1 in the area of Applied Social Sciences in the same year. Aiming to improve the quality of the journal and achieve better Qualis grades (Oliveira; Santin; Vanz, 2015), as well as to being indexed in national and international databases, the Editorial Board of the journal proposed several changes by the end of 2013. A new visual identity was created and the graphic design of the journal was suited to the electronic media, making available to the authors a specific template for digital publishing (Passos; Passos; Vanz, 2014). At this year the journal was indexed by the database ProQuest Library Science. The year 2014 was also important to Em Questão: the journal was linked to the Programa de Pós-graduação em Comunicação e Informação (PPGCOM) and started publishing only studies in the area of Information Science. Coordinated by professor Samile Andrea de Souza Vanz, the Editorial Board and staff have dedicated efforts to improve the usability and visual identity of the journal Em Questão, as well as to speed up the processes of receiving, evaluating and publishing the works. In 2015 the journal Em Questão created the Online First section, where the approved texts awaiting the release of a new journal edition are published. This section enables greater agility in the scholarly communication process between the community of Information Science. In that same year, Em Questão happened to have quarterly periodicity and had the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) incorporated into its papers. The highest visibility and access to the Em Questão's papers was obtained in 2016, when the journal was incorporated in the Redalyc collection, la Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina y el Caribe, España y Portugal. The XML markup was started, according to standards adopted by the indexing database. At the end of this year, the A2 Qualis for the Communication and Information area was conquered, featuring a new level in the recognition of the quality of Em Questão. In August, 2017 the journal was indexed by Google Scholar and Dialnet, a Spanish database of Social Sciences and Humanities. In the same period, in order to meet the new demands which came from the recognition and the visibility that were achieved, the journal incorporated in its team a professional librarian. The year was also marked by the launch of the journal’s marketing plan, which included, the creation of the Em Questão page on Facebook. Careful to the issues on ethics in scientific publication, the journal Em Questão incorporated in 2018 the Ethical Guidelines for Authors, according to decision flows and conflict resolution of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In December of the same year was achieved indexing in the Emerging Sources Citation Index database, produced by Clarivate Analytics. In the following year, to meet the great submissions demand, Em Questão increased the volume of manuscripts published in each edition, from about 15 to 18 documents. This decision speeds up the final publication of the texts approved by the peer review, published in the Online First section as soon as they are reviewed and diagrammed by the team. The periodicity of publication was reaffirmed in 2020, when the editorial team decided not to adhere to continued publication (Vanz; Silveira, 2020). In 2020 Em Questão incorporated in its editorial processes the Declaration of Authorship and Responsibility, a document that must be signed by the authors and made available at SEER at the moment of manuscript submission. The papers are now registered with their own reference in a “How to cite” section, in order to facilitate the reference by readers. 2021 was a year that marked Em Questão. The journal has 35 years of history, and its anniversary was celebrated with guest authors writing pieces about it. The year was also the milestone of a new phase for the journal, with periodicity expanded to four issues a year, one published every three months. Responsibility for publishing was transferred to the Graduate Program in Information Science, also based at FABICO/UFRGS. Considering the indexing of Em Questão by SciELO, several changes are proposed to take place in 2023, such as the adoption of the continuous publication mode from volume 29 onwards, the expansion of the use of CC BY 4.0 license, and greater adherence to the open science movement, with the possibility of publishing open reviews, subject to the consent of the authors and referees. The year was also marked by the granting of funding through the CNPq Editorial Program.
REFERENCES
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Open Science Compliance
Em Questão is a diamond open access journal, meaning all content is freely available without cost to the author, reader, or their institution. Users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without seeking prior permission from the editor or author. In line ith the Open Science movement, the reviewers of Em Questo may choose whether they want their opinion to be published anonymously or signed alongside the evaluated article. The opinion and name of the reviewer will be published with the article, with the consent of the author(s). Em Questão suggests that authors deposit research data in institutional or thematic repositories, such as Zenodo and LattesData. If the research has reused data, we request that the research data be cited. Other open science compliance practices of Em Questão are: use of social networks to disseminate published works; the possibility of publishing preprints; indication of the role of each author in articles with multiple authors; the adoption of the best practice guidelines for editors and codes of scientific ethics from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the use of the CC BY 4.0 license for all journal content published on its website and for articles published by the journal. |
Ethics in Publication
Publication ethics
Author responsibilities
Editor(s) and Editorial Board responsibilities
Reviewers responsibilities Reviewers are responsible for contributing to the decision-making process and assisting in improving the quality of the published paper by reviewing the manuscript objectively, in a timely manner. It is also responsibility of the reviewers: 1. to maintain the confidentiality of any information provided by the editor or author. To not retain or copy any manuscript content; 2. to warn the editor about any content published or submitted that is substantially similar to that under review, without proper citation; 3. to be aware of any potential conflicts of interest (financial, institutional, collaborative or other relations between the reviewer and the author) and warn the editor about them, if necessary, withdrawing its services for that manuscript. Conflicts of interest can occur between authors, reviewers or editors and any potential conflicts must be disclosed. |
Focus and Scope
Em Questão is a scientific eletronic journal published by Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Informação of Faculdade de Biblioteconomia e Comunicação of Universidade Federal Rio Grande do Sul, which is directed to researchers, professors, professionals and students in the field of Information Science, and aims to: 1. disseminate scientific production of researchers from different regions of the country and from abroad; 2. when appropriate, present thematic dossiers, gathering input from experts in their respective fields. The journal Em Questão is open for original works (articles, interviews or reviews) written in Portuguese, Spanish or English. The works must be unpublished and in accordance to one of the following categories:
Encoded thematic coverage CNPq (Brazil):
6.00.00.00-7 Ciências Sociais Aplicadas (Social Sciences)
6.07.00.00-9 Ciência da Informação (Information Science)
6.07.01.00-5 Teoria da informação (Information theory)
6.07.02.00-1 Biblioteconomia (Librarianship)
6.07.03.00-8 Arquivologia (Archivology)
6.08.00.00-3 Museologia (Museology)
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Digital Preservation
Em Questão uses the LOCKSS system to create a filing system distributed among participating libraries and enables those libraries to create permanent files of the journal for preservation and restoration. Em Questão is also preserved in Rede Cariniana, in order to ensure continued access in long-term to content published digitally. |
Indexing Sources
Bibliographic Journal Information
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Websites and Social Media
Editorial Policy
Preprints The journal accepts submission of manuscripts previously deposited on preprints servers such as SciELO Preprints or Research Square.
Peer Review Process Manuscripts submitted to Em Questão must be unpublished. Similarly, texts under simultaneous evaluation by another journal are ineligible. Plagiarism, including the publication of the author's own excerpts without proper citation, is strictly prohibited. "Em Questão" uses Turnitin Originality software to monitor for plagiarism. The use of artificial intelligence in research must be detailed in the methodological procedures of the article, but does not confer authorship responsibilities. The journal asserts that the authors who sign the article bear responsibility for its content. Manuscripts submitted to Em Questão must be unpublished. Texts that have been previously published, even in conference proceedings, will not be accepted. Similarly, texts under simultaneous evaluation by another journal are ineligible. Plagiarism, including the publication of the author's own excerpts without a proper citation, is strictly prohibited. Em Questão uses Turnitin Originality software to monitor for plagiarism. The use of artificial intelligence in research must be detailed in the methodological procedures of the article, but does not confer authorship responsibilities. The journal asserts that the authors who sign the article bear responsibility for its content. Publication criteria:
Manuscripts undergo an initial review by the editor. At this stage, a text may be rejected for not adhering to the journal’s guidelines, rules and template, and priority criteria. Reasons for rejection include: (1) Being experience reports or having a prescriptive nature. (2) Solely configured as a bibliographic review. (3) Presenting as a research project or report. (4) Lacking theoretical or methodological consistency. (5) Being merely descriptive without in-depth analysis of the intended theme. (6) Not centrally focusing on Information Science. (7) Containing numerous writing errors or not adhering to ABNT standards and/or the journal’s template. (8) Not presenting results, formulations, or records indicating advancements in the proposed theme. Rejected works may be returned to the authors with suggestions for reformulation and potential resubmission. In order to serve the greatest diversity of authors, Em Questão does not simultaneously evaluate more than one manuscript submitted by the same author(s). Manuscripts that are not initially rejected are submitted to double-blind reviews of two members of the Editorial Board or ad hoc consultants, according to their expertise in the field. If needed, the work will be assessed by a third referee. Based on the reviewers’ assessment, the editor decides about the publication of the manuscript. The result of the assessments is communicated to the authors with the guarantee of anonymity of the evaluators. The average time between the submission and the first response is 12 weeks. In accordance with the good practices of Open Science, Em Questão encourages authors to share research data, allowing it to be accessed by referees. Articles on preprint servers are also considered. The Editorial Board reserves its right to:
The Editorial Board reserves the right to forward invitations to experts with clear academic competence in Information Science for possible publication of their intellectual production in the journal Em Questão. In this case, the texts are submitted to the procedures of editorial review. By way of exception, translated works of texts that have been published in international journals will be accepted. In this case, the manuscripts will be submitted to the evaluation process. Works that were not accepted for publication in the journal Em Questão, filed by the system SEER, are free to be submitted to other journals. Still in accordance with the good practices of Open Science, in the evaluation form the referee can inform whether he/she wants his/her review report to be published anonymously or signed together with the evaluated paper. The opinion and name of the referee will be published with the paper, with the consent of the author(s).
Open Data Em Questão suggests that authors deposit research data (and other relevant materials) in institutional or thematic repositories, such as Zenodo and LattesData. If the research has reused data, we request that the research data be cited.
Fees The Em Questão does not charge a fee (APC) for published texts, nor for those submitted for evaluation, review, publication, distribution or download. The publication is totally free and open access. |
Ethics and Misconduct, Correction and Retraction Policy
Conducts in cases of ethical infraction suspicion In cases of ethical infractions suspicions, any members of the academic community (authors, readers, reviewers, Editorial Board) or public in general may report to emquestao@ufrgs.br. Denunciations reported directly to a member of the Editorial Board or by other means will be registered through the journal's formal communication channel (electronic address), through which the resolutions will be notified and / or the responses will be send to the complainant. Ethical infractions concern: duplicate publication, plagiarism, data-making, issues related to authorship (change, ghostwriter, etc.), conflicts of interest not mentioned, misappropriation of ideas or data by referees, and other ethical issues related to research (eg involving people). The editor-in-chief (or an invited member of the Editorial Board) will strictly follow the most relevant conflict resolution flowcharts from the Publication Ethics (COPE) in order to investigate and resolve the issue. The flowcharts currently used by Em Questão can be checked here. Regarding the retraction policy, the journal follows the prerogatives of COPE. Available at: https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines |
Policy on Conflict of Interests
Conflicts of interest of a personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial nature, even if potential, must be informed in writing to the journal.
For editors and reviewers, communication can be done on the manuscript submission platform or by email.
The author(s) must inform it in a signed document attached to the submission platform. For more information see: Disclosure of Financial and NonFinancial Relationships and Activities, and Conflicts of Interest. When submitting the manuscript, authors are responsible for acknowledging and disclosing financial or other conflicts that may have influenced the work. |
Adoption of Similarity Software
The journal uses Turnitin Originality software to verify the similarity of manuscripts. All manuscripts are analyzed in the initial phase of submission, before being sent for evaluation. |
Gender and Sex Issues
The Em Questão editorial team, as well as the authors who publish in the journal, should always observe the Sex and Gender Equity in Research – SAGER guidelines. The SAGER guidelines comprise a set of guidelines that guide the reporting of sex and gender information in study design, data analysis, and the results and interpretation of findings. In addition, Em Questão observes gender equity policy in the training of its editorial board. |
Ethics Committee
Authors must attach a statement of approval from the ethics committee of the institution responsible for approving the research if the article involves procedures with human beings subject to ethical evaluation, according to the institution where the authors or research are linked. |
Copyright
Em Questão complies with the DOAJ prerogative for open access journals. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
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Intellectual Property and Terms of Use
Website Responsibility:
Author Responsibility: Em Questão complies with the DOAJ prerogative for open-access journals. Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:
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Sponsors and Promotion Agencies
Sponsors
Support
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Editor-in-Chief
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Associate Editor
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Deputy Editors
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Editorial Board
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Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
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Author Guidelines
Em Questão welcomes contributions from professors, researchers and doctoral students in Information Science and related fields. Submissions of those with a masters degree or masters students will be evaluated if co-authored by a PhD. Requirements for submission:
The ethics responsibilities are disclosed in Publication ethics. The peer review process is disclosed in the Editorial Policy. Em Questão is an open access journal that does not practice Article Processing Charge (APC). Em Questão suggests that authors deposit research datasets in institutional or thematic repositories, such as Zenodo and LattesData. If the research has reused data, we request that it be cited. |
Copyright Notice
Em Questão complies with the DOAJ prerogative for open access journals. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
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Privacy Statement
The names and e-mail addresses informed in this website will be used exclusively for the purposes of the journal and will not be made available for other purposes or to third parties. |