Mission Statement
EducaT: Virtual Education, Innovation and Technologies is a journal of the School of Education Sciences of the UNAD, which has become a scenario for the socialization, combination, and production of knowledge that facilitates the exchange, dialogue, and collaborative work between peers nationally and internationally in the area of virtual and distance education. 

Target Focus
The journal specializes in Virtual Education, Innovation and Technologies but it is interested in other fields such as:

1. Learning and Knowledge Society in virtual environments
2. Pedagogies and mediated didactics
3. Inclusive, Alternative, Gender Education
4. Tutorial action
5. Virtual Curriculum
6. Experiences and good practices in virtual and distance education
7. Quality and policies for virtual and distance education

Scope
Articles on these topics are welcome from any methodology, level of analysis, perspective, geographical-academic-social context, sector, and type of initiative in public or private education (primary, secondary or higher education) and also the business. We are interested in presenting new trends, challenges, opportunities for virtual and distance education, and foresight within the framework of COVID 19.

Target Audience
We are interested in disseminating the knowledge of experts, researchers, teachers, and postgraduate students both nationally and internationally. We also address associations, directors, groups, institutions, and the general public who wish to consolidate strategic alliances for the promotion of virtual and distance education.  

Periodicity<
It is published every six months. The call or convocation for papers remains permanent throughout the year.

Formats
It is published in paper and electronic format. The latter is available at the following site: https://hemeroteca.unad.edu.co/

Languages of publication
Articles written entirely in Spanish, English, or Portuguese are accepted. Therefore, if the article contains textual quotations in another language, the author must do the translation and standardize the language of the article. He or she must also be responsible for the quality and accuracy of the translation. If the article is written in Spanish or Portuguese, the title, abstract and keywords must also be presented in English.

Type of articles
Table 1. Typology of accepted articles and expected quality

Article submission
To facilitate the preparation of the article to be submitted; we invite you to visit the journal's website at https://hemeroteca.unad.edu.co/, go first to the “About section”, open the “Submissions” tab, and there you will find the Guidelines for Authors. Then, go to the Information for Authors section and register. As basic requirements: a) Articles must include an abstract in English; b) they must come with the name of the author, with an institutional affiliation, an institutional email, and ORCID; c) the Authorization for Publication form must be attached.

Item management fees
The journal does not charge a processing fee for articles (Article Processing Charge [APC]) submitted by authors. Nor is there a charge for submitting articles to peer review.

Copyright and Confidentiality
The magazine also recognizes the right of citation and the contract of edition and publication between the author and the Publishing House, as copyrights to be protected. And in this sense, the magazine declares that it will respect all actions emanating from this right to our authors. Therefore, all necessary measures will be implemented to guarantee that the contents of the articles are confidential throughout the entire process before publication.

Open Access Policy
The magazine makes available free of charge the articles published to support all our audiences with global knowledge and quality, in order to boost their
academic and professional performance. Therefore, the magazine is licensed under the Creative Commons 4.0 License. Recognition Attribution - Noncommercial - ShareAlike (by-nc-sa): No commercial use of the original work or any derivative works is allowed. The distribution must be done with a license equal to the one that regulates the original work. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ 

Ethics in publishing and good practices
In the editorial management: a) the use of the DOI to publish the approved articles of our authors, before the final print or digital publication. b) the management of the journal process through the Open Journal System. c) the availability of the website to facilitate communication with our national and international audiences (https://hemeroteca.unad.edu.co/). 

In knowledge management: the journal is committed to guaranteeing the ethics of the articles, aligning itself with the guidelines oriented by Elsevier and with the Code of Conduct and Good Practice for Publishers of Scientific Journals defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics-COPE. On the other hand, the measures that the journal will take to make effective anti-plagiarism policies are a) Application and use of the Turnitin software in the nominated articles. b) The result is communicated to the author(s) when the similarity is higher than 20%). Finally, to avoid any conflict of interest, authors are invited and - in the case of collective articles - to clearly specify each author's contribution or existing bias. 
According to APA standards, possible sources of bias are considered to be the actions of authors, involved in researches that are related to earning salaries, consultation fees, and research grants in direct relation to products or services studied in the research. Also, the fact that the authors are copyright holders and/or beneficiaries of royalties from a product or service used or addressed in the study, as well as the relationship of the authors with an entity or person involved in the development of the study.
Once you have read the above publication policy, please select one of the following alternatives and inform us of this information using a letter attached to the manuscript. A) Neither the author(s) of the submitted article nor their immediate family(s) has (have) a financial agreement or significant affiliation with products and services used or addressed in the article or any other possible potential bias against another product or service. B) The author(s) of the submitted article has financial involvement or significant affiliation with products or services used or addressed in the article. C) If you choose the second alternative, list in the letter the service or product used or addressed in the study and the relationship you have with each of them (e.g. research grants, employment relationship, etc.).

Editorial Management
Peer review process
All articles submitted by authors for publication are subject to double-blind peer review. This consists of a pre-selection and compliance review. Submission for evaluation by a specialist in the field. Peers will use the evaluation format provided by the journal. Once the evaluation is completed, the authors will receive one of the following concepts: Approved, Approved with minor modifications, Approved with major modifications, Not approved The time between the reception and the first response from the referees is up to 3 months and the time between the reception and the estimated time for publication is up to 6 months.

Approval process
The Editor and the Editorial Committee of the magazine are the bodies that decide on the publication of the originals. We clarify that the sending of material does not oblige its publication. Formatting errors and non-compliance with the rules of the magazine or serious mistakes in spelling and syntax may be grounds for rejection of the work without passing it to evaluation.   
Editorial team
 
The journal, by the guidelines of the UNAD's Editorial Seal and for effective and efficient management of science, has  

• A Scientific Committee, presided over by national and international experts and researchers from diverse areas of knowledge in virtual and distance education, with an indication of their institutional affiliation And whose function is to guarantee the quality, to advise, to orient, to advise, to value the tendencies of knowledge, the dialogues, the debates, the policies, the challenges, and the objectives to reach in each publication.
•   An Editorial Committee chaired by researchers and experts, with indication of their institutional affiliation, national and international, in various areas of knowledge in virtual and distance education, innovation, methodologies, didactics, technologies, policies, and trends. These experts have the function of supporting the editor in decisions associated with the approval of the themes of each issue; as well as promoting the diffusion of the journal.

Publishing process

Publishing process

1. The author adjusts to the article the rules and policies of the magazine.
2. Submit your article in AJS and send mail to EducaT@unad.edu.co
3. The magazine verifies the originality of the product.
4. Publisher approves submission for peer review.
5. Double-blind peer evaluation.
6. Author's notification.
7. The journal receives the observations and sends them to the author for adjustment.
8. The author adjusts and returns it to the publisher
9. Correction and layout.
10. Translation.
11. Editorial design.
12. Article publication.

Editorial Standards and APA
Under APA's recommended standards (6th ed., 2018), this journal aligns itself with these guidelines for quality in academic writing and declares that its editorial standards are in line with those indicated by APA 2018. For this reason, it offers authors recommendations that they should take into account when submitting their articles for evaluation and publication
(visit https://hemeroteca.unad.edu.co/, in the Information for Authors section).