FAQs

 

Do I have to pay a fee or article processing charge (ACP) for publishing in CP?

No fees have to be paid by readers or authors. Conservar Património is a Diamond Open Access journal, which follows a non-commercial model, and is strongly community-driven. You can find more about Diamond Open Access publication here and here.

 

How much time does it take from submission to a decision?

Time varies highly depending on numerous factors. Nevertheless, you can find bellow the statistics from 2023.

Statistics from 2023

Days to First Editorial Decision*

43

 Days to Accept

150

 Days to Reject

130

*The number of days it takes for most submissions to receive their first editorial decision, such as desk rejection or send to review. These figures indicate that 80% of submissions reach a decision within the given number of days. This statistic attempts to describe when the majority of authors submitting to CP journal can expect a decision.

 

What is the rejection rate for article submissions?

Statistics from 2023

Acceptance Rate *

44%

Rejection Rate **

56%

 Desk Rejection Rate

39%

 After Review Rejection Rate

17%

* The percentage for the selected date range is calculated for submissions that were submitted during this date range and that have received a final decision. For example, consider the case where ten submissions were made during this date range. Four were accepted, four were rejected and two are still awaiting a final decision. The acceptance rate will be 50% (4 of 8 submissions) because the two submissions that have not reached a final decision are not counted.

** The percentage for the selected date range is calculated for submissions that were submitted during this date range and have received a final decision. For example, consider the case where ten submissions were made during this date range. Four were accepted, four were rejected and two are still awaiting a final decision. The rejection rate will be 50% (4 of 8 submissions) because the two submissions that have not reached a final decision are not counted.

 

Can I publish in any language?

CP publishes mainly in English, Portuguese and Spanish. But it is also possible to publish in French and Italian. We believe that many things remain unsaid (or poorly described) if written in a different language than mother tongue. Also, the development of specific nomenclature for conservation and restoration in various languages depends much on its use in publications. We are proud to say that with publications in English, Portuguese and Spanish we cover around 400 million native EN speakers, 220 million native PT speakers and 450 million native ES speakers. Nevertheless, we notice that publications in English tend to have a much larger reach than others: they tend to be most read and cited. This can be justified by the fact that around 1.35 billion people worldwide speaks English either natively or as a second language. Thus, whenever adequate, we encourage works in English for the most outreach or in other mother tongue for more local, regional or community-driven resources. We acknowledge that maintaining a multilingual journal is more difficult, but with this, we hope to contribute to safeguarding cultural and linguistic diversity.

 

What are the typical stages and procedures involved in the editorial and peer review process?

Initial checks and Editorial review

The journal's in-house editorial team performs an initial quality check to identify potential issues such as:

  • Compliance with editorial policies and ethical standards
  • Data availability
  • Compliance with submission template and authors' guidelines
  • Research field and aims are within the scope of the journal

After completing internal checks, each new submission is assigned to an Associate Editor with relevant expertise. The editor assesses the manuscript following the established publication criteria. The handling Associate Editor is usually a member of the CP Editorial Board, but occasionally a Guest Editor is invited to serve instead.

Submissions may be rejected or returned to authors for changes or clarifications at this stage.

Peer Review

The handling editor selects reviewers based on expertise, publication history, and past reviews, and invites them to provide feedback on the manuscript. Typically, at least two external reviewers provide feedback on the manuscript.

Editorial Decisions

The handling editor makes the final decision on each manuscript. The time to render a first decision varies depending on how long it takes for the editor to receive and assess reviews.

The editor considers reviewers’ feedback and his/her own evaluation of the manuscript to reach a decision. A manuscript may be rejected, accepted in its current form, or returned with revisions request. The latter is the most frequent outcome.

Decisions are communicated to the corresponding author, along with reviewers’ feedback and any other requirement from the editor, based on the publication criteria of CP.

Revisions

If the editor considers that the manuscript has the potential to be published, but requires changes, the author will be invited to revise it.

In most cases, the revised manuscript is re-assigned to the original editor. The editor may make a new decision based on his/her own assessment of the revised manuscript and the author's response to reviewers or request additional input from external peer reviewers.

Accepted Manuscripts

Once the handling editor has reviewed the scientific aspects of the manuscript and is satisfied with them, an editorial acceptance decision will be communicated. This is a provisional acceptance, pending final checks for formatting and technical requirements. Once the editor has completed the initial editing process, the manuscript will be transferred to the copyediting phase. Here, a second editor will perform the final and formal checks to ensure the manuscript meets all the requirements. Once these have been fulfilled, the manuscript will move on to the production stage. Once this has been completed, the manuscript will be made available to the public as “in press” before being published in an upcoming issue.

 

Is there a length limit for an article?

CP does not hold strict restrictions (other than the abstract having a limit of 150 words), but there are some recommendations.

Recommendation for the Length of an Article
Main text: Limit to 5,000 words (excluding abstract and references)
Abstract: Limit to 150 words
References: Limit to 50
Tables & Figures: Limit to 10

Review articles can be larger.

 

Does CP journal have impact factor (IF)?

Yes, you can find updated information under the metrics section of CP. Although we are indexed by Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar and others, we believe that IF is not the most accurate and complete way to assess individual article impact or publishing quality. Note that IF is strongly driven by the number of citations made to very recently published articles (you can see below how IF is calculated). If in some fields this period might be adequate, we believe that in the heritage conservation field, the impact of articles among the community follows larger periods.

How to interpret IF:
A Journal Impact Factor of 1.0 means that, on average, the articles published one or two years ago have been cited one time. A Journal Impact Factor of 2.5 means that, on average, the articles published one or two years ago have been cited 2.5 times.

How IF is calculated:
(Total number of citations from JCR year to items in “year -2” + citations from JCR year to items in “year -1”) ÷ (total number of citable items in “year -2” + citable items in “year -1”) = Journal Impact Factor

 

Can I track how audiences are engaging with my work?

Yes. In each article page CP displays a graph showing the total number of downloads of the paper each month over the last year. It also shows, in the right column (desktop view), the cumulative number of citations to your paper from Crossref and Scopus. In addition, by clicking on the Google Scholar icon in this column you will be taken to a page where you can click on the total number of citations and view the list of papers that have cited your work. Statistics have shown that typically papers published in English and with more scientific experimental work are the most cited.

 

How can I search for articles on a specific topic?

There are three ways, all of them complementary: (1) you can browse by subject in the top menu, and you will be given a list of articles published since September 2018 under that topic; (2) you can use the short list of all published articles since 2005 up to last year under the Articles > Published sub-menu; (3) you can use the Search tool on the site to search for specific words that are present in Title and Abstract of the articles published since September 2018.