Editorial: Changes in the editorial process of the Revista Facultad Ciencias de la Salud

Abstract

The new Colciencias process (2016) for the evaluation of scientific journals has generated uncertainty among the Colombian journals, mainly the regional ones that depend on public universities for its edition and printing. The objective, according to the committee of experts that planned its execution, is to improve the quality of the publications in a context of national and international competition, since the parameters of measurement and classification that follow are the ranking and citation indexes as the H5 for both authors and evaluators. As we noted in a previous editorial article (1), the knowledge that has been disseminated through our journal in the Popayan and Cauca has the potential to guide informed actions in clinic and public health. However, these actions seem to be of no importance to Colciencias. Given that one of the main incentives to publish by our collaborators depends on the indexing of the journal by Publindex-Colciencias system, the editorial team, with the endorsement of the dean and the Faculty Council, has made a series of changes to seek that classification. Although it should be taken into account that this editorial project -that was born in 1998-, has academic and pedagogical scope that should not be undervalued. They range from training in the scientific method applied to health sciences, to the acquisition of writing and publishing skills of our students and faculty members. The necessary changes to introduce are in the periodicity because from this issue will be two per year, the inclusion of the OJS system that allows to have an online repository, the editorial process of the contributions through this system, changes in the editorial team based on the indexes promoted by Colciencias. All these changes require the support of the professors and the academic and research directives of the Universidad del Cauca.