About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Revista Ensino de Geografia (Recife) is a scientific publication of the Geography Teaching and Teacher Professionalization Laboratory (LEGEP) at the Federal University of Pernambuco. It publishes scientific articles, literature reviews, book reviews, and notes related to the field of geography education and related areas, based on public calls for submissions.

Peer Review Process

Revista Ensino de Geografia (Recife) employs a double-blind peer review process, in which the identities of both authors and reviewers remain concealed from one another.
Initially, manuscripts submitted to the journal are analyzed by the editors based on the following criteria: alignment with the journal's scope, compliance with submission guidelines (listed under Submission Preparation Checklist and Author Guidelines), and plagiarism checks (using specialized software).
Once these requirements are met, articles are immediately forwarded to two reviewers—either from the journal's Scientific Board or ad hoc reviewers—for a blind peer review (articles are sent for evaluation without author identification). All reviewers are recognized experts in the thematic areas of geography and related sciences, with acknowledged expertise in the topics addressed.
Reviewers provide assessments regarding the scientific quality of the work based on the following parameters: originality, scientific relevance, cohesion, clarity, and the graphic quality of figures.
In the event of conflicting reviews, the manuscript is forwarded to a third reviewer.
Reviewers submit their recommendations, which are then forwarded to the author. These recommendations indicate one of the following outcomes: approval without restrictions; approval with suggested changes (not requiring resubmission to reviewers); approval with suggested changes (requiring resubmission to reviewers); or rejection.
When changes are suggested, the reviewer specifies the necessary manuscript corrections; publication proceeds only after all required alterations have been satisfactorily addressed.

Assignment of Responsibility for Final Decisions
Final responsibility for accepting, rejecting, or requesting structural modifications to any manuscript submitted to the journal rests exclusively with the Section Editors.

• Decision-Making Authority: Although the evaluation process relies on the opinions of external reviewers (double-blind peer review system), these opinions are advisory and recommendatory in nature. The ultimate decision on whether to publish an article rests with the Executive Editorial Management, represented by the Section Editors.
• Impartiality and Criteria: The final decision is based on the manuscript's originality, its contribution to the field of Geography Education, methodological clarity, adherence to ethical standards, and alignment with the journal's scope.
To ensure the integrity of the blind peer review process for journal submissions, every possible precaution must be taken to prevent the identities of authors and reviewers from being revealed to one another during the process. This requires authors, editors, and reviewers (who may submit documents to the system as part of the evaluation process) to take specific precautions regarding the text and document properties. Aside from the authorship details at the beginning and end of the manuscript—which will be removed by the editors before the paper is sent to reviewers—authors must remove their names from the text, replacing them with "Author" and the year in references and footnotes (instead of author names, article titles, etc.). In Microsoft Office documents, author identification must be removed from the document properties (via the File > Properties menu) by starting at File in the main menu and clicking the following sequence: File > Save As... > Tools (or Options on Mac) > Security Options... > Remove personal information from file properties on save > OK > Save. In PDFs, author names must also be removed from the Document Properties, found under File in the Adobe Acrobat main menu. The journal publishes the reports resulting from the peer review process, including the names of the reviewers, for a specific period.

Frequency
The journal is published three times a year (every four months).

Open Access Policy
Revista Ensino de Geografia (Recife) is an Open Access journal. This means that all its content is freely and immediately available, at no cost to the user or their institution. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, crawl them for indexing, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking for prior permission from the publisher or the author, provided they comply with the Creative Commons license applied to the published content. This statement aligns with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access.

There are NO PUBLICATION FEES for publishing in this journal.

Archiving System
Open Journal Systems supports the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) system to ensure a secure and permanent archive for the journal. LOCKSS is open-source software developed at the Stanford University Library that enables libraries to preserve selected web-based journals by regularly crawling registered journal sites for newly published content and archiving it. Each archive is continuously validated against other library caches; if content is found to be corrupted or lost, the other caches or the journal itself are used to restore it.

Publication Ethics and Best Practices
Revista Ensino de Geografia (Recife) is a peer-reviewed journal that aims to ensure the highest ethical standards in the publication of its issues. Consequently, it is essential and mandatory that all parties involved in the editorial process—the Editorial Team, the National and International Editorial Board, ad hoc reviewers, and authors—agree to the ethical standards adopted by the journal. This policy strictly adheres to the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

1. Conflict of Interest Policy (For Authors)
Authors must ensure that the research was conducted impartially. A conflict of interest exists when personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial interests could inappropriately influence an author's judgment during the research or the writing of the manuscript.
• Mandatory Declaration: Upon submission, all authors must complete the Conflict of Interest Declaration (available in the OJS system).
• Funding Sources: Authors must clearly indicate whether the research received financial support from funding agencies (CNPq, CAPES, FACEPE, etc.), scholarships, or private sponsorships. • Absence of Conflict: If there is no conflict, authors must explicitly include the following statement in the manuscript: "The authors declare that there are no financial or personal conflicts of interest that could have influenced the results of this work."

2. Authorship and Co-authorship Policy
*Revista Ensino de Geografia* (Recife) adopts rigorous authorship criteria based on international recommendations for scientific publications. Inclusion as an author must be justified by a substantive contribution to the manuscript.

3. Criteria for Authorship
To be considered an author or co-author, a researcher must meet all the following requirements:
1. Substantial contribution to the conception/design of the study, or to the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of geographic/pedagogical data.
2. Active participation in drafting the article or critically revising its intellectual content.
3. Final approval of the version to be published.
4. Public accountability for the content of the work, ensuring that issues regarding the accuracy or integrity of any part of the article are duly investigated and resolved.

4. Prohibited Practices
The journal does not tolerate the inclusion of "ghost authors" (individuals who contributed but were omitted) or "guest/courtesy authors" (individuals who did not contribute but were included due to prestige or personal relationships). Contributions that are purely technical or involve general supervision should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section.

5. Research Ethics Policy (Studies Involving Human Participants)
Revista Ensino de Geografia (Recife) operates within the field of Geography Education—which frequently involves the participation of students, teachers, and communities—and adopts essential criteria to ensure respect for human dignity and the protection of data. • Ethics Committee Approval: Studies based on fieldwork, interviews, questionnaires, or activities involving human subjects must explicitly cite the approval number from an official Research Ethics Committee (CEP/CONEP system or international equivalent) within the body of the text (and submit it as a supplementary document).
• Informed Consent: Authors must confirm that all adult participants have signed the Informed Consent Form. In the case of minors (common in school-based research), the signing of the Informed Assent Form by the minors and the Informed Consent Form by their legal guardians is mandatory.
• Anonymity and Privacy: No information that allows for the identification of participants (names, photos of faces without express authorization, sensitive data) may be published. The identities of partner schools and educational institutions must also be protected, unless formal institutional authorization is attached to the submission.

6. Combating Publication Misconduct and Academic Fraud
The journal uses automated text similarity detection tools on all submissions prior to peer review.

7. Unacceptable Conduct
• Plagiarism: Appropriation of others' ideas, processes, texts, or results without proper academic credit.
• Self-plagiarism (Redundant Publication): Republication of substantial parts of the author's own previous work without proper citation and without presenting a genuine scientific advancement.
• Data Fabrication and Falsification: Inventing research data (such as fake interviews) or manipulating results, images, graphs, and maps to alter the research outcome.
• Dual/Simultaneous Submission: Submitting the same manuscript for review to more than one journal at the same time.
In the event of suspected misconduct or an allegation thereof, the editorial team will suspend the review process and strictly follow COPE flowcharts for internal investigation, notifying the authors and, if necessary, their affiliated institutions.

8. Post-Publication Modifications: Corrections, Errata, and Retractions
Formal mechanisms are triggered if errors or ethical violations are identified after the article's publication, aiming to maintain the reliability of the scientific record.
• Corrections and Errata: These apply when the article contains an honest typographical error, an omission of secondary authorship, or a minor methodological flaw that does not invalidate the research results. An "Erratum" or "Correction Notice" will be published digitally, linked to the original article.
• Retractions: The article will be fully retracted (removed/marked as retracted) if:
1. Plagiarism, data falsification, or ethical misconduct is proven to have occurred.
2. The results prove to be seriously unreliable due to calculation errors or major methodological flaws.
3. The publication violates third-party copyright.
The retraction notice will detail the reasons for the action and the party that requested it (editors or the authors themselves).

9. Strategic Responsibilities
The editorial team is responsible for:
• Analyzing submitted articles and approving those that fall within the scope of Revista Ensino de Geografia (Recife) for the editorial workflow, taking into account the journal's thematic focus, publication guidelines, and legal aspects regarding defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.
• Guiding authors and reviewers regarding the editorial workflow and the peer-review process, including adherence to Revista Ensino de Geografia (Recife) guidelines, submission procedures, evaluation, and subsequent steps.
• Ensuring a fair, impartial, and anonymous peer-review process (double-blind peer review) while maintaining the confidentiality of information.
• Ensuring the protection of the identities of authors and reviewers involved in the peer-review process.
• Selecting appropriate reviewers.
• Organizing the list of reviewers and keeping their information up to date.
• Ensuring that unpublished material from an article is not used in research or publications by the editorial team or Editorial Board members without the authors' consent.
• Addressing inquiries regarding published articles concerning potential editorial misconduct, in accordance with COPE guidelines.
• Publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.
• Ensuring the autonomy of editorial decisions.
• Protecting intellectual property and authors' rights.
• Ensuring the maintenance of good editorial practices.

Reviewers—whether members of the scientific board or the ad hoc reviewer pool—are responsible for:
• Notifying the editorial team of their availability to review an article.
• Declining the invitation if they do not feel qualified to conduct the review due to the subject matter, the identification of aspects that might reveal the author's identity, and/or the existence of a conflict of interest. • Treat manuscripts as confidential documents, protecting the intellectual property and rights of the authors, maintaining the confidentiality of information, and committing not to use privileged information for personal gain, including in their own research and/or publications.
• Notify the editorial team regarding any identified rights violations by the authors and/or instances of plagiarism.
• Prepare the review based on good editorial practices regarding ethics, impartiality, reasonableness, and respect for human rights.

Authors are responsible for:
• Familiarizing themselves with the focus, scope, and concept of Revista Ensino de Geografia (Recife), as well as the submission guidelines.
• Preparing the article based on research and/or a systematic study, coherently addressing and critically examining the data, and presenting contributions to the field of Geography Education.
• Ensuring that the submitted article is original and previously unpublished, while maintaining a consistent approach and significant analysis.
• Refraining from submitting the article simultaneously to another journal or publication outlet.
• Adhering to the guidelines of the Research Ethics Committee of the institution associated with the research described in the article, particularly when human subjects are involved.
• Ensuring the absence of expressions or content that constitute plagiarism, and properly crediting sources for any excerpts taken from other works.
• Guaranteeing that the article has not been published in another journal.
• Attributing authorship to those who contributed significantly to the conception and development of the article.
• Maintaining communication with the editorial team, including notifying them of any need to correct information in the published article.
This Ethics Policy is based on recommendations from Elsevier and COPE.

10. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in the research of an editor or Editorial Board member without the author's express written consent.

11. Ethical Safeguards and Editorial Team Conflicts of Interest
To ensure the integrity of decisions and mitigate preferential treatment, editorial oversight adopts the following criteria:
• Submissions by Team Members: If an Editor-in-Chief, Section Editor, or Editorial Board member submits a manuscript as an author or co-author, they are completely recused from the entire management process for that article.
• Hidden Process: The OJS system is configured to hide the review workflow from the editor-author. Responsibility for assigning reviewers and making the final decision on the manuscript is delegated to a Guest Editor (independent) or another board member with no affiliation to the author.
• Refusal to Review: Editors and reviewers must decline to evaluate manuscripts if there are close personal relationships, recent supervisory ties (within the last 5 years), collaboration on ongoing research projects, or academic rivalry with the authors.

12. Appeal Process
Authors who have substantiated grounds for disagreeing with a final rejection decision issued by Section Editors have the right to file a formal appeal.
• Procedure: The author must submit a detailed, scientifically grounded justification to the journal's official email address within 30 days of notification.
• Appeal Review: The appeal will be evaluated collectively by the Advisory Editorial Board (excluding the editors who participated in the original decision). The decision of this body will be final.

13. Allegations of Misconduct
Allegations of misconduct involving authors, reviewers, or editors will be forwarded to the Editorial Board, which will have 30 days to respond to the person making the allegation. This category encompasses suspected plagiarism, data fabrication and falsification, discrepancies between published contributions and journal guidelines, improper self-citation, citation swapping, and instances of inappropriate citation practices flagged by reviewers that could affect editorial metrics. If misconduct is identified—even after publication—the article in question will be removed from the journal, accompanied by an explanatory statement.

Ownership and management
A journal of the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), maintained by the UFPE Graduate Program in Geography and hosted on the UFPE Journal Portal. It is supported by the university's Office of the Pro-Rector for Research and Innovation (PROPESQI) and the Integrated Library System (SIB) through the UFPE Institutional Journal Support Program.