History, challenges and perspectives of Siembra as a tool of scientific dissemination of the Life Sciences Area of Universidad Central del Ecuador

Abstract

In 2014, thanks to the initiative of several professors of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of Universidad Central del Ecuador, Siembra was born as a tool to disseminate the thinking of the institution. Subsequently, in 2015, by the hand of professors Christian Vasco, the first editorial director of Siembra as a scientific journal, José Espinosa, and myself, Xavier Lastra, the path for the professionalization and consolidation of Siembra as an organ of scientific dissemination of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of Central University of Ecuador, began. So that, with the publication of Volume 2, the basic guidelines and criteria that a scientific journal must comply with were established and implemented.

During the first ten years of Siembra's existence, the results of scientific and technological research in the field of agronomic sciences and tourism have been published, as well as topics related to rural development, tourism and livestock sciences, through 141 scientific articles, both original and review. During its existence, Siembra has given space to both national and international research results, experiencing in recent years a greater presence of international authors, mainly from Latin America.

During the last five years, Siembra has undergone important changes and achievements in order to consolidate itself as a scientific journal, adopting criteria and complying with requirements that increase its quality, improve its visibility and increase its transparency, among which:

• In 2019, its periodicity changed from annual to semiannual, it became an electronic journal starting from 2019, and a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) was incorporated in each of its articles.


• From 2020, adoption of a continuous flow publication model to reduce the publication time of manuscripts.


• Publication of articles in four formats: PDF, HTML, XML and ePUB, which allow for greater visibility of information, and exchange of metadata with indexing systems.


• Since the second issue of 2021, the CASRAI CRediT taxonomy (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) was adopted in order to make the contribution of each author and collaborator of the manuscripts published by Siembra


• Starting the first issue of 2023, information on conflicts of interest and ethical aspects has been included in the articles, in order to comply with the requirements of international indexing entities.

As a result of the work carried out, greater national and international recognition has been achieved through the inclusion in different evaluation systems, databases and dissemination portals: Scientific Electronic Library Online - SciELO, Scientific Information System REDALYC, Regional Online Information System of Scientific Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal - Latindex Catalog 2.0, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources (ROAD), Ibero-American Network of Innovation and Scientific Knowledge (REDIB), PERIODICA. Índice de Revistas Latinoamericanas en Ciencias - Dirección General de Bibliotecas, UNAM, European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIHPLUS), Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE), AGRIS, EuroPub, CORE, Open Academic Journals Index (OAJI), DIALNET, LatinREV, Google Scholar, Academic Resource Index - ResearchBib, Integrated Classification of Scientific Journals (CIRC), Matrix of Information for the Analysis of Journals (MIAR), AURA, ICI World of Journals - ICI Journals Master List - Index Copernicus International, Dardo, La Referencia, Actualidad Iberoamericana.

Also, Siembra's editorial team, cognizant of the importance of disseminating knowledge without restrictions, has strengthened its commitment to Open Access publishing, providing immediate, complete and free access to its content, based on the principle that offering the public free access to research helps a greater global exchange of knowledge. Siembra does not charge its authors any fee for the submission of articles or for their processing or publication (No Article Processing Charge - Non-APC), contributing to break the economic barriers that generate inequalities both in access to information and in the publication of research results. Therefore, Siembra is an Open Access journal, which applies a non-profit publication model to preserve the academic and open nature of scientific communication, called Diamond Open Access.

Nevertheless, just as progress has been made and important achievements have been made, there are also challenges to be faced in the future, which the Siembra editorial team is already working on, such as:

• Publication of its manuscripts in two languages, Spanish and English.


• Increase the number of articles published in each issue.


• Strengthen its Editorial Committee with the inclusion of academics and researchers from the different disciplines that are part of the Life Sciences, and from a greater number of countries, in order to achieve greater internationalization.


• Strengthen the editorial processes to achieve new international indexing in the short term.


• Consolidate Siembra as a scientific journal of the Life Sciences Area of the Universidad Central del Ecuador, so that it becomes a means of quality scientific dissemination that joins the efforts of three faculties closely related in their actions and lines of research.

Therefore, as part of this latest challenge, starting with the present issue, Siembra presents an important change in terms of its Focus and Scope, in order to become the official organ of scientific dissemination of the Life Sciences Area of the Universidad Central del Ecuador publishing the results of multi- and interdisciplinary scientific and technological research in the fields of:

• Agricultural sciences including but not limited to plant production and health, agricultural engineering, soil sciences, entomology, forestry, agroforestry, agroindustry, food science and technology, agricultural economics, rural sociology, rural development, food systems, agroecology, regenerative agriculture, and agro-tourism.


• Livestock sciences including but not limited to animal production, animal sciences, animal health and welfare, veterinary medicine, and public health.


• Biological and environmental sciences including but not limited to ecology, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning studies, natural resource management, ecosystem transitions, ecosystem services, ecological resilience, environment-society relations, climate change, land use in natural systems, geography and territory, and ecotourism.

And as part of this process, Siembra is now jointly edited by the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Livestock, and the Faculty of Biological Sciences of Universidad Central del Ecuador.

Dear authors and readers, these changes seek to contribute to the path undertaken so that Siembra will be in the medium term a reference in the national and regional scientific publication in the area of Life Sciences, being an arena for discussion on the reality and the national, regional and international problems in this field of knowledge.

Xavier B. Lastra Bravo

Editor-in-Chief