About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Anales de Psicologia / Annals of Psychology is a multidisciplinary journal of the various thematic areas of scientific psychology. It publishes originalresearch articles and theoretical review (systematic and quantitative) in any of its basic, applied and methodological areas included within psychology.

Potential readers of the journal include anyone interested in scientific research in psychology, especially researchers, academics, and professionals in any field of psychology.

Language

To achieve the widest possible dissemination, all articles are published in English, although a Spanish version is also accepted in addition to the English version. Authors may submit their original manuscripts in English only or in both English and Spanish, but they will be published in English (and additionally in Spanish if requested by the author).

The journal's website can be viewed in English or Spanish. The information provided is the same in both languages.

Legal property and editorial management of the journal

The publication, financing, marketing and distribution are the responsibility of Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia (Spain), which is the legal owner of the journal.

It is published by Editum (the publishing brand of the Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia) and is one of the scientific journals they publish.

The general editorial guidelines come from Editum, which manages the technical support (documentation, OJS software, and servers) and administrative management provided by the University of Murcia.

The organizational guidelines and editorial criteria come from its Editorial Board, with the support and advice of the Editorial Advisory Board, composed of academics and experts from various national and international universities and institutions. All of them are proposed by the Departments and/or Areas of Psychology at the University of Murcia, which are periodically updated every four years. The leadership positions are chosen from among the members of the Editorial Board. All this according to the rules of Governance, functions and roles of the Editorial Team of the journal.

Peer Review Process

Manuscripts submitted for possible publication in the journal undergo a double-blind peer review process.

Upon receipt, the Editorial Board (within a maximum of 15 days) examines whether the manuscripts meet the mandatory requirements for submission to external expert reviewers. Manuscripts with formatting, style, editorial policy, plagiarism, or prior publication elsewhere, outdated topics, poor methodological quality, etc., are excluded from the process.

Manuscripts that meet all requirements proceed to double-blind peer review: only the editor in charge of the review process knows the names of the authors and reviewers, and neither the authors nor the reviewers know who is reviewing their article. At least two experts, specialists in the article's subject matter, either national or international, conduct the review. In the case of original empirical articles, they will be reviewed by experts in methodology.

The entire process, from initial review to acceptance or rejection for publication, can take up to five months. The process is explained in more detail in section 1.4 of the Instructions to Authors for Submitting Manuscripts.

Publication frequency, and issue structure and contents

It is a quarterly journal (from 2011 to 2025): each annual volume is published in three issues, in January (January-April), May (May-September), and October (October-December), in online format.

Starting with volume 42 in 2026, it follows a continuous publication model, also in three issues, although articles will be published throughout the months covered by each issue, as they are accepted and ready for publication. Each issue will open in January, May, and September, and articles will be added throughout the year.

Each issue has its own Table of Contents (with access to each article), with the current issue's table of contents appearing on the main website and the others in the Previous Issues section.

It is published online (web) (ISSN: 1695-2294), with open access indexes and full text in PDF format, since 2000, and on the OJS (Open Journal System) platform since 2008 on the website  https://revistas.um.es/analesps (published in print (ISSN: 0212-9728) from 1984 vol. 1 to 2023, vol. 39). All articles are available online in full text in PDF format from vol. 1 of 1984. They are also available online in the DIGITUM repository of the University of Murcia.

Open Access Journal

This journal provides its content in immediate open access and full text, under the principle that allowing free access to research results leads to a greater exchange of knowledge globally.

See more details in this journal's Open Access Policy.

Digital Preservation Policies

These are strategic frameworks that define specific rules and actions to guarantee the long-term accessibility, integrity, and authenticity of digital content. They are important for: (1) combating the obsolescence of hardware, software, or file formats; (2) ensuring the integrity and authenticity of the original content of scientific information; (3) guaranteeing future access to this information; and (4) ensuring the sustainability of the digital heritage of scientific journals.
Digital preservation systems and services include the archiving of articles and research data, as well as article metadata. Regarding the digital archiving of articles and research data, there are services for journals and authors:
- External active and automatic archiving services. This extract journal content as it is published. For example, PubMed Central (PMC), PKP PN, CLOKSS, LOCKSS, etc. Anales de Psicología has a service of this type at the University of Murcia itself. This is DIGITUM, a digital repository that allows self-archiving by authors from the university itself, and also performs delegated archiving of journals published by the Publications Service, including Anales de Psicologia. It is organized chronologically by volumes and annual issues. As it is an OJS journal, it can also activate the PKP PN service, which is native to that platform.

- Self-archiving services and platforms for authors. This journal does not have its own self-archiving system for authors from outside this university, but it allows and encourages authors to deposit their work published in Anales de Psicología in other repositories, as this promotes its circulation, dissemination, and preservation. The self-archiving of research data deserves special mention in this journal.

Other initiatives used by this journal for the digital preservation of its content:

(1) Use of permanent article identifiers. This journal uses DOIs, which are unique permanent identifiers for each article. It appears in the article itself, in the citation, in databases, and on the internet, thus serving as a web link to locate and access it in this journal, as it is open access.

(2) Use of metadata that identifies each article. This journal is hosted on an OJS platform, which manages various metadata interoperability protocols.

(3) Use of formats that promote digital preservation. These are file formats such as PDF and, especially, XML (JATS), which allow the content to be machine-readable and easily migrated to future formats if PDF becomes obsolete. This journal uses PDF and will soon support XML (JATS).

Interoperability Protocol

Interoperability protocols are technical standards that allow different computer systems to communicate and share data automatically.

In the field of scientific journals, these protocols: (1) facilitate visibility by allowing articles and their metadata to be automatically "read" and harvested by other external systems, the harvesters, without direct human intervention; (2) improve the efficiency of indexing in databases; (3) comply with standards that facilitate the flow of information between repositories and academic networks.

Anales de Psicología, being hosted on an OJS platform, uses the main interoperability protocols:

The journal provides an OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative – Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) interface that allows its contents to be harvested by other distribution systems, such as digital repositories and harvesters.

Specifications:
● OAI-PMH Protocol Version 2.0
● Dublin Core Metadata

Harvesters' Path: https://revistas.um.es/analesps/oai

Other features:
● Persistent identifiers: DOI
● Active integration with repositories: indexing module in Google Scholar.
● Non-active (available) metadata integration: DOAJ, CrossRef XML, DataCite, PubMed

Academic collaboration and sponsorship

Journal academic collaboration:

Members of the Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy and the Departments of Psychology at the University of Murcia collaborate in the editorial management of the journal.

LogoUMU-FacPsiLog
  •  

Sponsorship:

Journal History

Created in 1984. Peer review journal of scientific Psychology. Included in Journal Citation Reports (JCR, Clarivate Analytics) and Scimago Journal Rank (SJR, Scopus - Elsevier) and CiteScore (Scopus, Elsevier), and the major data bases (WoS, Scopus, PsycInfo, Ebsco, ProQuest, Scielo, etc.). 

See a more extensive history of the journal (in Spanish) at http://revistas.um.es/analesps/article/view/87421/84151