DORA Declaration

VISUAL Review is an academic journal of the VisualCOM Scientific Publications group, publishing original texts on visual culture in both Spanish and English. Since August 2025, VISUAL Review has adhered to the principles of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), a global initiative dedicated to improving research evaluation practices.

DORA emphasises the importance of advancing methodologies for assessing academic research outputs and consolidating the implementation of fairer and more rigorous practices, ensuring that researchers’ contributions are evaluated carefully and impartially. By adhering to DORA, the journal is committed to evaluating research on the basis of its scientific content rather than metrics associated with journals.

By endorsing DORA, we reinforce our commitment to fostering a research culture that values quality and impact over traditional metrics. In order to align the journal’s editorial policy with the recommendations and objectives of DORA, we will progressively implement the following actions:

  1. Alternative metrics. We will substantially reduce emphasis on the Journal Impact Factor as a promotional tool, presenting it instead within the context of a range of alternative metrics, such as the h-index, editorial and publication timelines, among others, which provide a richer perspective on the journal’s performance.

  2. Article-level metrics. We will make available a variety of article-level metrics (such as downloads, mentions, and altmetrics), presented alongside other indicators to encourage a shift towards evaluation based on the scientific content of an article. We value the scholarly reach, originality, clarity, and rigour of each manuscript, without privileging quantitative metrics.

  3. Responsible authorship. To foster responsible authorship, authors may be asked to provide information regarding the specific contributions of each co-author.

  4. Flexibility. We recognise the diversity of scientific contributions and offer greater flexibility with respect to word count, figures, and references in submitted articles. We do not impose unnecessary limits on the number of references, and we encourage the citation of primary literature over reviews where appropriate.

  5. Licensing. We adopt open licences that allow free reuse of bibliographic references. In particular, VISUAL Review uses CC BY-ND licences.

In compliance with the new DORA policy in effect since 1 January 2025, VISUAL Review publishes this statement simultaneously with its formal endorsement of DORA. Through this endorsement, we commit to periodically updating this declaration and to communicating progress in the implementation of these principles internally to our community of authors, reviewers, and readers.

If users of the journal observe any signs of non-compliance with any of these principles or wish to propose improvements, they may contact the editorial team of VISUAL Review, which is open to engaging in dialogue with those who request it in order to clarify situations or strengthen editorial and academic practices.