About the Journal

Focus and Scope

RAMA is the only multilingual (English, Portuguese, Spanish) journal focused on the study of martial arts and combat sports. Although the name of the journal and the popular conceptions about martial arts emphasize that they were originated in Asian countries, RAMA also publishes studies on non-Asian combat arts and other related topics.

According to the multidisciplinary nature of the so-called Physical Activity and Sports Sciences, RAMA assumes a multidisciplinary approach, in the conviction that this will make possible a better understanding of its study object.

RAMA primarily publishes scholarly articles and reviews of events and media related to the martial arts and combat sports. These contributions will be published as soon as they are accepted and edited, either in the current issue of the journal or as “articles in press” until their final edition. Contributions are accepted in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

Peer Review Process

In order to ensure the quality of manuscripts in terms of scholarship as well as writing, each manuscript will be reviewed by at least two members of the Scientific Committee or by other expert reviewers selected for this purpose. The selection of reviewers is under the criteria of the Editorial Board, which also first will examine the manuscripts. This first evaluation includes: (1) Checking the manuscript against plagiarism (Turnitin is the plagiarism detection tool used by the journal), and (2) Checking that the manuscript achieve basic quality standards.

The peer-review process is double blinded, i.e., the reviewers do not know who the authors of the manuscript are, and vice versa. This procedure tries to ensure an objective and impartial evaluation of the manuscripts.

The reception of a manuscript will be notified to authors by e-mail as soon as possible. Manuscripts will be normally reviewed within approximately four weeks, although this period may be extended during holiday periods. Once reviewed, the authors will receive a notification either of acceptance, revision or rejection of the manuscript, the latter indicating the reasons for such rejection. In the case of acceptance, the authors will be informed as soon as their article is published.

Complaints will be sent by email to artesmarciales@unileon.es. They will be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief of RAMA, who will respond promptly after consultation to the Editorial Board and/or the persons involved in the complaint.

Publication Frequency

RAMA publishes two issues per year. Depending on the number of originals manuscripts accepted, they can be published directly in the current issue or as "articles in press" until their final edition.

Open Access Policy

The Revista de Artes Marciales Asiáticas is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. Making research freely available to the public fosters a greater exchange of global knowledge, improves the visibility of authors and works and facilitates earliest citation. The authors can check the copyright and self-archiving conditions in Dulcinea directory and in Sherpa Romeo database. Also, the journal does not charge authors for publishing their works. This means there is no publication fee to submit or publish content in RAMA.

Archiving Policy

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration.

Review Policy

The review of manuscripts is a key process to ensure the quality of the contents published in any academic journal. Although it is commonly a non recognized work and paid nothing (particularly in non-profit journals such as RAMA), it is a necessary contribution to the dissemination of scientific knowledge, and a compensation to the work that other reviewers may have play on the manuscripts of which are now reviewers.

From this perspective, the reviewers who accept to evaluate a manuscript should be responsible for making a serious, ethical and rigorous review. Please do not accept a manuscript if it is not within your scope of expertise, or if you cannot commit yourself to completing the review within four weeks.

Once the review is accepted, the reviewers should remain anonymous, as a guarantee of independence and impartiality throughout all the evaluation process.

It is suggested to perform a preliminary evaluation of the manuscript al first. Although there is a previous filtering of all received manuscripts by the Editorial Board, the manuscript may not need a thorough review if presenting serious deficiencies in its contents (theoretical background, methods, data analysis, etc.), or if the quality of language is not good enough. If you appraise an interesting line of research in the manuscript, you can warn the author, along with some suggestions and/or useful references.

If after the preliminary evaluation the reviewer notes the interest and quality of the manuscript, it is recommended to proceed with further review, assessing at least the following aspects:

• The topic of the manuscript fits to RAMA.

• The manuscript is a good contribution to the knowledge of some aspect of martial arts and/or related topics.

• The writing is clear and precise.

• The manuscript is well structured into sections for easier reading and understanding.

• The title matches with the content of the manuscript.

• The summary properly informs about the different sections of the manuscript.

• There are clear objectives that guide the development of the contents of the manuscript.

• The information and references provided are relevant and, if appropriate, would make feasible the replication of the study.

• Statistical analysis, if any, is accurate.

• The results are clearly presented.

• Tables, illustrations and/or images are necessary and suitable.

• The manuscript convincingly develops the reasoning, theories or theses included within it.

• The conclusions are derived from the evidences outlined in the article.

• References to practical applications or the practical significance of the research are included.

• The bibliographical references are relevant and necessary.

• All authors cited in the text appear in the reference list, and vice versa.

• The reference list is updated.

• References are correctly written.

Based on this analysis, the reviewer will recommend acceptance, acceptance with minor changes, revision of the manuscript for a new evaluation, or rejection of the manuscript.

The final review report will include a section addressed to the Editor, in which the final recommendation is informed, and a section for authors, in which the reviewer evaluates the manuscript. The reviewer's proposal on the acceptance or rejection of the article must not appear in this section; on the contrary, it is recommended to make a general evaluation of the manuscript, focused on its strengths and weaknesses, and a specific evaluation focused on more precise details of content and style.

Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement

The Revista de Artes Marciales Asiáticas follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices and the COPE, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. Some key points are highlighted below, but please refer to the entire documents for full details.

(1) Duties and responsibilities of Editors

Editors will be accountable for everything published in the journal. They will take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish, and the publication of such material in a timely manner. They will always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.
The editors will ensure that all submitted manuscripts, once they are preliminary evaluated by themselves, will undergo a double blind peer-review by at least two experts in the field. Reviewers will disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.
Editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication will be based on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the remit of the journal.
Editorial decisions will not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Decisions to edit and publish should not be determined by the policies of governments or other agencies outside of the journal itself.
Editors will publish guidance to authors on everything that is expected of them. They will inform authors that, if accepted, their papers will be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. They will also inform how their submissions will be checked against plagiarism.
Editors will provide guidance to reviewers on everything that is expected of them including the need to handle submitted material in confidence.
Editors will act if they suspect misconduct or if an allegation of misconduct is brought to them. They will also respond promptly to complaints and should ensure there is a way for dissatisfied complainants to take complaints further. They will follow the COPE flowcharts where applicable.

(2) Duties and responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers who accept to evaluate a manuscript should be responsible for making an independent, serious, rigorous, helpful and respectful review. They should not accept to evaluate a manuscript if it is not within the reviewer’s scope of expertise
Reviewers should complete the review within four weeks. If this were not possible they should inform the editors as soon as possible.
Reviewers should remain anonymous, as a guarantee of independence and impartiality throughout all the evaluation process.
Reviewers should inform any conflict of interest which may affect their objectivity in judging a manuscript.

(3) Duties and responsibilities of Authors

Authors will only submit original, unpublished contributions. They must not have been sent to any other publication. The authors are responsible for the ethical, scientific and legal aspects of their manuscripts. They will disclose any conflicts of interest that might had affected their work.
The signing authors of a manuscript assert that they have made a significant contribution to it. Minor contributions can be cited in acknowledgements section. All authors who have made significant contributions to the manuscript should be listed as coauthors.
Any investigation involving humans or animals must include a statement certifying that the investigation was conducted in conformity with norms and protocols approved by their institutions.
Authors should follow and accept the journal guidelines and procedures regarding submission (including checking their manuscripts against plagiarism), peer review and correction of galley proofs.
Authors shall notify as soon as possible any errors or omissions detected in their manuscripts, even if the manuscripts have already been published.
Authors will allow the publisher to license their works under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. They are allowed and encouraged to disseminate electronically pre-print or post-print versions of their work before publication.

(4) Duties and responsibilities of the Publisher

The publisher will provide support to the journal, especially in maintenance of the Universidad de León Open Journal System platform.
The publisher will provide advice and support to the editors regarding any initiative which may help to increase the journal quality, visibility and to fit to COPE standards.
The publisher will make the contents of the journal timely and permanently available through the Universidad de León Open Journal System platform.

Sources of Support

The Revista de Artes Marciales Asiáticas is funded entirely by the Spanish public university Universidad de León.

Journal History

The Revista de Artes Marciales Asiáticas (RAMA) is an initiative undertaken by the University of León in 2006, having as its main objective the spreading of knowledge about martial arts and combat sports, especially in the Spanish-speaking world. Since 2010, RAMA is attached to the Department of Physical Education and Sports and edited by the Publications Area of the University of León.

In its first period (2006-2011), RAMA contents were original research articles, media reviews, and translations of articles published in the American Journal of Asian Martial Arts, one of the most prestigious publications in the field of martial arts at the international level, whose rights for the Spanish language were acquired by the University of León. During this period RAMA was printed in paper and published only in Spanish on a quarterly and biyearly basis.

From 2012, RAMA started its second period, which is defined by its transformation into an open-access digital journal, total autonomy from the US Journal of Asian Martial Arts, and multilingual character (English, Portuguese and Spanish). From 2012 all contents published in RAMA are fully original.