The iDental Journal has been an annual publication since 2021. It serves as a platform for the dissemination of research and academic works from the academic community of the program, as well as from colleagues at other institutions, hospitals, and associations both within Costa Rica and internationally. It is an electronic journal published annually by the Latin American University of Science and Technology (ULACIT) in San José, Costa Rica.

iDental is emerging as an alternative for the dissemination of scientific information and clinical cases, within the area of Oral Health Sciences, giving priority to articles on original, relevant and unpublished topics.

It is a free and open access journal, accessible to the public through the University's website. It is published once a year, in the month of December. 

It encourages publications by researchers, teachers, and students, whether they are directly affiliated with the institution or not. The journal urges the participation of both domestic and international authors in iDental publications.

All research must count with approval from Scientific Ethical Committee. In the matter of projects regarding human beings as organic matter, an authorization from the corresponding Bioethical Committee is required.

Works can be sent for the following sections:

• Original articles from experimental or observational studies: must include abstract (No more than 250 words) and a maximum of 6 keywords; and have an extension of 4000 words (excluding abstract and references). Its structure must count with: a) introduction, b) methods, c) results, d) discussion, e) conclusion; and no more than 7 tables/figures, and 60 references.
• Case Report or Case Series: must include abstract (No more than 250 words) and a maximum of 6 keywords; and have an extension of 2500 words (excluding abstract and references). Its structure must count with: a) introduction, b) case report, where details of the subject case are described, as well as characteristics, diagnosis, treatment, results and follow ups. c) discussion and conclusion, where the author must discuss advantages and disadvantages of the treatment planned or done, and its respective contraindications.  This section must not be a repeated matter of the past sections, and no more than 7 tables/figures, and 60 references.
• Editorial: Must have a maximum extension between 500 and 1500 words, 2 tables or figures and 5 references.
• Critical Literature review: must include abstract (No more than 250 words) and a maximum of 6 keywords; and have an extension of 5000 words (excluding abstract and references). Must include no more than 7 tables/figures, and 120 references. Text must be divided into sections, titles and subtitles in order to facilitate article comprehension. Search methodology used must be indicated.
• Short Research: This section presents results of an ongoing research or parts of a bigger research project.
• Educational Innovation: Up to 2 papers will be published in this section, according to the criteria of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) approach. Products of the systematisation of experiences in educational innovation and their results, through the systematic analysis of teaching and its impact on student learning, will be published. These articles can be written in the following format:
• Empirical Research (IMRD): must include an abstract or summary and 5 keywords; and must be between 8000 and 9000 words in length (excluding abstracts, summaries, and references).
• Conceptual articles: they must include an abstract and 5 keywords and be between 5000 and 6,000 words in length (excluding abstracts and references).
• Reflective essays: they must include an abstract or summary and 5 keywords and be between 5000 and 6,000 words in length (excluding the abstract, summary, and references).
• Opinion articles: they must include an abstract or summary and 5 keywords and be between 3000 and 4000 words in length (excluding summary/abstract and references).
• Literature review: should include a summary or abstract and 5 keywords; and should be between 3000 and 4000 words in length (excluding a summary /abstract and references).
• Systematic Reflection: should include a summary or abstract and 5 keywords and be between 3000 and 4000 words in length (excluding summary/abstract and references).

The iDental Journal is indexed in Crossref and subscribes to the Code of Best Practice in Scholarly Journal Publishing.

IDental Magazine is an annual publication. The publication periods include the month of December of each year.

Reception of manuscripts is open throughout the year.

The journal accepts submissions in both Spanish and English.

Submitted manuscripts are not considered submissions until the author sends the complete material to the journal.

The Scientific Council is the body that evaluates the quality and thoroughness of the articles submitted and will take into consideration the relevance, originality, timeliness, impact and compliance with the rules of publication.

The articles that pass the review of the Scientific Council will be sent for evaluation to referees specialized in the relevant topic.

A maximum of 3 months will be allowed for the Editorial Board to issue a decision on the manuscript. After this first review cycle, the manuscript will go through the refereeing system.

The refereeing system adopted is the double-blind system. The final decision for publication will be made by the Scientific Council and after the evaluation process by external peers, the resolution may be: a) accepted without modifications, b) accepted subject to minor corrections or c) rejected. If the article is accepted subject to minor corrections, it will be returned to the author(s) together with the recommendations, so that they can submit a corrected version; having 15 calendar days to do so.

All manuscripts will then be sent for philological review, the authors are required to accept the changes recommended by the professional contracted by ULACIT.

The rejection of the papers or any discrepancy about them will be resolved by the Editorial Board, with no possibility of complaint against the decision of this body.

The published version may be accessed on the journal's website.

The process of evaluation and publication of the document may take approximately six months. However, this period may be shorter or longer, depending on factors that may accelerate the process.

The iDental Journal employs a long-term preservation service, wherein each issue of the journal is archived using Open Journal Systems (OJS). Open Journal Systems is an open-source software application designed for the management and publication of scholarly journals.

Originally developed and released by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) in 2001 to enhance access to research, OJS has become the most widely adopted open-source journal publishing platform globally, with over 30,000 journals utilizing it worldwide.

These journals back up their digital contents in the Alberto Cañas Escalante Library, in a space on the University's own server and in the University's public digital library, coordinated by the Library Directorate, for preservation and restoration purposes.

The evaluation of articles is carried out through a meticulous process of double-blind peer review, where scientific relevance, originality, clarity and pertinence are considered as evaluation criteria. This method is a means of confidentiality, safeguarding the anonymity of both the authors and the evaluators (internal and external). Thus, the privacy of the evaluated content and the confidentiality of the referees' report are scrupulously respected.

The magazine respects and adheres to everything contemplated by Law No. 6683 Law on copyright and related rights of the Republic of Costa Rica, as well as its reform in Law 7979.

iDental Journal is committed to ensure the originality of published manuscripts, according to international standards, with the use of the plagiarism detection tool Turnitin Originality.

In case of plagiarism, the article will be automatically rejected, and the author(s) will be notified. In cases of self-plagiarism, the author(s) will be notified and will have 15 calendar days to resolve the situation.

If no response is received or if the changes are not satisfactory, the article will be rejected for publication.

Articles published in the iDental Journal are the exclusive property of their authors and are open access. iDental Journal is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA) license; e-ISSN: 1659-4916.

The iDental Journal ensures immediate open access to its content under the principle of Open Science, which guarantees that research is made available to the public, thereby promoting global knowledge exchange.

The iDental Journal is an open access journal, meaning that all its content is freely available without cost to users or institutions.

The iDental Journal operates under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA) license. This license allows others to distribute, remix, adapt, and create derivative works from the material in any medium or format, exclusively for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the original creator. All authors of the iDental accept these terms as conditions of publication.

Sending the document to the journal's address, with the complete form "Acceptance of conditions and assignment of copyright" ("Aceptación de condiciones y cesión de derechos de autor"), is an indispensable requirement for the submission of an article to the journals of the Universidad Latinoamericana de Ciencia y Tecnología (ULACIT), and must be signed by the author(s) of the manuscript. The format of this document is PDF with fillable fields for the incorporation of the basic data of the manuscript and the author(s).