The magazine Terrae Didatica — edited at the Institute of Geosciences (IG) of Unicamp by professor Celso Dal Ré Carneiro, founder of the journal — achieved the A3 rating in the Qualis Capes system, the new evaluation system for Brazilian scientific publications, which came into effect in 2025. The A rating is reserved for journals of excellence. This is an important recognition, attesting to the quality of the publication and its visibility. Furthermore, the rating obtained substantially increases the chances of the journal being selected for competitive CNPq funding opportunities.
Officially launched in late 2005, the journal has two ISSN registrations: one for the print version, which was discontinued at the end of 2016 due to lack of resources, and another for the online version, which has always predominated in searches due to its ease of access. Over the years, the Terræ Didatica, Published continuously since its inception, it has expanded its frequency and the number of scientific articles published. Between 2005 and 2009, the journal published one issue per volume; between 2010 and 2013, it increased to two issues per volume, reaching three between 2014 and 2017. In 2018, the journal became quarterly when it merged with... Terra, another scientific journal from the IG. Since adopting the continuous publication standard in 2019, the journal has accelerated the dissemination of accepted articles. The number of publications per volume is significant: there were 551 articles and other communications from 2005 to the end of 2025. In just over 20 years, the journal received 794 contributions. This means that about 30% of submissions were rejected for various reasons.
The editorial consultant team Terrae Didatica The review board is highly qualified, comprised of specialists from different areas. “This characteristic, fundamental for ensuring that the received material is evaluated in the most comprehensive and unbiased way possible, demands time and dedication from the reviewers,” emphasizes Carneiro. “We thank them all for collaborating with the journal without any remuneration,” he reinforces. The journal adopts a double-blind review system, in which authors do not know the names of the reviewers during the evaluation, and the reviewer has difficulty identifying the authors. “If the reviewers allow themselves to be identified, the authors will know the names of those who evaluated their work. Often they thank us for the suggestions received,” explains the editor-in-chief. This work “requires great attention to detail, but at the same time, it demands a holistic view to ensure that the journal remains open to any authors capable of producing good quality work, without discrimination,” he concludes.
Historically, approximately 20% of the papers published each year by the journal are related to the Postgraduate Program in Teaching and History of Earth Sciences (PPG-EHCT) at the IG. This proportion can be considered healthy, as it represents a relatively modest level of endogeneity. In volume 21, published in 2025, 11 of the 47 papers are related to professors, students, or alumni of the PPG-EHCT. Furthermore, the national community readily accepts the fields and themes of interest addressed by the journal, resulting from original and unpublished research, of an academic or technical-professional nature, in the areas of Earth Sciences, Geology, Geography, History of Science, Education, Teaching, and other fields related to Environmental Sciences. Didactic Terrae It has also been publishing information and reports on its pages about the activities of National Forum of Geology Courses.
Carneiro points out that many factors influence Capes' evaluations, such as the regularity and punctuality of publication; due respect for agile publication deadlines; the quality of the editorial board; the rigor of the evaluation; the timeliness of contributions; the absence (or very low incidence) of formatting or spelling errors; the diversity of indexing sources; the breadth of the target audience; low endogeneity; and the topics covered. "The A3 rating is meritorious and, in a way, fair, prevailing for all Capes evaluation areas, since the journal was classified as such by its parent area (Area 46 - Education)," he states.
The landscape of coexistence between commercial and open access journals has changed with the internet. "Commercial publishers have had to adapt, but they continue to 'sell' access to most of the articles they publish, while 'sugarcoating the pill' by offering some of them in open access format." open-access“, comments Carneiro. Terrae Didatica It has always maintained the standard of open access journals (open-access journalsIt was one of the first journals to be published on the Unicamp Scientific Electronic Journals Portal (PPEC), whose purpose is to house, on a single platform, all journals edited and produced within the University. The PPEC, an initiative of the University's General Coordination (CGU) managed by the Library System (SBU), suggests that journals organize all their publication in continuous mode. The IG journal has operated only by volume since 2019, without subdivision into issues.
Origins of Terrae Didatica
Carneiro describes how the journal was created between 2004 and 2005. “A few years after the creation of the undergraduate courses in Geology and Geography at Unicamp, Professor Bernardino Figueiredo, who had been the director of the Institute and had always been an enthusiast of science, gathered a group of professors from the four departments of the IG with the aim of launching a journal that would publish the results of the Institute's research. The project was ambitious, as all articles had to be written in English and distribution would be national and international.” Thus the journal was born. Terra, which would then occupy the place left by the extinct ones IG Notebooks Although the proposal was initially met with some skepticism by the faculty, as securing funding could hinder its publication, "Thanks to the support of former students, Petrobras quickly agreed to publish an advertisement on the back cover, generating revenue that would balance the budgets," says Carneiro.
Months later, Figueiredo launched the idea of another periodical publication, predominantly in Portuguese, with the intention of disseminating the work and research of the IG in the educational field. The name would be... Didactic Terrae, to link one journal to another. Thus, in 2005, the journal was created, even with scarce resources, with the mission of being a vehicle for the dissemination and exchange of educational articles, teaching materials, and teaching-learning resources that would serve the public in the environmental and Earth Sciences fields.
In 2018, a merger occurred with Terra, This broadened the thematic scope of the publication, which until then was restricted to the educational segment. "The new profile makes it possible to include articles resulting from scientific, educational, or mixed research and opens the alternative of composing thematic sets with results of relevant investigations on an international level," highlights the editor-in-chief. The journal accepts original articles resulting from scientific or educational research; syntheses, reflections, reports, or critical analyses of projects and proposals related to Earth Sciences; thematic or monographic issues synthesizing results from one or more research groups, as well as original teaching materials and resources in electronic format. Among the latter, supporting texts, syntheses, practical applications, and educational experiments are accepted; analyses of maps and other Geosciences documents that disseminate or address aspects of regional or even global knowledge; project reports, etc. workshopssymposia, congresses and any other relevant activity related to Earth Sciences; translations of texts highly relevant to the advancement of Geosciences; and reports of scientific and educational research and proposals for the development of innovative research in any area of Earth Sciences.”
Invitation
Carneiro invites authors to submit their contributions, as in the editorial of the 2026 edition:
"Didactic Terrae The journal is open to receiving contributions of excellent quality, always focusing on Geosciences or multidisciplinary fields of geoscientific research and/or geoeducational application. The journal has established itself within the national and international Earth Sciences community, being chosen by both younger and experienced researchers to disseminate the results of original and unpublished investigations. We hope to expand the journal's reach in 2026, while reiterating our confidence in the invaluable importance of disseminating high-quality science.
Those interested in submitting articles can contact the journal's editor-in-chief via email at cedrec@unicamp.br.
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