Peer-review policy

Peer-review policy

Peer review in all its structure plays an essential role in ensuring the quality of scientific output. Peer review is a process of evaluating the scientific work by other scholars in the same field. The procedure depends to a large extent on trust and requires that everyone involved behaves responsibly and ethically.

When the editorial team receive an original article, the Managing Editor or Assistant Editor or the Section Editor will first decide whether the article meets the formal criteria indicated in the Author Guidelines and whether it fits within the aims and scope of the journal.

All articles shall be handled by an Editorial board member who does not have any potential conflict of interest with any of the manuscript’s authors. All Manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer-review process, where the authors and reviewers do not know each other’s identity to ensure the highest quality of the journal.

Article handling editor will select the potential reviewers for each article and must (i) not have co-authored publications with the author and (ii) not be affiliated with the same institution as the author(s). All articles except Editorials will be sent out for peer review process and at least two reviewer comments per manuscript will be collected. Reviewers will be asked to complete their review within two weeks; however, they are allowed to extend the review period of time in order to complete and submit their report.

Peer reviewers can make one of the following recommendations for the editors to consider:

  1. Accept manuscript without any change
  2. Accept after minor revision (i.e., article can be accepted if the author makes the requested minor revisions)
  3. Accept after minor revision (i.e., article can be accepted after major revisions have been made – the manuscript may be sent out for another peer review round)
  4. Reject manuscript (i.e., the manuscript is flawed or not sufficiently novel)

When all reviewers have submitted their reports, the Editor can make one of the following editorial recommendations:

  1. Accept
  2. Revision
  3. Reject

Revision

Formal revision may be required if the language or style is sub-standard. To facilitate rapid publication, authors are given a maximum of two weeks for minor/major revisions, with possible extensions of up to 4 weeks. Number of revisions depends upon the need for number of changes/edits needed in the article as per the instructions from the editor/reviewers to ensure quality of the article before getting them published.

Publication

If the manuscript is accepted, the author will be sent a galley proof in order for them to make any final corrections. Once this is done the manuscript will appear in the Articles in Press section of the journal’s website. All accepted peer reviewed manuscripts will be published online and are citable by the digital object identifier (DOI) assigned at the time of online publication.