Peer Review Process

Peer Review Process

1. Submission of Paper

The corresponding or submitting author submits the paper to the journal. This is usually via Open Journal System. The editor will get an automatic email notification if a manuscript is submitted, and the author will also get an email notification thanking them for submitting the manuscript.

2. Editorial Assessment and Appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC)

The EiC checks that the paper adheres to the requirements described in the journal's Author Guidelines, In addition, EiC will also check the completeness of the submission in accordance with the submission preparation checklist. The quality of the paper is not assessed at this point. The EIC checks assesses the paper, considering its scope, originality and merits. The EiC may reject the paper at this stage.

If the manuscript is in accordance with the author guidelines and submission preparation checklist, EiC will inform the author that the manuscript proceeds to the review process. But, if the author has not attached an integrity pact, EiC will ask the author to complete it first before proceeding to the next process.

EiC will check and decide no later than 1 month after the manuscript is submitted.

3. EIC Assigns a Section Editor (SE) and Invitation to Reviewers

EiC will assign a section editor at this stage, usually they will respond within 1 week at the latest.

The section editor sends invitations to individuals he or she believes would be appropriate reviewers according to their expertise and scientific studies. Two reviewers are assigned. The Section Editor will inform the reviewer of the time allotted for the review process which is 1 month. 

4. Response to Invitations

Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their own expertise, conflicts of interest and availability. They then accept or decline the invitation to review. If possible, when declining, they might also suggest alternative reviewers. The latest response from the reviewer is 1 week after the invitation is sent, if there is no response then the section editor will invite another reviewer.

5. Review is Conducted

The reviewer sets time aside to read the paper several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewer may feel comfortable rejecting the paper without further work. Otherwise, they will read the paper several more times, taking notes to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal, with the reviewer's recommendation (e.g. to revise, accept or reject the paper).

6. Journal Evaluates the Reviews

The section editor considers all the reviews returned before making a decision. If reviews differ widely, the section editor may ask the editor-in-chief or editorial advisory board for additional opinions before making a decision.

7. The Decision is Communicated

The section editor will email the decision to the author including relevant reviewer comments. Comments will be anonymous, as the journal follows a double blind peer review model.

The section editor gives a deadline of 2 weeks if the decision is revision required, and 1 month if the decision is resubmit for review.

8. Next Steps

If accepted, the paper is sent to production. If the article is rejected or sent back for either major or minor revision, the section editor should include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. At this point, reviewers should also be sent an email or letter letting them know the outcome of their review. If the paper was sent back for revision, the reviewers should expect to receive a new version, unless they have opted out of further participation. However, where only minor changes were requested this follow-up review might be done by the handling editor.

9. Final Decision

The final decision on the acceptance of a manuscript is made by the editor-in-chief, in accordance with the comments and evaluation results made by the reviewers.