What is peer review?

Peer review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether a manuscript should be published in their journal.

How does it work?

When a manuscript is submitted to a journal, it is assessed to see if it meets the criteria for submission. If it does, the editorial team will select potential peer reviewers within the field of research to peer-review the manuscript and make recommendations.

Why do peer review?

Peer review is an integral part of scientific publishing that confirms the validity of the manuscript. Peer reviewers are experts who volunteer their time to help improve the manuscripts they review. By undergoing peer review, manuscripts should become:

• More robust - peer reviewers may point out gaps in a paper that require more explanation or additional experiments.
• Easier to read - if parts of your paper are difficult to understand, reviewers can suggest changes.
• More useful - peer reviewers also consider the importance of your paper to others in your field.

Peer Review Process Flow

Peer Review Process Flow

Initial Preliminary Review (Technical Screening)

All manuscripts are processed using our Manuscript Tracking System. The Admin editor determines whether the manuscript fits the journal’s focus and scope. Once we receive a manuscript, our Editorial Office runs a plagiarism check (using Grammarly, Turnitin or CrossCheck, powered by iThenticate) and screens the manuscript to decide whether or not it should be sent for peer review. It is therefore very important for authors to make sure that their manuscript is well written and is of high quality. During the initial screening, our Editorial Office mainly checks the following:

• Does the manuscript fit the journal’s scope?
• Is the manuscript material copied from the original source?
• Are there any grammar and vocabulary errors?
• Did the author follow the manuscript instructions?
• Is the content of the manuscript is good enough to make it worth reviewing?

Any manuscripts out of the journal’s scope or containing plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, are rejected. This step will take 4-7 days and intimation is sent to the author whether the manuscript can be processed further or revision or rejected.

Single Blind Peer Review

After manuscripts clear the initial screening, they are sent to Reviewer. The editor will send the manuscript to a minimum of 2 reviewers for single blind peer review. The peer review process is an essential element of the publication cycle. All manuscripts submitted to our journals will undergo extensive peer review by our reviewers. Flow diagram in Figure 1 is the editorial workflow that all submitted manuscripts undergo.

Reviewers submit the evaluation results along with their recommendations as one of the following actions:

1. Accept
   
2. Minor Revision
3. Major Revision
4. Reject

We have a single blinded peer-review process in which the reviewers know who the authors of the manuscript are, but the authors do not have access to the information of who the peer reviewers are. Our journal acknowledges the researchers who have performed the peer-review and without the significant contributions made by these researchers, the publication of the journal would not be possible. We try our best to adhere to the guidelines laid out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We also forward the guidelines to our reviewers to ensure the highest ethical standards of evaluation.

The Reviewer Report (Comments) is a online, which is filled and commented. It contains title of the article but does not contain the identity details of the reviewer. Reviewer’s identity is kept anonymous. It is because Reviewers’ Report is shared with the author(s) for the purpose of improving their manuscript. This Reviewer’s Report can be updated in online system. Reviewers are given 1-2 weeks to write their rating and comment. 

Final Decision

In order for the Editor to provide a recommendation regarding the manuscript, at least 2 completed reviews are required. Once the reviewers have submitted their comments, the Editor will then arrange to send the article to the corresponding author along with Reviewers’ Reports and her/his own recommendation, if any. The Editor delivers and informs the author of the final decision too. If the manuscript is conditionally accepted, author(s) will be required to revise their manuscript according to the Editor’s suggestions and submit a revised version of their manuscript for further evaluation. Our Editorial Workflow allows Editors to reject manuscripts due to a number of reasons including inappropriateness of the subject, lack of quality, or incorrectness of the results. We ensure high quality and unbiased peer-review by sending the manuscript for evaluation to a range of reviewers in different parts of the world.