Peer Review Process

Peer Review Process

All submitted manuscripts will undergo a three-step review process: preliminary check, plagiarism check and expert peer review. 

Preliminary check: All submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by the journal’s editorial office for compliance with guidelines for preparation of articles. Articles that do not comply with the guidelines will be sent back to the authors. 

Plagiarism check:  Articles that are in compliance with the guidelines will be subjected to plagiarism check. We work with Cross Ref to use iThenticate to detect plagiarism. iThenticate gives a 'similarity index', which is the word-by-word copying of materials from previously published literature. We use similarity index to make a decision. Even if the original source was cited, articles with more than 20% similarity index will be returned to the authors without peer review for re-writing. For articles with similarity index between 1-10%, we follow the guidelines of COPE on text recycling to make a decision. Articles that pass the plagiarism check will be reviewed by experts in the field. 

Selection of reviewers: The Journal Editorial Team will find appropriate experts to review the manuscripts. Authors are required to suggest three potential reviewers; however, there is no guarantee that these reviewers will be invited to review. Potential reviewers will be personally contacted by the editorial staff to seek expression of interest to review the paper. The email will contain the details of the authors and the abstract. Also, the reviewers will be asked to disclose conflict of interest. If the reviewers agree to review, and if there is no potential conflict of interest, they will receive the official invitation from the journal containing the link to access the manuscript.

Peer review and reviewer responsibilities: The reviewers will remain anonymous. Reviewers are expected to keep the manuscript confidential, provide an unbiased scientific opinion of the manuscript and declare any conflict of interest. Also, reviewers are expected to submit their comments within the indicated time frame. 

Criteria for assessing original articles: 

• Does the abstract convey the major theme of the paper?
• Does the manuscript require language editing?
• Does the introduction describe the rationale for the study in the context of the available literature?
• Where relevant, have appropriate ethics approval and informed consent been obtained?
• Are the methods adequately described?
• Is the number of samples, number of repeats, equipment and chemicals used clearly mentioned?
• Are statistical methods clearly stated?
• Is the discussion well-balanced in light of the available literature and the research findings?
• Is conflict of interest stated?

Criteria for assessing review articles: 

• Does the manuscript require language editing?
• Does the abstract convey the major theme of the article?
• Does the article comprehensively and critically evaluate an existing problem in the context of the available literature?
• If relevant does the article suggest a possible solution to the problem?
• Is conflict of interest stated? 

Editorial decision: Based on the comments of the reviewers, a decision will be made either to accept the manuscript without any changes, give authors an opportunity to revise and resubmit, or reject. The corresponding author will be notified of the decision. 

If the authors choose to revise and resubmit, the manuscript will be evaluated by the original reviewers or the editor-in-chief to verify if the original comments of the reviewers have been adequately addressed. If the authors have adequately addressed the original comments, the reviewers are not allowed to raise new comments. Depending upon the evaluation, the manuscript will be either accepted or returned to the authors for further clarification. If the paper is accepted, it will be published online. If rejected, it is final, and no further appeal is possible.

Each published article will be assigned a doi, deposited with Cross Ref and permanently archived with various abstracting and indexing agency.