Peer Review Process and Policies
The primary purpose of the review is to provide the editors with the information needed to reach a decision. The review should also instruct the authors on how they can strengthen their paper to the point where it may be acceptable. As far as possible, reviewer should explain to the authors the weaknesses of their manuscript, so that rejected authors can understand the basis for the decision and see in broad terms what needs to be done to improve the manuscript for publication elsewhere. This is secondary to the other functions, however, and reviewers are not obliged to provide detailed advice to authors of papers that they believe are not suitable for publication.
Instructions to peer reviewers
Editorial Board requests the peer reviewers to ensure the following requirements in a submitted manuscript:
• Research or review paper is well designed and executed.
• Presentation of methods will permit replication.
• Data are unambiguous and properly analyzed.
• Conclusions are supported by data.
• New knowledge is added to the field of study
Reviewer comments and conclusions should be based on an objective and impartial consideration of the facts, exclusive of being bias personally or professionally. All comments by reviewers should be based solely on the paper’s scientific merit, originality, and quality of writing as well as on its relevance to scope of the journal.
Reviewers are responsible for acting promptly, adhering to the instructions for completing a review, and completing the review within the requested time frame.
Reviewer Responsibilities
- Provide written, unbiased feedback on the scholarly merits and scientific value of the work, together with rationale for the opinion.
- Provide the review immediately within 14 days.
- Indicate if the writing is clear, concise, and relevant. Rate the work’s composition, scientific accuracy, originality, and interest to readers.
- Avoid personal comments or criticism.
- Refrain from direct author contact.
- Maintain the confidentiality of the review process by not sharing, discussing with third parties, or disclosing information from the reviewed paper at all.
- Alert the Editor to any potential personal or financial conflict of interest you may have and decline to review when a possibility of a conflict exists.
- Determine scientific merit, originality, and scope of the work and suggest ways to improve it.
- Avoid comments to authors directly on acceptance or rejection of the paper; include such remarks as confidential comments for editors.
- Note any ethical concerns, such as substantial similarity between the reviewed manuscript and any published article or any manuscript concurrently submitted elsewhere.
- Ensure that published articles meet standards of the journal.
- Protect readers from incorrect or flawed research or studies that cannot be validated by others.
- Be alert to any failure to cite relevant work by other scientists.
- Strictly follow the reviewer’s report form given by the Coordinating Editor.
Editorial Policies
Manuscripts submitted to the journal are subjected to a preliminary screening based on scope of the journal. Manuscripts which are not according to the scope of the journal and author guidelines will be returned to the corresponding author without further processing. Those manuscripts that are cleared the initial screening then undergo a double-blind peer review process. Two reviewers in the same or related fields are assigned by the Editorial board. Peer review process normally takes from 04 to 08 weeks. It is assured that the whole process will not take more than 12 weeks. Once the reviewing process is over, the manuscript will be sent to the corresponding author with the reviewers comments and the author will be given a maximum period of 4 weeks to attend the reviewers comments, if the manuscript is accepted. If there is a disagreement between the reviewers, the manuscript would be sent to a third reviewer as suggested by the Editorial Board. The final decision regarding the acceptance/rejection will be made by the Editorial Board based on the comments of the reviwers. Once the manuscript is accepted, the abstract will be first displayed online till the full paper is published. DOI will also be taken to the journal in due course.