Peer Review Process

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to journal readership. Papers will only be sent for review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements. 

The peer review process goes as follows:

  1. The manuscript is first reviewed by the journal editorial office for compliance authors' guidelines and proper formatting, language, and editing standards.
  2. The manuscript must be subject to Plagiarism Check.
  3. An editor is assigned the manuscript and evaluates whether the manuscript can be sent to reviewers.
  4. If the manuscript can be sent for review, at least 2 reviewers are selected and sent an invitation that may include the manuscript title, abstract, and summary.
  5. If no response to the invitation is received, a manuscript can be rejected at this stage for lack of interest of the scientific community in the manuscript topic or presentation.
  6. Upon receiving the reviews, the assigned editor can decide on acceptance, rejection, or revising the manuscript.
  7. The editor-in-chief is finally contacted for approval or denial of the decision.
  8. In case of required revision, the author is required to perform the revision and submit a revised version and the editor and reviewers previously involved may be contacted for re-evaluation following the same process above.

Appeals and Complaints 

Authors may appeal an editorial decision if they feel that the decision to reject was based on either a significant misunderstanding of a core aspect of the manuscript, a failure to understand how the manuscript advances the literature, or concerns regarding the manuscript-handling process. Differences in opinion regarding the novelty or significance of the reported findings are not considered grounds for appeal. To raise an appeal, please contact the journal by email, quoting your manuscript ID number and explaining your rationale for the appeal. The editor’s decision following an appeal consideration is final.  

Data Sharing and Data Accessibility

The journal encourages authors to share the data and other artifacts supporting the results in the paper by archiving it in an appropriate public repository. Authors should include a data accessibility statement, including a link to the repository they have used so that this statement can be published alongside their paper.

Conflict of Interest

The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to: patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.

Funding

Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation.

Authorship

The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the work and how. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria:

  1. Have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 
  2. Been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 
  3. Given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and 
  4. Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. 

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section (for example, to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support). Before submitting the article all authors should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript.