Peer Review Process

Every submission will be pre-screened by editors to ensure its adherence to the scope, policies and style of the journal prior to peer review. Author(s) may suggest up to 4 academically qualified reviewers for consideration per submission. Authors should insert the current contact details, including full name, email address and affiliation, of the reviewers, and state the reason(s) for recommendation in the cover letter. However, the editorial team strives to ensure that the peer review process is fair and unbiased; therefore, there is no guarantee that a recommended reviewer will be approached to perform peer review. In addition, author(s) may indicate the name of individuals that should not be invited as peer reviewer and provide the reasons in the cover letter.

Editor-in-Chief will decide on the submissions that should be considered for publication, and assign reviewers from inside the editorial board or outside, depending on the topic, to initiate double-blind peer review. Based on the review reports and reviewers’ recommendations, either the Editor-in-Chief or handling academic editor makes one of the following editorial decisions: accept, minor revision, major revision, and reject.

If the decision made necessitates minor revisions to the paper, author(s) should spend no more than 7 days to prepare and submit the revision file containing revised manuscript, title page and back matter, cover letter, and response/rebuttal letter. If the decision made necessitates major revisions to the paper, author(s) should spend no more than 30 days to prepare and submit the revision file. The revision file will be once again pre-screened by editor and subsequently reviewed by the assigned reviewers.

The peer review process is considered complete for a submission once it has been accepted for publication. Only accepted papers will be arranged for copy-editing, typesetting and proofreading before being published online.