Review Process

Early Editorial stage

When manuscripts are submitted for journal editors (EAJBCS), they shall pass through the following rigorous review procedures:

• The Editor-in-Chief acknowledges the receipt of a manuscript and assigns the manuscript to the appropriate Associate Editor within one week;

All submitted manuscripts pass through preliminary assessment by the Editor-in-Chief. To save time for authors and peer-reviewers, only those manuscripts that meet the Editorial criteria are sent for peer-review. Those papers judged by the editors as being inappropriate, plagiarized (similarity above 20%), or below standard for the Journal are rejected promptly without peer-review. The decisions are based on the preliminary assessors’ reports and acceptance of the Editorial Board.

• The Editorial Board shall have three options of decisions: ‘accept manuscripts for external review’ or ‘return it to the author for revision’ or ‘reject it’;
• The Editorial Board also decides on whether a manuscript is to be accepted as an original full-length article, brief communication, case report, or review article;
• Once accepted for external review, the Associate Editor in the respective discipline identifies potential reviewers with appropriate specialty/expertise and send typically for two reviewers, but sometimes more if special advice is needed (for example, on new statistics or a particular technique). To make things easy, reviewing form/guideline shall be sent, which the reviewers fill and return along with the articles (Manuscript Review Form), and the reviewers will be requested to review and return the manuscript within four weeks of their receipt. Reviewers shall report their decisions to the Associate Editor based on the evaluation form as to ‘accept as it is’, ‘accept with minor revision’, ‘accept with major revision’, ‘reject and resubmit’ or ‘reject’;
• Then, based on the reviewers’ comments and suggestions, the Editorial Board should make a decision from the following several possibilities:
• ‘Accept as it is’,
• ‘Accept with minor revision’,
• ‘Accept with major revision’,
• ‘Reject and resubmit’,
• ‘Reject’

Editorial Board decisions should not be a matter of counting votes or numerical rank assessments and does not always follow the majority recommendation. Rather, the Board should evaluate the strength of the arguments raised by the author and each reviewer and may also consider other information not available to either party. The editors’ primary responsibilities are serving their readers and the scientific community at large. In deciding how best to serve them, the Board must also weigh the claims of each paper. Moreover, the Editorial Board will evaluate the submitted manuscript based on the new information it contributes to the existing scientific literature. If a manuscript is accepted with modifications, it will be returned to the author by the Associate Editor for revision (in a week time following receipt from the reviewers)

• Rejected manuscripts will be returned to the corresponding author by the Associate Editor/Editor-in-Chief.
• Manuscripts accepted with minor revision should be timely revised by the authors to the best satisfaction of the reviewers and the Editorial Board;
• Manuscripts accepted with ‘major revision’ and revised by authors thereof shall be received by the Associate Editor (within two weeks time) and then resent to the previous reviewers to be checked for proper incorporation of comments (preferably in one week time). If approved by reviewers and the Editorial Board, the manuscript shall be accepted for publication;
• A maximum of one week will be given for the incorporation of comments for ‘minor revision’. The manuscript shall then be accepted for publication.
• A maximum of two weeks will be given for incorporation of comments for ‘Major revision’. Decision on the revised manuscript will be made based on the level of reviewers and Associate Editors satisfaction. In case if an additional review process is needed, the manuscript may be resent to the reviewers
• Authors should re-submit the revised manuscript and a separate file stating the authors’ response to each and every comment (line by line) given by both reviewers and Associate Editor.
• In the review process the authors' and reviewer's anonymity is preserved (the Journal follows a double-blind process);
• Manuscripts accepted by both reviewers with or without minor Editorial revision shall be edited by the Associate Editor and then presented to the Editor-in-Chief for approval;
• If a manuscript is rejected by one of the reviewers but accepted (with minor or major revision) by the other reviewer, the final decision shall be made by Editorial Board.

Editors may return manuscripts to reviewers for further advice, particularly in cases where they disagree with each other or where the authors believe they have been misunderstood on points of facts. When this happens, the Board should ask the reviewers whether they are willing to provide follow-up advice as requested. Editors should be very aware, however, that reviewers usually tend to be reluctant to be drawn into prolonged disputes, so they try to keep consultation to the minimum judgment necessary to provide a fair hearing for the authors. When reviewers agree to assess a paper, the Board should consider this as a commitment to reviewing subsequent revisions. However, a resubmitted paper will not be sent back to the reviewers if it seems that the authors have not made a serious attempt to address the criticisms.

The Editorial Board takes reviewers’ criticisms seriously particularly by being very reluctant to disregard technical criticisms. In cases where one reviewer alone opposes manuscript publication, editors may consult the other reviewer as to whether he/she is applying an unduly critical standard. Otherwise, the manuscript may be sent to a third reviewer to resolve disputes and/or make the final decision on acceptance, but editors should avoid doing so unless there is a specific issue, for example, a special technical point on which editors feel a need for further advice.

• A manuscript rejected by two reviewers shall be rejected, and the corresponding author will then be notified by the Editor-in-Chief.
• Delay in returning corrected proofs as per the specified period may result in the paper being held over to the next issue. At this stage, corrections must be limited only to essential and Editorial mistakes;

 

Estimated timeline for the major steps in the editorial process

No	Activities	Estimated time	Implementing agents
1	Preliminary assessment	One week	Editorial Board
2.	Reviewing	Four weeks	Reviewers
4	Revision	One to two weeks	Author(s)
5	Verification	One week	Board members
6	Reincorporation	Two to three weeks	Author(s)
7	Language & layout edition	Three to four weeks	Language editor(s)
8	Technical edition	One to two weeks	Technical editors

 

The time required from submission to publication is expected to be a maximum of six months. However, some articles take longer time and some other less time, and therefore the decision and reviewers’ comments should be timely communicated to the author to minimize the time. The final decision is then made within a week of receiving the revised manuscript. After the Board’s approval, the language and content edition should be done in about two to three weeks. Then, the technical and layout edition is carried out within four to six weeks.

You can download the Review Process just by clicking on this link.