Peer Review Manual

Peer-Review Policy Manual: Workflow, Ethics, and Governance

1. Mission and Fundamental Principles of Review

ETHIOINQUIRY is dedicated to upholding transparency and integrity in scholarly records. Our mission is to provide a rigorous, fair, and efficient peer-review environment that fosters trust in the authority of the published research.

Commitment to Excellence

ETHIOINQUIRY operates under the mandate of absolute editorial independence. The Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board are solely and independently responsible for all the publication decisions. These decisions are made based on scientific merit, originality, and relevance, and are entirely free from commercial, institutional, or political influence.

Core Pillars of Peer Review

• Accountability: Editors, authors, and reviewers are responsible for their respective roles in the publication lifecycle, ensuring that the final record is accurate and ethically appropriate.
• Fairness and Objectivity: Manuscripts are evaluated without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.
• Honesty and Integrity: All participants must act with transparency, disclosing potential conflicts and adhering to legal standards regarding libel, copyright, and privacy.
• Global Compliance: Editorial workflows are strictly aligned with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts and Scopus indexation standards.

2. The Double-Blind Review Mechanism

To minimize bias and ensure objective evaluation, ETHIOINQUIRY employs a double-blind peer-review process. In this system, the identities of the reviewers are concealed from the authors and vice versa.

Manuscript Anonymization Checklist

Authors must meticulously prepare their submissions to protect the double-blind process. Failure to follow this checklist may result in a delay in processing.

• Identity Removal: Remove author names, affiliations, and contact details from the main manuscript file.
• Headers and Footers: Ensure that no identifying information appears in the page headers or footers.
• Metadata Scrubbing: Use the "Inspect Document" or "Properties" tool in your word processor to remove author information from the file metadata.
• Third-Person Referencing: Cite your previous work in the third person (e.g., "Smith (2020) showed..." rather than "We previously showed (2020) ...").
• Supplementary Files: Ensure that acknowledgments, funding statements, and conflict-of-interest declarations are uploaded as a separate "Title Page" file not shared with the reviewers.

Role of the Editorial Office

The Editorial Office acts as a technical buffer. Staff mask any remaining identifying markers before a manuscript is assigned to an editor or sent to the reviewer pool. If a manuscript is found to be noncompliant, it will be returned to the authors for proper anonymization before further assessment.

3. Initial Submission Assessment and Desk Review

All submissions undergo a "Stage 1" technical and editorial screening.

Technical Criteria for Consideration

Manuscripts must satisfy the following technical thresholds to be eligible for review.

• English Abstracts: All manuscripts must include a detailed English abstract covering the introduction, methods, results, and conclusions.
• Roman Script References: To ensure indexation compatibility, all references must be provided in Roman script.
• ISSN/E-ISSN Alignment: Submissions must align with the journal’s registered ISSN/E-ISSN.

Desk Rejection Criteria

A manuscript will be "Desk Rejected" without external review if it:

1. Falls outside the journal’s defined Aims & Scope.
2. It lacks sufficient academic contribution or novelty compared to the existing literature.
3. Exhibits a high similarity index upon screening with similarity-checking software.
4. It fails to meet the technical standards for language clarity or structural requirements.

Submission Workflow Diagram

1. Submission: The author submits the manuscript via an online portal.
2. Stage 1 Technical Screening: The Editorial Office verifies the ISSN, Roman references, and English abstracts.
• If failed, return to the author for technical corrections.
• If Pass: Move to Step 3.
3. Editorial Desk Review: Assigned Editor evaluates the scope, novelty, and ethics.
• If unsuitable, a desk rejection decision is issued.
• If Suitable: Move to Step 4.
4. Assigned to Peer Review: Manuscript is sent to a minimum of two independent external referees.

4. Reviewer Selection and Diversity Requirements

Reviewer selection is guided by the need for expertise and international representation of the field.

Diversity Mandate

ETHIOINQUIRY enforces geographic diversity in its reviewer pools. Referees must reflect the journal's international aims and should not be concentrated within a single region or institution.

Protocol for Reviewer Selection

Editors utilize the "Expert Lookup" tool and Scopus databases to identify referees.

• Editorial Board Standing: All Editorial Board members’ names must be hyperlinked to their verifiable author profile pages on the journal homepage to demonstrate their scholarly standing.
• Reviewer Qualifications: Referees must have verifiable institutional affiliations and an active, recent publication record in the specific sub-field of the manuscript.

Referee Suggestions

Authors may suggest up to three potential reviewers or request the exclusion of up to three individuals/laboratories. While requested exclusions are typically honored to prevent bias, the Editor’s final selection of referees is independent and conclusive.

5. Reviewer Responsibilities and Ethical Conduct

5.1 Confidentiality Mandates

Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential. They must not be shared, discussed, or shown to others, except as authorized by the editor.

5.2 Constructive Feedback

Reviewers must provide evidence-based and respectful critiques. Comments should aim to improve the scientific rigor of the paper. Reviewers should identify uncited relevant work and note any overlaps with previously published data.

5.3 Generative AI Policy

In accordance with the ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences standards, reviewers are strictly forbidden from uploading manuscripts or parts thereof into generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT). This protects the proprietary nature of research. If any AI tool was used to assist in the evaluation (e.g., checking the code), this must be transparently declared in the report.

5.4 Timeliness and Conflicts

Reviewers must disclose any financial or nonfinancial competing interests. If a reviewer cannot meet the deadline or feels that they lack the specific expertise to evaluate the work, they must decline the invitation immediately.

6. Editorial Decision Categories

The decision framework was designed to provide clear and actionable outcomes for authors.

Decision	Definition	Workflow Impact	Reviewer Requirement
Accept	The manuscript meets all scientific and technical standards.	It moves directly to production.	None.
Minor Revision	Requires minor technical or clarity-based edits.	Reviewed by the Editor to confirm changes.	Usually, only the Editor reviews.
Major Revision	Significant flaws in the analysis, data, or structure were identified.	The author is required to comprehensively revise the manuscript.	Mandatory second round of full peer reviews.
Reject	Fundamental flaws, lack of novelty, and ethical violations.	The file was closed, and no further consideration was given.	Not eligible for resubmission.

Note: ETHIOINQUIRY reserves the right to reject a paper after acceptance if the scientific integrity is found to be compromised or if the publishing policies are violated.

7. Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement (PEMS)

7.1 Authorship and Accountability

Authorship is limited to those who satisfy the following four criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception, design, data acquisition, or analysis of the work.
2. Drafting or revising the work critically for intellectual content is also required.
3. Final approval of the version to be published.
4. The authors agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

7.2 Citation Integrity

Citation manipulation (e.g., excessive self-citation, gratuitous citation of the journal, or "citation rings") is prohibited. Violations lead to immediate rejection and potential reporting to the author’s institution.

7.3 Plagiarism and Duplicate Submission

We utilize Similarity Check software to screen all the submissions.

• Text Recycling: The re-use of an author’s own previous work without attribution is considered as self-plagiarism.
• Salami-Slicing: Fragmenting a large study into multiple small papers to inflate publication counts is an ethical breach.

8. Research Ethics and Compliance Protocols

8.1 Vulnerable Groups

For research involving vulnerable populations where coercion is possible, "extra care" is mandated. These manuscripts are referred to an internal editorial oversight group for additional scrutiny regarding informed consent and ethics documentation.

8.2 Plant and Environmental Research

Field studies must comply with the IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and CITES. Voucher specimens for wild plants must be deposited in a public herbarium.

9. Data Availability and Material Sharing

ETHIOINQUIRY mandates the inclusion of a Data Availability Statement in all research articles.

Mandatory Templates

1. "The datasets generated during the current study are available in the [Name] repository, [Persistent Web Link]."
2. "The datasets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request."
3. "All data generated during this study are included in this published article (and its Supplementary Information files)."
4. "The datasets generated during the current study are not publicly available due to [Reason] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request."

Computer Code and Algorithms

Custom code or mathematical algorithms central to the paper’s conclusions must be shared with the reviewers upon request and documented in a "Code Availability" statement within the Methods section.

10. Digital Image Integrity and Standards

Images must accurately represent the original data without deceptive manipulation.

Image Manipulation Prohibitions

• Touch-up Tools: Use of cloning, healing, or "smoothing" tools to obscure features is strictly forbidden.
• Global Adjustments: Changes to brightness or contrast are permitted only if applied equally across the entire image and all control samples. Data points must not be obscured by contrast adjustments.

Electrophoretic Gels and Blots

• Cropped blots must retain at least six band widths above and below the target bands.
• Original, uncropped images showing visible gel/membrane edges must be provided in Supplementary Information.
• Molecular weight markers and controls must be included in each gel.

11. Appeals and Complaints Procedures

11.1 Decision Appeals

Authors may appeal a rejection only on the basis of scientific evidence or proof of reviewer bias. General disagreement with an editor's opinion on novelty is not grounds for appeal.

11.2 Misconduct Complaints

Concerns regarding published work are investigated per COPE guidelines. The journal may issue:

• Editor’s Note: To alert readers of an ongoing inquiry or unresolved authorship disputes.
• Expression of Concern: Serious but inconclusive evidence of misconduct that may affect the reliability of the work.

11.3 COPE Alignment

Final resolutions for ethical disputes will follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts to ensure a standardized, fair process.

12. Correcting the Scholarly Record

• Corrigendum: Author-identified errors that do not invalidate the results.
• Erratum: Publisher-identified errors made during production.
• Retraction: Issued for invalid results (major error, fabrication), or serious ethics violations.
• Removal: Extremely rare; limited to court orders, defamation cases, or serious health risks. In such cases, the HTML/PDF text is removed, but bibliographic metadata (title/author) must be retained to ensure that the record remains retrievable.

Retraction Protocol

1. A notice titled "Retraction: [Article Title]" is published and bi-directionally linked to the retracted article.
2. The original PDF is retained but is watermarked with "RETRACTED" on every page.
3. The HTML version of the article is removed.

13. Policy on AI in Content Creation

AI Authorship

Large Language Models (LLMs) do not satisfy authorship criteria because they cannot be held accountable for their work. No AI tool should be considered an author.

Disclosure Requirements

• Generative AI: Any use of AI to generate text must be disclosed in the Methods section.
• AI-Assisted Copy Editing: Improvements in grammar, spelling, or tone (not affecting content) do not require disclosure.
• Generative AI Images: These are generally prohibited. Exceptions (e.g., studies about AI) must be clearly labeled as "AI-generated" within the image field and reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

The final accountability for the accuracy and integrity of all content rests solely with the human authors.