Responsibilities of Reviewers
Confidentiality: Reviewers should not share any information from an assigned manuscript with outsiders without the prior permission from the Editor or preserve the data from an assigned manuscript.
Competence: Reviewer with fair expertise should complete the review. Assigned Reviewer with inadequate expertise should feel responsible and may decline the review as it is presumed that reviewer will be an expert in the respective field.
Constructive assessment: Reviewer comments should appreciate positive aspects of the work, identify negative aspects constructively, and indicate the enhancement needed. A reviewer should explain and support his or her judgment clearly enough that Editors and Authors can understand the basis of the comments. The reviewer should ensure that an observation or argument that has been previously reported be accompanied by a relevant citation and should immediately alert the Editor when he or she becomes aware of duplicate publication. A reviewer should not use any kind of abusive language while commenting on an article. Judgment of each article should be done without any bias and personal interest by the assigned reviewer.
Impartiality and Integrity: Reviewer’s decision should solely depend on scientific merit, relevance to the subject, scope of the journal rather than financial, racial, ethnic origin etc., of the authors.
Disclosure of conflict of interest: To the extent feasible, the reviewer should minimize the conflict of interest. In such situation, reviewer should notify the editor describing the conflict of interest.
Timeliness and responsiveness: Reviewers should morally abide to provide the review comments within the stipulated time and be active enough in responding to the queries raised by the editor if any.
Responsibilities of Editor and Editorial Board
Editors have a responsibility to maintain the integrity of the published literature, if required, by publishing errata or corrections identifying anything of significance, retractions, and expressions of concern as quickly as possible. Editor must comply with the policy guidelines provided by the publisher and fulfill the responsibilities bestowed upon with integrity.
Review process: Editors are responsible for monitoring and ensuring the fairness, timeliness, thoroughness, and civility of the peer-review editorial process.
Timely suggestion to the respective journals for covering relevant and significant topic by the Editor is essential for the growth of the journal.
Towards Readers and Scientific Community
- To ensure that the content or the author information present in the manuscript is legible.
- To evaluate all manuscripts such that they fall within the scope of the journal.
- Maintain the journals internal integrity by suggesting the corrections, dealing with retraction, supplemental data etc.
- Working with the publisher to attract the best manuscripts and research that will be of interest to readers.
- Ensure that all involved in the publication process understand that it is inappropriate to manipulate citations.
