Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers

What to consider when reviewing

There are a number of points that are important for you to consider for every article you review:

• Originality: Does the paper contain new and significant information adequate to justify publication?
• Plagiarism: If you have reason to believe that an article is a substantial copy of another work please let the editor know, citing the previous work in as much detail as possible.
• Defamation/libel: If inaccurate, unsubstantiated or emotive statements are made about organizations or people in a submitted article, please let the editor know. If it is considered that the article could be potentially libellous, clarification will be sought from the author.
• Fraud: Although it can be very difficult to detect if you suspect the results in an article to be falsified please raise the matter with the editor.
• Confidentiality: Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shared or discussed with others unless otherwise authorized by the Editor. Unpublished information or material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal gain.
• Title: Does it clearly describe the article? Does it include the most important keywords (consider how you search for research articles) and demonstrate the significance of the research? Does it make sense?
• Structured abstract: Have all the mandatory fields been completed? Does it accurately reflect the content of the article?
• Introduction: Does this describe what the author hoped to achieve and clearly articulate the research question? Has the author provided a summary of the current research literature to provide context? Is it clear how this is being challenged or built upon? Are there any important works that have been omitted?
• Relationship to Literature: Does the paper demonstrate an adequate understanding of the relevant literature in the field and cite an appropriate range of literature sources? Is any significant work ignored?
• Methodology: Is the paper’s argument built on an appropriate base of theory, concepts or other ideas? Has the research or equivalent intellectual work on which the paper is based been well designed? Are the methods employed appropriate?
• Results: Are results presented clearly and analysed appropriately? Do the conclusions adequately tie together the other elements of the paper?
• Implications for research, practice and/or society: Does the paper identify clearly any implications for research, practice and/or society? Does the paper bridge the gap between theory and practice? How can the research be used in practice (economic and commercial impact), in teaching, to influence public policy, in research (contributing to the body of knowledge)? What is the impact upon society (influencing public attitudes, affect

the quality of life)? Are these implications consistent with the findings and conclusions of the paper?

• Conclusion/Discussion: Are the claims in this section reasonable and supported by the results? Are the findings consistent with the author’s expectations? Do the conclusions adequately tie together the other elements of the paper? Does the article support or contradict previous theories? Does the author explain how the research has added to the body of knowledge?
• Graphics and Tables: Where these are included, please check the content and if possible make suggestions for improvements. Do the figures and tables inform the reader? Are they an important part of the story? Do the figures describe the data accurately? Are they presented consistently (e.g. in the same format throughout)?
• Quality of Communication/ Language: Does the paper clearly express its case, measured against the technical language of the field and the expected knowledge of the journal’s readership? Has attention been paid to the clarity of expression and readability, such as sentence structure, jargon use, acronyms, etc.

Recommendations:

• Accept
• Minor Revisions 
• Major Revisions        
• Reject

What’s the difference between "minor" and "major" revisions?

This varies from journal to journal. However, minor revisions may more often require the author to make relatively small adjustments to the paper, the type of which that would not take too much more time. These may be to bring the paper more in line with author guidelines with a slightly reduced word count, formatting changes or the labelling of tables or figures; further evidence of an understanding of the extant research literature; or to elaborate a little more on the research findings.

Major revisions might require the author to make more significant improvements, the type of which that may take weeks or even months rather than days. Authors may be asked to address flaws in the methodology; collect more data; conduct a more thorough analysis; or even adjust the research question to ensure the paper contributes something truly original to the body of work.

The exact motivations behind an editor's decision are always unique. Importantly, constructive feedback should be provided by the reviewers so that authors are clear on how to improve their papers.

Need help?

Any questions relating to the content of the paper should be addressed to the journal’s editor or the editorial office.

 

Ethical Guidelines for Editors

Editor of a research journal plays an important role in establishing and maintaining professional standards. Publication of a paper in an HEC recognized journal is expected to be a reflection of the quality work of the author (s) and the affiliating institution (if any). The editor is expected to perform the responsibility towards the journal on its all aspects and at varied stages i.e. from receiving an article to publishing it. Keeping this in view, it becomes the prime responsibility of an editor to adopt the following guidelines while publishing papers in his/her research journal.

1.  Editor’s Responsibilities 

 Editor of a research journal should be responsible for:

• To establish and maintain the quality of the journal by publishing quality papers in his/her journal,
• Promotion of freedom of expression within the cultural, constitutional/legal framework,
• Providing integrity and credibility of the research contributions,
• Meeting the needs of authors and readers,
• Maintaining ethical standards of their journal,
• Providing a corrigendum for any correction, clarification, and apologies where required. 

1.1 Good practices for their job would include to:

• encourage new ideas and suggestions of authors, peer reviewers, members of the editorial board, and readers for improving the quality of his/her  journal,
• apply the process of blind peer review in true letter and spirit,
• promote innovative findings in the respective field and publishing them on priority,
• promote anti-plagiarism policy,
• educate contributors (authors) about ethical practices in research, and
• implement the journal’s policy without institutional pressure and revise the policy from time to time.

1.2  Formation of Editorial Board

• The editor must ensure that the editorial board comprises of prominent scholars of the field who can adequately promote the journal,
• The editorial board shall be comprised of: 
• Editorial Committee, who will be responsible for providing logistics, and
• Advisory Committee, who will be responsible for reviewing the submitted research papers. This committee should have at least 50% representation of scholars from abroad.
  • May appoint editorial board members for a prescribed duration and add or revise the board if required,
  • The editor should inform new board members about ethical guidelines and their expected role and update editorial board members about development, challenges, and any changes made in the journal policy,
  • The editorial board should maintain the quality of the journal because an assigned category by the HEC (e.g. X, Y, and Z categories) will depend on the quality of published papers in it.  It is the professional duty of the board members to select credible research work, and
  • To ensure the smooth functioning of the journal, editors are responsible to conduct the editorial board meetings on regular basis (at least twice a year).

 2.    Fair play and Impartiality 

• The criteria for the selection of research papers must be impartial and the editor should select academically and scientifically sound papers,
• Editor should: 
• Promptly respond to the author (s) of the papers submitted for publication, and
• Assign a specific number to an article submitted for processing, and pay impartial consideration to all research papers submitted for publication
  • ensure to evaluate (get evaluated) the content of research papers impartially and on merit, and
  • disregard the discriminating factors, e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, cultural sentiments, political affiliation, seniority, and/or institutional association of the author(s) while selecting articles for publication, and
  • ensure impartiality of the review process by informing reviewer (s) that s/he needs to disclose any conflicts of interest regarding the submitted research paper. 

 3.   Confidentiality

• The editor must ensure confidentiality of the author(s) and reviewers during the process of double-blind peer review,
• Information pertaining to a research paper should not be disclosed by the editor to anyone except the author(s), reviewer(s), and editorial board members,  
• Upon reaching a decision about a research paper, the editor may only disclose or announce the title of the study and the name of the author(s) that has been accepted for publication. Any other information may only be disclosed with the prior approval of the author(s), and  
• Confidentiality of the participants of the research should also be ensured by protecting personal information (e.g. identifiable personal details, images, and/or individual results), editor should declare clear guidelines to the contributors (authors) regarding the confidentiality of the individual participant.
• Prior to publication, the content of the manuscript should be kept confidential, both the editor and reviewer(s) will not share or use any part of the work. 

 4.   Editing and Formatting Guidelines

• The editors should prepare clear guidelines about preparing and formatting a paper and print these guidelines in each issue of the journal,
• The guidelines should cover information related to ‘content’ and ‘format’ of a research paper,
• Any preferred manual of style (e.g. APA, Chicago Manual, MLA Style, etc) should be declared as a policy decision.

 5.   Review Process

• Details about the review process should be declared,
• The editor should ensure that all published papers have gone through a double-blind peer review, and at least one of the reviewers is from outside the country, 
• The editor should ensure that peer-review is masked in both directions and as such the identity of the author is removed from the manuscript prior to its review in order to protect the confidentially and privacy, 
• The editor should provide sufficient guidelines to reviewers, including necessary information about the review process, and provide them a reviewer comment form for recording his/her comments,
• The editor must ensure that the peer-review process is prompt, nondiscriminatory, and highly professional,
• The editor should develop a system of confidentiality of research papers undergoing the review process,
• The editor is required to send reviewers’ comments to the author(s) promptly,
• The editor should ensure that the corrections suggested by the reviewers are incorporated by the author(s) in letter and spirit, 
• Editor to critically evaluate peer review practices regularly and make an improvement, if, required, 
• The editor should maintain a database of competent and qualified reviewers. For this purpose, s/he may use various sources other than personal contacts to identify new reviewers (e.g. referring by author (s), citations and references section in a book/journal), and
• The editor should refer trouble cases (e.g. in case of one acceptance and one rejection or any conflict arisen after review) to the advisory committee in order to resolve the matter amicably.

6.  Dealing with Misconduct

• The editor should encourage reviewers to comment on ethical issues and possible research and publication misconduct in case the submitted research paper has indulged in (e.g. inappropriate research design, incomplete detail on participant’s consent, data manipulation, presentation,
• The editor should encourage reviewers to comment on the validity of the submitted research paper and identify ‘subtle (simply copy-paste)’ and/or ‘blatant (paraphrasing)’ type of plagiarism, if, practiced by the author(s), 
• The editor should confirm plagiarism (carry out the objective check through Turnitin) and/or searching for similar titles to the submitted research paper, and
• The editor should be prepared to publish a corrigendum, remove and retract a plagiarized article if it comes to his/her knowledge subsequent to its publication. 

7.   Transparency

• The editor must ensure that multiple papers as a principal investigator submitted by an author should not be published in the same issue,
• Only ONE co-authorship will be allowed for that author who will also contribute a research paper as a principal investigator in the same issue, 
• For the members of the editorial board (including the editor), it will only be limited to ONE paper per issue either to submit a research paper as a principal investigator or co-author, and  
• The editor should adopt an authorship or co-authorship policy that will lead to set an example in the scientific community and strictly discourage any misconduct (e.g. forcible inclusion of a name in the author list). Authorship should only be given to those individuals who have substantially contributed to the said article

8.   Conflict of Interest

• The editor should not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against which s/he has any conflicts of interest (e.g. resulting from competitive, collaborative, and/or professional standing),
• The editor should also apply this guideline to their reviewers and editorial board members.
• To ensure unbiased review, the editor should declare a clear cut policy for his/her own submission and a research paper submitted by an editorial board member, and
• The editor must publish a list of common interests (e.g. financial, academic, and/or any other type) for all editorial board members and editorial staff. This list should be updated from time to time.
• To ensure unbiased review, the editor should declare a clear-cut policy for his/her own submission and a research paper submitted by an editorial board member.
• Suggested that "decision pertaining to the editor's submitted article/s, one of the associate editors must decide and the information about reviewers should be kept confidential from the editor

9.   Disclosure

• The editor must not use any unpublished information/data from the submitted research paper without the permission of the author(s), and
• Any information received after the peer review process must be kept confidential and not used for personal gains.

10.  Publication Decisions

• editor to only shortlist research papers that have relevancy with the scope of the journal based on his/her judgment but without any prejudice,    
• After completion of the reviewing process, submission of a revised manuscript, and assessing the quality and validity, the editor has a right to accept or reject a research paper,  
• Editor’s decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be purely based on merit, academic standards, and professional demands of the journal,
• The editor must justify the reasons for rejecting a research paper to author(s). This may include:

• Failure to fit in the scope of the journal (can be communicated after preliminary review)
• Insufficient depth of content
• Major errors related to design, analysis, write up and format
• any misconduct or conflicting factors (e.g. plagiarism, copyright infringement, legal issues, fake data, authorship issues)
  • Editors are required to timely communicate the editorial decision to the author(s),? Editors should not reverse decisions in favor or against the author(s) at his/her own.

 11.  Establishing a Procedure for Appeal

• The editor is responsible for establishing a proper mechanism for appeals launched against:
• the rejection of a research paper
• objections to publications causing harm to any party
• infringing ethical boundaries in any manner