Peer review is a process whereby scientific experts in a related field evaluate a manuscript and provide review comments on whether the work is suitable for publication.
Peer review plays a vital role in scholarly publication; it ensures that only high-quality research is disseminated and presented as a body of scientific evidence.
Code of Conduct for Peer Review
Aspirant Publications is dedicated to publishing high-quality, impactful scholarly articles, and we are a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All referees and Editors are instructed to review submissions in line with the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer reviewers.
There are 7 different forms of peer review:
- Single-blinded
- Double-blinded review.
- Open review
- Post-publication review
- More transparent review
- Collaborative review
- Interactive review
Review Key Points
- Aspirant Publications follows a double-blind, rigorous, standardized, constructive, rational, and efficient peer review process.
- Research papers across all submission routes are peer-reviewed by at least two independent experts and one editor.
- Average time from initial submission to the final publication is based on the article type, reviewer, or editor time frame to provide comments and review comments suggested, respectively, but on average, it takes 21 – 40 working days.
Strengths of Peer Review
- Helps to prevent scientific fraud, as submitted work is evaluated by experts within the field.
- Peer review process helps to uphold the quality of literature.
- Peer review process is not just to filter the substandard research but also to improve it, by providing review comments to authors and guiding them to build high-standard articles which are useful for the scientific community.
- Author’s criticism or negative comments on the reviewer’s comments will be subjected to the withdrawal of publication.
Submission
The author submits all required materials, including the copyright form, and a separate cover letter via email.
More information can be found here:
Peer Review Phases
Phase I- Post-Submission phase
Phase II-Review Phase
Phase III – Manuscript Acceptance or Editorial Rejection
Phase I- Post-Submission phase/ Pre-Quality Checks
The peer review process is structured in a technique that all submitted manuscripts undergo initial editorial office screening (Plagiarism, grammatical) and editorial coordinator screening scope and relevance of the manuscript. After this, the qualified manuscripts are advanced to Editorial Board Members/reviewers based on their research interest for review coordination.
Phase II-Review Phase
In this review phase, the abstract of the manuscript is sent to the editorial board member/reviewer based on their expertise.
Reviewers/editorial board members go through the abstract, and upon acceptance editorial coordinator sends a full-length manuscript along with the review criteria form and time frame.
Editorial board members/reviewers evaluate the paper according to the principles that abide by the editorial guidelines/reviewer guidelines and the standardized review report template.
Editorial board members/reviewers are requested to submit the review report within the accepted time frame.
Once the editorial team receives the review comments from the Editorial board member/reviewers, the authors are informed to respond and/or submit a revised manuscript along with the response to the review comments document, depending on the level of revisions requested by the reviewer.
The review is complete once all review comments have been addressed to the editorial board members’/reviewers’ satisfaction.
Phase III – Manuscript Approval or Editorial Rejection
Manuscript Approval
- Aspirant Publications counts either one review comment of an editorial board member or two review comments from reviewers on acceptance/rejection.
- If the review comments received from both reviewers are different, one positive and one negative, then the final decision of the manuscript is made by the editorial board members.
- Editors can then either agree to the revised manuscript or insist on additional revisions as necessary. Acceptance of a final revised manuscript is based on the editor’s recommendations.
- Editor-in-Chief may accept, reject, accept with minor corrections, or send out for further review.
- No edits are made to the final accepted article.
- Before publication, the final accepted article is sent to the proof editing unit, followed by galley proof building, where the article is given copyrights and the DOI number.
- Publisher will send galleys to authors for any necessary changes (alignment or spelling corrections). No changes are made after the galleys are approved by the author.
- The accepted galley proof is published online. The version will be added to the "in-press" queue with the publisher.
Editorial Rejection
The revised manuscripts, when they go through the final statements by Editor-in-Chief/Associate Editor, their decision should be based on the below mentioning’s by providing a summary of the reasons for the same.
- If the manuscript is not systematic or any Ethical issues were recognized.
- If the scope of the manuscript does not meet the journal's standards.
- If the manuscript has no new experimental data or new application i.e, is limited in novelty.
- If the manuscript does not have up-to-date references or inadequate bibliography or inadequate language quality.
- If the manuscript contains theories, views, or conclusions that are not completely proved by the data or information provided.
- If the manuscript does not specify sufficient details about the materials and methods used to allow other researchers to repeat the research.
- If the manuscript portrays poor research, insignificant experimental design/sample characteristics/descriptive statistics, or insufficient experimental data/statistical analysis.
- Absence of necessary points for readers to fully understand the authors’ evaluation.
If the revised manuscript does not meet the concerns raised by the reviewers or editors during the review process.
Note
If the manuscript is rejected by the Editor, it will be counted as the final decision, and Aspirant Publications will play no role in it.
Appeals
Authors may file an appeal if they consider that their manuscript was inappropriately reviewed. Appeals should be addressed to the journal editorial coordinator or email us at: info@aspirantpublicatiosn.org
The Aspirant Publications team will investigate and update you on the same.
