Advanced OPEN peer review:
We have migrated to the transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. High-quality manuscripts are peer-reviewed by a minimum of two peers in the same field. In order to add transparency further, details of all reviewers and academic editors are published inside the review-history link available inside every published paper. As a final step to provide the highest level of transparency in the process, all peer review-related files are published with the paper in the ‘Review-History’ link. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published with the papers. If reviewers do not want to reveal their identities, we will honour that request. In that case, only the review reports will be published as ‘anonymous reviewer report’.
Additionally ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ greatly helps in the ‘continuity and advancement of science’. We strongly believe that all the files related to the peer review of a manuscript are valuable and hold an important place in the continuity and advancement of science. If publishers publish the peer review reports along with the published paper then the process can save thousands of hours in future during experiments, manuscript preparation, etc (by avoiding the common errors after reading these previously published peer review reports).
Additionally, we believe that one of the main objectives of the peer review system is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Normally we try to publish the ‘average marks (out of 10)’ of a manuscript received at the initial peer review stage and at the final publication stage to record its history of improvement during peer review. This process further increases the transparency. It is more important to record honestly the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript’ than claiming that ‘our peer review system is perfect’. Therefore, these transparent processes (i.e. publication of review history files and scores of a particular manuscript) additionally give a clear idea of the strengths and weaknesses of a published paper to the readers, which enhances the chances of proper use of the result of research (and or reduces the chances of misuse of the weakness of the findings of the paper). Thus this transparent process may prove to be highly beneficial for the society in long run.
We strongly discourage any attempt by the authors to contact the reviewer directly to influence the review process. We also strongly discourage any attempt by the reviewers to contact the authors directly. General guidelines for review process are available below.
Reviewer selection
Reviewer selection is a critical parameter to maintain the high peer review standard of any journal. Many factors are considered during peer reviewer selection like: proof of expertise in terms of published papers in the same area in reputed journals, affiliation, and reputation, etc. We try to avoid reviewers who are slow, careless or do not provide sufficient justification for their decision (positive or negative). As far as possible, the editorial team respects requests by authors to exclude reviewers whom they consider to be unsuitable. We also, as much as possible, try to rule out those reviewers who may have an obvious competing interest.
The main force behind our fast, efficient and quality Peer review system is the tremendous hard work of our Peer Reviewers & Editors. We are extremely grateful to the peer reviewers and editors for their great service.
Review process flow
The reviewers’ comments are generally sent to authors within 3 weeks after submission. With the help of the reviewers’ comments, the FINAL decision (accepted or accepted with minor revision or accepted with major revision or rejected) will be sent to the corresponding author. The editorial office may request a re-review regardless of a reviewer’s response in order to ensure a thorough and fair evaluation. Reviewers who may have offered an opinion not in accordance with the FINAL decision should not feel that their recommendation was not duly considered and their service not properly appreciated. Experts often disagree, and it is the job of the editorial team to make a FINAL decision.
Authors are encouraged to submit the revised manuscript within 7-15 days of receipt of the reviewer’s comment (in case of minor corrections). But at any case, the revised manuscript submission should not go beyond 8 weeks (only for the cases of major revision which involves additional experiments, analysis etc.). Along with the corrected manuscript authors need to submit a filled ‘review comment form’, any rebuttal to any point raised by reviewers. The Editor of the journal will have exclusive power to take the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript during the peer-review process.
One of the main policies of this journal is the ‘fast spreading of scientific findings’ by publishing suitable manuscripts within 6-8 weeks after submission (except for some abnormal cases). Under special circumstance, if the review process takes more time, author(s) will be informed accordingly. The editorial board or referees may re-review manuscripts that are accepted pending revision. Manuscripts with latest and significant findings will be handled with the highest priority so that it could be published within a very short time. The journal is determined to promote integrity in research publication. In case of any suspected misconduct, journal management will reserve the right to re-review any manuscript at any stage before final publication.
This journal believes that no manuscript should be rejected only on the basis of ‘lack of Novelty’, provided the manuscript is sufficiently robust and technically sound. Too often a journal's decision to publish a paper is dominated by what the Editor/reviewer think is interesting and will gain greater readership - both of which are subjective judgments and lead to decisions which are frustrating and delay the publication. This journal will rigorously peer-review your submissions and publish all papers that are judged to be technically sound.
Plagiarism Policy
This journal strongly opposes the practice of duplicate publication or any type of plagiarism.
The journal routinely screens article submissions for plagiarism.
This journal aims to publish original high-quality research work. Submission of a manuscript to this journal indicates that the study has not been published anywhere or not been submitted elsewhere for publication. If author(s) are using any part of a published paper (in English or any other language), they should give a proper reference or in any case, if required they should get permission from the previous publisher or copyright holder (whichever is suitable).
Plagiarized manuscripts would not be considered for publication. If plagiarism is found in any published paper after an internal investigation, a letter would be immediately sent to all the authors, their affiliated institutes and funding agency, if applied and subsequently the paper will be retracted.
Plagiarism policy of this journal is mainly inspired by the plagiarism policy of The Nature. Plagiarism policy of this journal is described below:
1. Plagiarism is when an author attempts to pass off someone else's work as his or her own. This journal also adopted IEEE definition of plagiarism to deal such cases. It defines plagiarism as "the reuse of someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source.”
2. Plagiarism can be said to have clearly occurred when large chunks of text have been cut-and-pasted. Such manuscripts would not be considered for publication in this journal. Papers with confirmed plagiarisms are rejected immediately.
3. But minor plagiarism without dishonest intent is relatively frequent, for example, when an author reuses parts of an introduction from an earlier paper.
4. Duplicate publication, sometimes called self-plagiarism, occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of his or her own published work without providing the appropriate references. This can range from getting an identical paper published in multiple journals, to 'salami-slicing', where authors add small amounts of new data to a previous paper. Self-plagiarism, also referred to as ‘text recycling’, is a topical issue and is currently generating much discussion among editors. Opinions are divided as to how much text overlap with an author’s own previous publications is acceptable. We normally follow the guidelines given in COPE website. Editors, reviewers, and authors are also requested to strictly follow this excellent guideline (Reference: Text Recycling Guidelines: http://publicationethics.org/text-recycling-guidelines).
5. In case of 'suspected minor plagiarism', authors are contacted for clarification. Depending on all these reports, reviewers and editors decide final fate of the manuscript. If the manuscript is finally accepted and published, then to maintain transparency, all these reports are published in 'publication history' of the paper by following Advanced OPEN peer review system. The journal editors judge any case of which they become aware (either by their own knowledge of and reading about the literature, or when alerted by referees) on its own merits.
6. Use of the automated software is helpful to detect the 'copy-paste' problem. All submitted manuscripts are checked by the help of different databases, eTBLAST, Plagiarism Detection tools, etc. At the same time scientific implication of the case ('suspected minor plagiarism'), also judged by reviewers and editors. Plagiarism Detection tools are useful, but they should be used in tandem with human judgment and discretion for the final conclusion. Therefore, suspected cases of plagiarisms are judged by editors on 'case-to-case basis'.
7. Editors have the final decision power for these cases.
Some useful information is available at the following links:
1. http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/library/researchers/plagiarismdetection
2. http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/plagiarism.html
3. http://www.artjohnson.umd.edu/bioe/Threshold-for-Plagiarism.pdf
4. http://www.zju.edu.cn/jzus/download/editorpapers/SCIMsurvey.pdf
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism_detection
6. The Complete Guide to Referencing & Avoiding Plagiarism
7. CrossCheck Plagiarism Screening: What’s the Magic Number?
Correction and Retraction Policy: Click here