CiteScore: 1.9     h-index: 21

Peer Review Policy

This journal is committed to double-blind peer review based on the guidelines of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) in its review process.

 

Initial manuscript evaluation 

All articles received in the journal are first reviewed by the editor. If the article does not meet the basic standards, for example, it is scientifically or ethically flawed in the research, or it is outside the scope of the journal, it will not be accepted. Eligible articles will be checked for plagiarism and then sent to two or more independent reviewers with expertise in the subject. If the article has statistical calculations, it will be sent to an expert in the field of statistics. The reviewers evaluated the pre-published version in terms of originality, validity and importance to help the editor to make the final decision. All pre-publication versions of documents are considered confidential.

 

Type of peer Review

The journal uses Double-blind Peer review, in which the reviewer remain unknown to the author during the reviewing process and afterwards, and the identity of the author(s) is unknown to the author during the reviewing process.

 

How the Reviewer is selected

The selection of a reviewer is very important to ensure the scientific quality of published articles and is based on factors such as expertise in the subject of the article, reputation, conflict of interest and previous performance. Also, the reviewer's speed, accuracy, correct reasoning are very important. If it is difficult to select a reviewer for some articles, the responsible author of the article is requested to suggest two or five reviewer, and the mnuscript will be sent to at least one reviewer.

 

Review reports

Reviewers are asked to evaluate the pre-publication version in terms of:

Does it have scientific, original and up-to-date approaches?

Is it appropriate in terms of working method?

Are the ethical considerations observed in the research?

Are the findings acceptable and clearly presented?

Is the discussion of the article appropriate, accurate and complete?

Does it have scientific and clear logic in general?

Is it among the new and prioritized national and international researches?

Language correction is not part of the peer review process, but referees may, if so wish, suggest corrections to the manuscript.

 

How long does the review process take?

The time required for the review process depends on the responses of the reviewers. The usual time for the first period of the arbitration process is a maximum of one month. If the reviewer reports are inconsistent or delayed without reason, the opinions of other referees may be used; obviously, the mentioned period will be longer.

The opinion of the reviewers along with the recommendations (if any) will be sent to the corresponding author by the executive editor of the journal.

The corresponding author is obliged to color (highlight) the corrections and send with a separate letter in response to the reviewers' comments within the specified period of time, which is usually 14 days. Then, the revised version will be sent to the reviewers of the article for approval. The final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of the article is the responsibility of the editor of the journal, and the recommendations of the reviewers can help the editor in this decision.

If accepted, the article will be sent to the language editor of the journal for language editing control.

 Next, the article will be sent for page designer. In order to fix possible problems, a final version before printing (Galley Proof) will be sent to the correspond author, and problems must be reported to the journal's secretariat within 72 hours.

Any delay in any stage of this process will cause the article to be removed from the order of revieweing, publishing and indexing. After the publication of the article, no changes will be made in the article, and the responsibility of any mistake, especially regarding organizational affiliation, rests with the author/authors.