Reviewer Guidelines

Self Evaluation

Before you accept or decline an invitation to review, ask the following questions to yourself:

• Does the article match your area of expertise? Accept the reviewing request only if you feel you can provide a high-quality review.
• Do you have a potential conflict of interest? Disclose to the editor if you have any competing interests.
• Do you have time? Normally reviewing should be completed within 14 days; before you commit, make sure you can meet the deadline.
• Finally: Try to watch our YouTube channel’s playlist Resources for the Reviewers; few short videos on the peer-review process.

Respond to the invitation as soon as you can – delay in your decision slows down the review process, whether you agree to review or not.

Reviewer Recognition

The reviewer’s input to the peer-reviewing process is invaluable. As a publisher, AIJR seeks to recognize the efforts of our reviewers. Reviewers can receive recognition in the following ways-

• Publons: Build your profile on Publons reviewer recognition platform and add verified reviewing records as a measurable research output, for each completed peer review. Download verified reviewing records directly from Publons which recognized worldwide.
• ORCID Profile: Make sure you register for an ORCID iD and link it to your Publons account. You can opt-in to have Publons automatically export your review history to your ORCID profile.
• Reviewer Credits: Claim for a completed review & gets it certified by ReviewerCredits after we confirm your completed reviews. Download your personal verified certificate directly from ReviewerCredit where all your reviewing activities get included, recognized, and appreciated worldwide.
• APC Discount: When you publish your own research paper to any AIJR journal, claim a complimentary APC discount of 25% for each completed review. Each completed review can be claimed only once with a maximum of 25% discount per article.
• Annual Recognition List: Get included in the list of reviewers’ appreciation published annually, typically in the year’s first or last month. This is the most common form of recognition which we are going to begin in 2021.

Before you begin

If you accept, you must treat the materials you receive as confidential documents. This means you can’t share them with anyone also cannot use knowledge of the work you are reviewing before its publication to further your own interests. Since peer review is confidential, you also must not share information about the review with anyone. Reviewers should objectively judge the quality of the manuscript and refrain from subjective personalized criticism of the authors. The identity of the reviewer is strictly confidential as we follow the blind review process. You are requested not to disclose your identity to the author(s) before or after the publication of the article.

Preparing review report

Your review will help the editor in deciding whether or not to publish the article. Giving your overall opinion and general observations of the article are essential. Providing insight into any deficiencies is important. You should explain and support your judgment so that both editors and authors are able to fully understand the reasoning behind your comments. You should indicate whether your comments are your own opinion or are reflected by the data.

Consider following in your report

• Summarize the article in a short paragraph and provide specific comments/ suggestions. This shows the editor you have read and understood the research.
• Give your main impressions of the article, including whether it is novel and interesting, whether it has a sufficient impact and adds to the knowledge base.
• If you suspect plagiarism, fraud or have other ethical concerns, raise your suspicions with the editor, providing as much detail as possible.
• Make sure no bias exist as it can lead us to make questionable decisions which impact negatively on the academic publishing process.
• According to COPE guidelines, reviewers must treat any manuscripts they are asked to review as confidential documents. Since peer review is confidential, they must not share the review or information about the review with anyone. This applies both during and after the publication process.
• Any suggestion to the author including citations to reviewer’s work must be for genuine scientific reasons and not with the intention of increasing reviewers’ citation counts or enhancing the visibility of reviewers’ work.

Your recommendation

For the evaluation of the article, a reviewer’s response form is provided by our online reviewing system for you to fill in, which contains few questionnaires and two text boxes; one for writing comments to the author and other for writing confidential comments to the editor. Please provide your evaluation by filling the response form and selecting your recommendation from the dropdown list at the end of response form and clicking on ‘submit review’ button, so that the editor can choose to either approve the publication of the article or return the manuscript to the authors for revision. The reviewer may also upload their review report as word/pdf file attachment which is optional and not recommended unless necessary due to mathematical symbols/Typo reason.

Reviewer’s Ethical Responsibilities

• Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not use knowledge of the work they’re reviewing before its publication to further their own interests.
• Reviewers must not have any conflict of interest with respect to the manuscript and authors. If any conflicts exist, the reviewers must report them to the Editor without delay.
• Reviewers are obliged to send the review report to the Editorial Board within two weeks upon receipt of the manuscript. Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is deemed inappropriate. Reviewers are expected to express their views clearly, with supporting arguments.
• The reviewer should accept reviewing invitation only if that manuscript relevant to reviewer’s expertise. The reviewer should notify the Editor If found himself/herself unqualified to review the research work reported in the manuscript or knows that its timely review will be impossible.
• Seek advice from the editor if anything is unclear at the time of invitation and remain in good communication with both the publisher and the editor.
• If there is any justified suspicion about plagiarism or ethical misconduct in the manuscript, the reviewer is obliged to inform the Editor about it.
• Reviewers should alert the Editor to any well-founded suspicions or the knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors.
• Reviewers should recognize relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors and alert the Editor to substantial similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any manuscript published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, in the event, they are aware of such. Reviewers should also alert the Editor to a parallel submission of the same manuscript to another journal in the event they are aware of such submission.

The final decision

The editor ultimately decides independently based on reviewer’s comments whether to accept or reject the article. AIJR publisher plays no role in the final decision. The editor will weigh all views and may call for a third opinion or ask the author for a revised paper before deciding. The reviewer can check final decision through reviewer’s dashboard by logging in our online editorial workflow system. Additionally, if you wish you may contact the editor to find out whether the article was accepted or rejected.

Are you an expert in your research field and willing to review for our journals?
Well, apply for reviewer by clicking here.