Peer review process

- update at: 9 Dec 2024

Anser Press subjects all submitted research articles to the highest standards of international peer review.

  • At least two suitably qualified international external experts, who are not members of the journal Editorial Board, review each research article.
  • The journals' Editors-in-Chief make all publication decisions based on the reviews provided. The Editorial Board Members assist the Editors-in-Chief in decision making on specific submissions.
  • Academic Editors provide administrative support for the review process. They uphold the integrity of peer review while delivering rapid turnaround and maximum efficiency to all stakeholders including authors, reviewers, and editors.
  • The journal uses a double-blind peer review process; reviewers remain anonymous.

Review Guidelines

  • We ensure that the peer-review process is fair, unbiased (double-blind) and timely.
  • We express our sincere gratitude to all our reviewers for their long standing support, their effort and time in evaluating the manuscripts. The peer-review process converts the preliminary manuscript submission into a citable standard publication. It improves the scientific merit and presentation quality for better comprehension by wide range of readers.
  • The potential and active reviewers are identified based on author suggestion and the bibliographical knowledge.
  • The reviewers' evaluations and comments play a crucial role in taking the final decision on the manuscript in consultation with the editors and considering multiple contributing factors such as the relevance and impact of the research work. For this we adhere to the COPE guidelines. Reviewers can decline to comments if they find any conflict of interest with the manuscript.
  • The reviewers are encouraged to be in contact with the assigning Editor. Sensitive issues such as conflict of interest, plagiarism, published data need to be submitted to the assigning Editor whereas the recommendations and critical evaluations regarding the content of the manuscript needs to be submitted to both the editor and the author.
  • The process of review and recommendations are confidential since the unpublished manuscripts are classified in nature. Review needs to focus mainly on improving the scientific merit of the manuscript and needs to be very objective in nature.
  • Personal criticism is strictly prohibited in the review comments. The review comments should have sufficient clarity with supporting references. Please include the strength, weakness, relevance and impact of the research work as well as the originality of the presentation.
  • Finally the extent of suitability or likelihood of the publication of manuscript needs to be mentioned. The editor can forward the review comments to the other potential reviewers also in addition to the authors. Reviewer should not cite the unpublished manuscript.
  • Supplementary material is subjected to peer review.
  • Editorials and Biographies do not undergo peer review.
  • In case of editors as manuscript authors, editors shall not review and process their own academic paper. Submitted manuscripts written by editors will be assigned to at least two international independent external reviewers. Decisions will be made by other Editorial Board Members who do not have conflicts of interests with the author. The proportion of the submissions authored by editors should not exceed 20% of the total submissions.

Ensuring conformation with the following points represent a standard review process:

  1. The title and content is within the scope of the journal.
  2. The information provided is relevant to the wide readership within the journal purview.
  3. All the sections within the manuscript such as title, abstract, key words, methods and conclusions are consistent with the objective of the paper. The controls included in the experimental work are rational and adequate.
  4. The writing is easy to comprehend without distractions and deviations.
  5. The methodology is clear and easy to be repeated by another researcher.
  6. The methodology has consent and ethical approvals as and when appropriate and applicable. The analytical and statistical methods are appropriate and relevant to the study. The findings and conclusions are adequately supported by the data.
  7. The information is not repeated either in text, tables or figure. The references adequately represent the data and interpretations are up to date without missing on key citable information.
  8. With regard to the length of the manuscript, the suggestions with precise comments can be made for either expanding, condensing, merging or deleting the content.

Reviewers' role

Peer-review enhances the quality of the manuscript. Peer reviewers provide a valuable service to the publishers and authors in improving the literature in the specific discipline by volunteering their time, expert analysis and interpretations.

  • Evaluate the scientific merit of the article and provide unbiased assessment of the manuscript in a timely manner.
  • Give their opinion on clarity, conciseness, relevance and significance of the manuscript.
  • Expected to provide constructive and informative critique of the manuscript Suggest the ways of improving the content presentation, originality and scope.
  • Ensuring that the methods are described with sufficient details with appropriate study design.
  • Ensuring that the manuscript includes the citations of the relevant previous work Uphold confidentiality, impartiality, integrity and timeliness while reviewing the manuscript Should avoid personal comments or criticism.
  • Estimating the manuscript rating and recommend whether to accept or to reject or suggest major revision or minor revision or to conclude with no recommendation.
  • Has to notify and case review when there is the possibility of conflict of interest.

Competing Interests

While conflicts of interest will not disqualify you from reviewing the manuscript, it is important to disclose all conflicts of interest to the editors before reviewing. If you have any questions about potential conflicts of interests, please do not hesitate to contact the receiving editorial office.

Editor Guidelines

Roles and Responsibilities of Editor/Editorial Board Members

Editors are primarily responsible for maintaining the reputation and the integrity of the journal.

  • Editor should maintain a bird's eye view on avoiding erroneous information. On identifying the error, editor must take measures to rectify it immediately by publishing addendum.
  • Editor must comply with the policy guidelines provided by the publisher related to reviewing and editorial policy.
  • Editors must closely monitor the journal for ensuring the fairness, timeliness, thoroughness, and civility of the process.
  • Editor is responsible for the overall growth and progress of the journal; hence s/he is responsible for the timely release of the issue.
  • Editor takes measures to add all the significant developments in the field for the growth of the journal.
  • Can discuss the controversies also to clear the doubts centering particular scientific phenomena or practice.

Editor’s role towards Scientific Community

  • Editor must make ensure that the content and the author information present in the manuscript should be legible.
  • Must evaluate the manuscript whether or not it is falling within the scope of the journal.
  • Must maintain the integrity of the journal by suggesting the corrections, dealing with retraction, supplemental data etc.
  • Taking efforts to attract recent and relevant research to cater to its reader’s interest.
  • Should take steps to discourage unethical practices like plagiarism and violation of copyrights.
  • Should take measures to promote discussion and debate on prominent scientific developments and its implications on the society.

Towards the Journal

  • The decisions of editor-in-chief are final related to acceptance or rejection of the article for publication upon receiving the review comments.
  • Editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without any bias towards race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
  • Editor or any Editorial staff should maintain confidentiality related to the submitted manuscript, names and affiliations of the author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate depending on the need and stage of processing.

Standard Scheme of Editorial Processing of the Manuscripts

  1. Initial submission of the manuscript by the corresponding author.
  2. Registration of the manuscript details and generation of the manuscript number.
  3. Verification of compliance with the scope of the Journal.
  4. Preliminary quality evaluation of the article. Non-duplicity(Plagiarism checking) and originality.
  5. Screening for potential and active reviewers and assignment to the reviewers.
  6. The Managing Editor screens for at least 2 independent reviewers.
  7. Securing the review comments within 30 day time frame.
  8. Upon the receipt of reviewer comments in the system, the Managing Editor can either make a recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief, based on the reviews and his/her own opinion, or start a discussion among the reviewers if there is some disagreement. The discussion involves all reviewers, the Managing Editor and the Editor-in-Chief.
  9. Based on the review comments, final decision (Accept/Re-review/Minor revision/Major revision/rejection) is taken in consultation with the editorial board and editor in chief. Final disposition of the manuscript would be any one of the following:
  10. Accepted: Can be published as it is for the time being with minor typos or artifacts.
  11. Accept with minor revision: The manuscript will have to be slightly revised following the reviewers' comments, but there will not be any additional round of review. The Action Editor and/or the Editor in Chief are responsible for verifying the implementation of modifications.
  12. Revise and resubmit: It is agreed that the topic is worth publishing, but the paper requires major revisions before it can actually be published. The revised paper will not be considered as a completely new submission, though: if a revised version is sent within 6 months, it will most probably be handled by the same Action Editor.
  13. Rejected: The paper is out of scope, or does not contain any substantial contribution, or may be simply too difficult to understand. In any case, the same work should not be resubmitted without substantial improvisation.
  14. After an agreed decision has been reached, the authors are notified by the Editor-in-Chief or the Managing Editor.
  15. Revision of the manuscript, application of style sheet, assignment of the DOI number within 7 days.
  16. Copy editing of the manuscript and generation of the Author-proof.
  17. Generation of the galley proof and approval by the author(s).
  18. Hosting on the website with volume and issue number and year of publication.
  19. Archiving of the article in the database.