Peer Review
Peer review policy
The journal follows a double-blind review process, in which the reviewers and authors are unaware of each other's identities.
During the double-blind review process, the author's identity and relevant information of the paper are anonymized. Meanwhile, the reviewer's identity is also kept confidential from the author. That means, during the process of the double-blind review process, review experts provide independent and impartial evaluations through anonymous reviews without being influenced by the author's identity, background, or reputation
Peer review process
The Remote Manuscript Processing System provided by Beijing Qinyun Technology Development Co., Ltd. is adopted for online submission to JCAU (http://zgnydxxb.ijournals.cn/zgnydxxb/ch/author/login.aspx). The key steps in this process for reviewers are:
Send invitations to 3 to 5 carefully selected reviewers via email
Wait for reviewers to accept their invitation
Give reviewers one to two months to finish their review
The reviewers submit their reviews online
Fair editing and peer review
JCAU encourages all participants in the publishing process to adhere to established principles of ethical publishing. This extends from authors to journal editors, reviewers, journal administrators, and publishing staff.
Editorial independence
Editors have full editorial independence. Although JCAU may discuss strategy, process, and policy with editors, we will never knowingly exert pressure on editors to accept manuscripts for commercial or political reasons. We do, however, expect and encourage JCAU journal to have clearly defined processes and policies for the handling of contributions by the editor or members of the editorial board to ensure that, where appropriate, these submissions receive an equivalent level of peer review to any other submission.
Peer review and reviewer conduct
JCAU supports supports and refers its editors to the “COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers”. Detailed introduction in the following text.
During review
Peer reviewers should:
• notify the journal immediately and seek advice if they discover eithor a conflicting interest that wasn't apparent when they agreed to the review or anything that might prevent them from providing a fair and unbiased review.
• refrain from looking at the manuscript and associated material while awaiting instructions from a journal on issues that might cause the request to review to be rescinded.
• read the manuscript, ancillary material (e.g. reviewer instructions, required ethics and policy statements, supplemental data files) and journal instructions thoroughly, getting back to the journal if anything is not clear and requesting any missing or incomplete items they need to carry out a full review.
• notify the journal as soon as possible if the reviewers find they do not have the expertise to assess all aspects of the manuscript; they shouldn't wait until submitting their review as this will unduly delay the review process.
• not involve anyone else in the review of a manuscript, including junior researchers they are mentoring, without first obtaining permission from the journal; the names of any individuals who have helped them with the review should be included with the returned review so that they are associated with the manuscript in the journal's records and can also receive due credit for their efforts.
• keep all manuscript and review details confidential.
• contact the journal if circumstances arise that will prevent them from submitting a timely review, and provide an accurate estimate of the time they will need to do a review if still asked to do so.
• if they suspect the author's identity notify the journal if this knowledge raises any potential conflict of interest.
• notify the journal immediately if they come across any irregularities, have concerns about ethical aspects of the work, are aware of substantial similarity between the manuscript and a concurrent submission to another journal or a published article, or suspect that misconduct may have occurred during either the research or the writing and submission of the manuscript; reviewers should, however, keep their concerns confidential and not personally investigate further unless the journal asks for
further information or advice.
• not intentionally prolong the review process, either by delaying the submission of their review or by requesting unnecessary additional information from the journal or author.
• ensure their review is based on the merits of the work and not influenced, either positively or negatively, by any personal, financial, or other conflicting considerations or by intellectual biases.
• not contact the authors directly without the permission of the journal.
When preparing the report
Peer reviewers should:
• bear in mind that the editor is looking to them for subject knowledge, good judgment, and an honest and fair assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the work and the manuscript.
• make clear at the start of their review if they have been asked to address only specific parts or aspects of a manuscript and indicate which these are.
• follow journals' instructions on the specific feedback that is required of them and, unless there are good reasons not to, how this should be organized.
• be objective and constructive in their reviews and provide feedback that will help the authors to improve their manuscript.
• not make derogatory personal comments or unfounded accusations.
• be specific in their criticisms, and provide evidence with appropriate references to substantiate general statements such as, ‘this work has been done before', to help editors in their evaluation and decision and in fairness to the authors.
• remember it is the authors' paper and not attempt to rewrite it to their own preferred style if it is basically sound and clear; suggestions for changes that improve clarity are, however, important.
• be aware of the sensitivities surrounding language issues that are due to the authors writing in a language that is not their own, and phrase the feedback appropriately and with due respect.
• make clear which suggested additional investigations are essential to support claims made in the manuscript under consideration and which will just strengthen or extend the work.
• not prepare their report in such a way or include comments that suggest the review has been done by another person.
• not prepare their report in a way that reflects badly or unfairly on another person.
• not make unfair negative comments or include unjustified criticisms of any competitors' work that is mentioned in the manuscript.
• ensure their comments and recommendations for the editor are consistent with their report for the authors; most feedback should be put in the report for the authors.
• confidential comments to the editor should not be a place for denigration or false accusation, done in the knowledge that the authors will not see these comments.
• not suggest that authors include citations to the reviewer's (or their associates') work merely to increase the reviewer's (or their associates') citation count or to enhance the visibility of their or their associates' work; suggestions must be based on valid academic or technological reasons.
• if they are the editor handling a manuscript and decide to provide a review of that manuscript, do this transparently and not under the guide of an anonymous review; providing a review for a manuscript being handled by another editor at the journal can be treated as any other review.
Expectations post review
Peer reviewers should:
• continue to keep details of the manuscript and its review confidential.
• respond promptly if contacted by a journal about matters related to their review of a manuscript and provide the information required.
• contact the journal if anything relevant comes to light after submitting their review that might affect their original feedback and recommendations.
• read the reviews from the other reviewers, if these are provided by the journal, to improve their understanding of the topic or the decision reached.
• try to accommodate requests from journals to review revisions or resubmissions of manuscripts they have reviewed.
Confidentiality
JCAU expects editors and reviewers to handle all submissions confidentially. If a reviewer wishes to delegate the review or seek the opinion of a colleague on a specific aspect of the paper, he is expected to clear this with the JCAU in the first instance.
Peer review fraud
JCAU provides the option for submitting authors to suggest preferred reviewers. It's the lead author's responsibility to make sure that only genuine reviewers and reviewer contact details are put forward. Any suspected or alleged instances of authors submitting fabricated reviewer details will be thoroughly investigated. If such allegations are proven, the article in question will be immediately rejected or, if already published, retracted. The journal would typically notify the authors' institutional or local ethics council and may also impose a ban on further submissions from the author group
