Peer review is the scrutiny of the author's scholarly research and other experts in the same field to check the work's validity and evaluate its suitability for publication. Scienceline Journals follow a double-blind peer-reviewing procedure by at least 2 reviewers (1 external and 1 internal) and also the English language editor after all manuscripts are checked by one of the plagiarism finding tools (iThenticate, PlagScan and or Docol©c). Also, a reviewer result form is filled by reviewer to guide authors and editors. Possible decisions are: accept as is, minor revision, moderate revision, major revision, or reject. See sample of the evaluation form for JLSB. Authors should submit back their revisions within 14 days in the case of minor revision, or 30 days in the case of major revision. This method of review provides a fair, unbiased, independent, critical assessment of the submissions and more effectively conveys the assessment of expert reviewers to authors, readers, and other interested parties (upon corresponding author's agreement).
Peer review is intended to improve the accuracy, clarity, and completeness of published manuscripts and also help editors decide which manuscripts are proper to publish. Reviewers do not guarantee manuscript quality and scientific misconduct but advise editors on how and under which conditions a manuscript might be improved and on its priority for publication in that journal. In addition to their comments for the authors, reviewers are asked whether the research is sound and coherent, the topic interesting, and the writing of acceptable quality. Where possible, the final decision is made on the basis that peer reviewers are in accordance with one another, or that at least there is no strong dissenting view. In cases, there is strong disagreement, either among the peer review or between the authors and the peer reviewers, advice is sought from an editorial board member or a researcher of similar standing.
Editors are not required to send all manuscripts out for review. They may immediately return or decline some manuscripts to authors without external review, to allow authors to submit the manuscript to another journal without delay.
Editors publish statistics on a regular basis describing their journal’s review process, number of submissions, acceptance rate, average time from submission to the first and final decisions, and article acceptance to final publication (for example see JWPR archive).
Scienceline Journals accept submissions via both the Scienceline Online Submission System and Journal's Online Submission Form (for example visit JLSB Submission Form). The submitted manuscript must be accompanied by a cover letter in which the authors should state why the manuscript should be considered and evaluated by the Scienceline editorial policies and declare if they have any competing interests. The authors of received manuscripts are also asked to submit a copyright declaration of competing interests as part of their manuscript.
The main features of the current Scienceline peer-review process are:
- all decisions are made by editors who are active researchers.
- we do not artificially limit the number of articles we publish or have a set acceptance rate.
- editors discuss with reviewers about reviews with "major revision results" before reaching a decision on a manuscript; extra experiments are only requested if they are essential and can be completed within about two months.
- the decision letter is sent to the author after peer review, and the accepted manuscripts are published if the authors respond.
Our aim is to make peer review faster and fairer, especially for clinical research (by reducing rounds of revision and requesting extra experiments if required).
