Scimed Publishers adheres to the ethical guidelines developed by COPE for reviewing manuscripts submitted for publication in Scimed Publishers journals. Check out COPE's Peer Reviewers' Ethical Guidelines for more information.
Peer review can be classified into the following steps after the initial assessment by the Editorial Office.
EIC's(Editor-in-Chief) evaluation
The Editor-in-Chief accepts manuscripts that are within the scope of the journal and considered relevant for the journal's readership. If the article is unsuitable, the EIC could reject it without reviewing it.
Handling editor's assignment
According to the journal's scope, each Scimed Publishers journal has an editorial board made up of experts from different fields of study. Members of the EB will supervise the Review process on behalf of the EIC.
Reviewer requests
The Handling Editor will be inviting potential reviewers that he believes would be suitable for the review of the article. The invitations are sent until a minimum of 2 reviewers are ready to provide their service for the manuscript.
Reviewer Response to Invitation
Considering the availability, conflict of interest, and suitability of the research interest the reviewers accept or decline the invitation. On the decline of the invitation, the reviewer may also suggest other potential reviewers under his/her consideration
Review of article
The accepted reviewers set a time and carefully read the article several times. They may reject the articles to showcase major concerns without further consideration. In other cases, the reviewers strictly scrutinize the manuscripts multiple times and provide a point-to-point review from his point of view. The review comments are submitted to the Editorial office. The recommendations made may be Accepted or Rejected or with a suggestion requiring revision of the article to be considered.
Evaluation of reviews by the Editor
The handling Editor evaluates the submitted reviews along with the supporting information and provides a final decision pertaining to the manuscript. In cases where the reviews differ widely, more reviewers are invited to provide their suggestions/recommendations.
The decision rests with the Author
A decision regarding the manuscript is communicated to the author in an email along with the review comments supporting the decision.
Next steps
If the article is accepted, it is forwarded to the production department. If the article is rejected or sent back to the author for major or minor revision, the managing editor communicates the review comments to improve the article. For major revisions, on resubmission, the article is sent back to the reviewers for review but for a minor revision, the handling editor himself reviews the article and provides an appropriate decision