Review procedure

Original articles, review articles, case studies and analysis submitted for publication are subject to the review procedure. Letters to the editors, post-conference reports and book reviews are not reviewed, although the editors reserve the right to consult reviewers with regard to selected texts. The peer-review proces is preceded by a preliminary verification and assessment by the editors; at this stage the following are checked:

  • compliance of the subject with the journal profile;
  • preparation of the article in terms of formal requirements (compliance with the editorial guidelines);
  • correctness of the selected statistical methods and the calculations performed;
  • originality of the work (evaluation in the anti-plagiarism system);
  • statements by the authors regarding the originality of the work and potential conflicts of interest.

The review process refers to an external specialist opinion, so-called ‘peer-review’.

Before starting the peer-review process please:

  • make sure that there is no conflict of interest – a reviewer is required to make a relevant statement, and if a conflict is suspected, an invitation to give a review should not be accepted;
  • familiarise yourself with the publishing ethics of the publisher, particularly the rules for reviewers: the principle of communication with the editorial board, timeliness, reliability, objectivity, verification of scientific integrity, confidentiality and counteracting a conflict of interest.

Review process

  1. Only articles that have been positively assessed by editors in a stage of preliminary verification (by designated subject and statistical editors, if the manuscript contains statistical material) are subject to external peer-review proces.
  2. The review is entrusted to two independent reviewers, representing different scientific (academic) centres, which are not the author’s place of work.
  3. Reviewers shall be appointed from independent researchers with scientific achievements in research areas consistent with the subject of the article. If the paper is in a foreign language, at least one of the reviewers should be affiliated to a foreign institution outside the country of origin of the article’s author.
  4. The review is conducted in the ‘double-blind review’ mode, which means that the identity of the author is not disclosed to the reviewer and vice versa – the author does not know the name of the reviewer. The author and reviewer’s workplaces are also not disclosed. The editor requesting the review is responsible for the anonymization of articles and reviews.
  5. The full content of the article is made available to the reviewer in the electronic system after obtaining his consent to prepare a review, and reviewers statement regarding potential conflicts of interest.
  6. The evaluation of the work is made in the electronic system on the basis of the review form provided by the editors.
  7. The reviewer’s opinion includes an unambiguous assessment of the compliance of the content with the title, as well as the correctness of the formulation of the objective and hypothesis (research problem), research methods applied, presentation of research results, way of interpreting the research results and drawing conclusions, the selection of literature and the method of its citation. The form also includes an overall score for the methodological and formal side of the article, as well as the substantive one (on a scale of 0–5, where 0 is the lowest). The reviewer should justify his/her assessment by making specific comments. The review contains the reviewer’s recommendation regarding admission of the work for publication, possible publication after corrections or rejection of the article.
  8. If at least one review is negative (the reviewer makes a proposal for rejection), the article is rejected.
  9. The editors may eppoint a third reviewer if previously designated reviewers present contradictory opinions.
  10. If both reviews are positive (reviewers propose admission to publication), but at least one of them contains recommendations for ‘major’ changes or the final score in both assessed areas does not exceed 2 points, the editor-in-chief may decide to reject the paper.
  11. In the case of recommending major corrections, the reviewer may reserve the right to re-review the improved and amended manuscript. In such a case, the editors launch a second round of reviews, and the work is evaluated only by the reviewer who made such a reservation.
  12. The author has the right to read the review. The review is made available to the author in the electronic publication system of the journal.
  13. The author is required to formulate a written response to the reviews and submit it along with the improved and amended manuscript in the electronic publication system within the time limit set by the editors. If the content of the article changes, the author is also required to provide (in a separate file) a description of the changes.
  14. If the author refuses to introduce changes recommended by the reviewer ora the editors, appropriate explanation should be provided. If the explanation is not satosfactory, the editor-in-chief may decide to reject the manuscript.
  15. The final decision about submitting the manuscript for publication or its rejection is made by the editor-in-chief.