About the Journal
Use of decent and neutral language
General information about abstract and keywords
Ethical responsibilities of authors
Role of the corresponding author
Deceased or incapacitated authors
Compliance with ethical standards
Ethical guidelines for authors
Multiple, redundant and current publication
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Ethical guidelines for editors
Editorial team’s responsibility
Editing and formatting guidelines
Establishing a procedure for appeal
Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers
Disclosure and conflict of interest
Dealing with misconduct in the submission
Instructions for authors
Submission
Experts Journal of Management Sciences (EJMS), for the ease of authors and reviewers provides guidelines for the use of web-enabled online manuscript submission and review system. This web-enabled interface of manuscript submission and review system offers authors the option to track the progress of the review process of manuscripts in real time. Manuscripts should be submitted to the journal online.
Submission of a manuscript to the Experts Journal of Management Sciences (EJMS) implies the following:
- That the submission has neither been published before nor under consideration for publication anywhere else;
- That the submission carries the consent of all contributing authors in the subject paper;
- That its publication has been approved by the responsible authorities–implicitly or explicitly;
- That scholarly integrity is a very serious aspect for any research activity and that the Journal takes this very seriously. The journal expects that the authors involved are not part of any unethical behavior. Unethical behavior includes but is not limited to:
- Not acknowledging all sources of the ideas in the submitted research work;
- Reproducing the research work or ideas of others; and
- Reproducing their own work without proper citation and acknowledging sources.
- That violation of the above may result in rejection with addition to bar authors for submitting in future;
- That the publisher and/or editors will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation; and
- That during the submission process, the names of anyone who has contributed to your manuscript have been into the metadata section during the submission process. The order of the authors may be changed by clicking the arrows. The first author of the manuscript may be indicated.
Submit online
Experts Journal of Management Sciences follows a double-blind peer reviewing procedure. Authors are, therefore, required to submit their article as anonymous file. There should not be any identification marks in the article text that may lead to authors' identity.
Manuscript details
The online manuscript submission and review system for the Experts Journal of Management Sciences offers easy and straight forward log-in and submission procedures. The journal system accepts submission of files in Word or PDF formats. In case author encounters any difficulties while submitting your manuscript online, please contact the Editor at: editor.ejms@expertsms.org
The journal accepts submission only in English language. However, all submissions must be intelligible in this language as a prerequisite to consideration for publication. Both UK and USA English spelling and terminology are allowed but there should be consistency for opting any one.
Manuscript presentation
The Journal follows a double-blind peer reviewing procedure. Authors are, therefore, required to submit their article as anonymous. There should not be any identification marks in the article text that may lead to authors' identity. Self-identifying citations and references in the article text should either be avoided or left blank when manuscripts are first submitted. Authors are responsible for reinserting self-identifying citations and references when manuscripts are prepared for final submission.
Online submission
Authors are required to submit their manuscripts online via the Journal online submission process by "Register with this site at: https://expertsms.org/ems/index.php/ejms. And then follow the five steps submission process.
Corresponding/submitting author should enter the name(s) of the author(s), their affiliation(s), address(es) and e-mail address(es) in the metadata section.
Abstract
Author(s) are required to provide a short abstract (150-250 words). The abstract should not have undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.
Manuscript
The average length of an article should not exceed 10,000 words (including references). Exemption may be made for studies based on qualitative data. Authors should use double-space for the whole article. Quotations of more than 40 words should be set off clearly, either by indenting the left-hand margin or by using a smaller typeface. Use double quotation marks for direct quotations and single quotation marks for quotations within quotations and for words or phrases used in a special sense. Number the pages consecutively.
Figures and Tables
All Figures and tables should follow APA 6 Section. Each figure and table should be numbered and mentioned in the text. Figures and tables should be captioned properly.
Section headings:
First-, second-, third-, and fourth-order headings should be followed as per APA 6 section.
Appendices:
Supplementary material, as per need, may be uploaded as supplementary materials.
Cross-Referencing:
In the text, a reference identified by means of an author’s name should be followed by the date of the reference in parentheses and page number(s) where appropriate. When there are more than two authors, they be given in full in the first reference and then afterwards, the first author’s name followed by “et al”. In the event that an author cited has had two or more works published during the same year, the reference, both in the text and in the reference list, should be identified by a lower case letter like “a” and “b” after the date to distinguish the works. In short, APA 6th be strictly followed.
References
References to books, journal articles, articles in collections and conference or workshop proceedings, and technical reports should be listed at the end of the paper in alphabetical order. Only published articles be referred to.
Example for articles (APA-6th):
Rahman, W., Rahman, H., Shah, F. A., & Hussain, J. (2017). Job behaviors and their impact on performance appraisal effectiveness: Conceptual propositions. Sarhad Journal of Management Sciences, 3(1), 36-45.
Example for books:
Armstrong, M., & Baron, A. (2005). Managing Performance: Performance Management in Action: CIPD Publishing.
Example for chapter in an edited book:
Campbell, J. P. (1990). Modeling the performance prediction problem in industrial and organizational psychology. In M. D. Dunnette, & Hough, L.M. (Ed.), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 39-73): Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Note: It will be appreciated if the author uses some citation software (preferably EndNote for citation).
References to articles in conference proceedings should include the author’s name; year of publication; article title; editor’s name (if any); title of proceedings; first and last page number; place and date of conference; publisher and/or organization from which the proceedings can be obtained; place of publication, in the order given in the example below.
Rahman, W. & Ishrat, R. (2016). Organizational culture and salesperson’s ethical position. In R. T. Hsieh and S. Scherling (eds.), Proceedings of the Academy of International Business SEA Regional Conference (pp. 3-9). National Chiao Tung University, Tapei.
References to articles in periodicals should include the author’s name; year of publication; article title; full title of periodical; volume number (issue number where appropriate); first and last page number, in the order given in the example below.
Sims, R. R. (1992). The challenge of ethical behaviour in organizations. Journal of Business Ethics 11(7), 505-513.
Use of decent and neutral language
Experts Journal of Management Sciences would like to encourage its authors to use of decent language that may not violate the norms of business ethics. A problem that is commonly observed in business and management studies is excessive use of the pronoun ‘he’ or ‘businessmen’ when talking about business people in generic terms – use ‘he or she’, or ‘s/he’, or ‘businesspeople’. If you need to refer to a particular gender, it is preferable to use woman/man rather than female/male, gentleman/ladies, guys/boys/girls. Please do not respond to reviewers or editors with the generic Dear Sirs, use Dear Madam/Sir.
General information about abstract and keywords
Abstract and keywords
The abstract of a submission is its summary of the journal manuscript and a time-saving shortcut for the interested readers. It talks about the most important parts of your manuscript’s written content. Therefore, it should have the potential to stand alone as, in most cases, it is the only part of that indexing databases have been asking for and let appear alone on these databases. To cut it short, it the most accessed part of your article; making a good impression will encourage researchers to read your full paper.
For Experts Journal of Management Sciences it can help in taking quick desk decision and then speed up the peer-review process. Therefore, the abstract needs to contain enough information about the paper to allow referees to make a judgment as to whether they have enough expertise to review the paper and be engaging enough for them to want to review it.
Your Abstract should carry these pieces of information in the sequences as below:
- Purpose of the research;
- Methodology adopted in the research;
- Results of research;
- Research implications (theoretical/practical);
- Originality of the research; and
- Limitation and future directions (optional).
These pieces of information help the reviewer to know the most important points of the submitted work and help them decide whether they want to read the rest of the paper. Make sure you follow other formatting requirements of the journal.
The authors are also required to provide keywords. This helps indexers and search engines find relevant papers. If database search engines can find your journal manuscript, readers will be able to find it too. This will increase the number of people reading your manuscript, and likely lead to more citations.
To have effective keywords, one must take utmost care in choosing keywords. Overall they should:
- Be reflection of the content of your article; and
- Be specific to your field or sub-field
Ethical responsibilities of authors
Experts Journal of Management Sciences is committed to value research ethics. To be part of world community in following publication ethics, we have applied for membership of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Once the journal gets membership of COPE, the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.
Authors are expected to honour research ethics and should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation is helped by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include*:
- The article is required to have been submitted exclusively to this journal for consideration and may not be under publication or consideration of any other journal;
- The author should ensure that the work submitted is original in its contents and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language. The journal will check the article for similarity check and if the index is above 19%, the article will be refused to process for review;
- A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time;
- Authors should present research findings in clear and eligible way. They should demonstrate honesty and refrain from fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation.
- No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks (to indicate words taken from another source) are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions secured for material that is copyrighted.
- If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud the Journal and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines (after the journal becomes member of the COPE-the journal applies for members). If, after investigation, there are valid concerns, the author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:
- If during the review process, some dubious activity is reported, the author’s institution will be informed; and
- A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.
Fundamental errors
Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article. In such cases the author(s) is/are required to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. A decision on how to rectify the error(s) will depend on the nature of the error(s). This may be a correction or retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency which part(s) of the article is/are impacted by the error.
Authorship principles
These guidelines describe authorship principles and good authorship practices to which prospective authors should adhere to.
Authorship clarified
Experts Journal of Management Sciences and EMS as publisher assume that all authors agreed with the content and that all gave explicit consent to submit and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted.
The Publisher does not prescribe the kinds of contributions that warrant authorship. It is recommended that authors adhere to the guidelines for authorship that are applicable in their specific research field. In absence of specific guidelines it is recommended to adhere to the following guidelines*:
All authors whose names appear on the submission must have:
- Made substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work;
- Drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
- Approved the version to be published; and
- Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Disclosures and declarations
All authors are requested to include necessary and critical information that may affect the publication process. Such information disclosure must have research implications for the submitted article, journal and public at large.
Role of the corresponding author
One author is assigned as Corresponding Author and acts on behalf of all co-authors and ensures that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately addressed.
The Corresponding Author is responsible for the following requirements:
- Ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors;
- Managing all communication between the Journal and all co-authors, before and after publication. In this case please make sure the Corresponding Author is clearly indicated in the manuscript; and
- Providing transparency on re-use of material and mention any unpublished material (for example manuscripts in press) included in the manuscript in a cover letter to the Editor.
Affiliation
The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may additionally be stated. Addresses will not be updated or changed after publication of the article.
Changes to authorship
Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship by adding or deleting authors, and/or changes in Corresponding Author, and/or changes in the sequence of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.
- Please note that author names will be published exactly as they appear on the accepted submission!
Please make sure that the names of all authors are present and correctly spelled, and that addresses and affiliations are current.
Adding and/or deleting authors at revision stage are generally not permitted, but in some cases it may be warranted. Reasons for these changes in authorship should be explained. Approval of the change during revision is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. Please note that journals may have individual policies on adding and/or deleting authors during revision stage.
Author identification
Authors are recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process.
Deceased or incapacitated authors
For cases in which a co-author dies or is incapacitated during the writing, submission, or peer-review process, and the co-authors feel it is appropriate to include the author, co-authors should obtain approval from a (legal) representative which could be a direct relative.
Authorship issues or disputes
In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publication, the Journal will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate. Authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves. If they are unable the Journal reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process or in case of a published paper raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its guidelines.
Confidentiality
Authors should treat all communication with the Journal as confidential.
Compliance with ethical standards
To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include all critical information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), etc.
The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned guidelines.
Informed consent
All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have, for example, the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. This is especially true concerning images of vulnerable people (e.g., minors, patients, refugees, etc.) or the use of images in sensitive contexts. In many instances authors will need to secure written consent before including images.
Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers, biometrical characteristics (such as facial features, fingerprint, writing style, voice pattern, DNA or other distinguishing characteristic) and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scholarly purposes and the participant (or parent/guardian if the participant is a minor or incapable or legal representative) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases. Detailed descriptions of individual participants, whether of their whole bodies or of body sections, may lead to disclosure of their identity. Under certain circumstances consent is not required as long as information is anonymized and the submission does not include images that may identify the person.
Consent to participate
For all research involving human subjects, freely-given, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript. In the case of articles describing human transplantation studies, authors must include a statement declaring that no organs/tissues were obtained from prisoners and must also name the institution(s)/clinic(s)/ department(s) via which organs/tissues were obtained. For manuscripts reporting studies involving vulnerable groups where there is the potential for coercion or where consent may not have been fully informed, extra care will be taken by the editor and may be referred to the Springer Nature Research Integrity Group.
Consent to publish
Individuals may consent to participate in a study, but object to having their data published in a journal article. Authors should make sure to also seek consent from individuals to publish their data prior to submitting their paper to a journal. This is in particular applicable to case studies. Authors are required to annex such consent with the article submitted.
Research data policy
The journal encourages authors, where possible and applicable, to deposit data that support the findings of their research in a public repository.
English language editing
For editors and reviewers to accurately assess the work presented in your manuscript you need to ensure the English language is of sufficient quality to be understood. If you need help with writing in English you should consider:
- Asking a colleague who is a native English speaker to review your manuscript for clarity.
- Visiting the English language tutorial which covers the common mistakes when writing in English.
- Using any professional language editing service where editors will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and identify problems that require your review is encouraged. However, note that the use of a language editing service is not a requirement for publication in this journal and does not imply or guarantee that the article will be selected for peer review or accepted; and
- If your manuscript is accepted it will be checked by our copyeditors for spelling and formal style before publication.
Copy rights guidelines
The purpose of copyright is to protect the author(s) specific way of writing a research work and the results. We are committed to our valuable authors to protect and defend their work and their reputation and take allegations of plagiarism, unethical research activity and fraud, in any shape, very seriously.
If an author becomes aware of a possible plagiarism, fraud, unethical research involvement, the journal recommends to contact the Editor-in-Chief for remedial action. Note that there are certain open access user licenses which allow quite broad re-use and is permitted as per international standard and research ethics.
Ethical guidelines
Ethical Guidelines for authors
Reporting standards
Author(s) are responsible to ensure that the submission contains adequate detail and references to the sources of information in order to allow others to reproduce the results. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statement constitutes unethical behavior and will be unacceptable.
Originality and plagiarism
Author(s) are responsible to ascertain that the submission is original work, giving due credit, by virtue of proper citations, to the works and/or words of others where they are used. Plagiarism is unethical and is not acceptable. Material quoted verbatim from the author(s) previously published work or other sources must be placed in quotation marks with reference to specific page number. As per HEC policy, similarity index upto 19% is allowed.
Declaration
Authors are required to make a declaration during the submission process that the manuscript under consideration contains solely their original work and that the same not under consideration for publishing in any other journal in any form. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that each author has contributed substantially towards the preparation of the manuscript in order to claim right to authorship.
Multiple, redundant and current publication
Authors should not submit manuscripts describing essentially the same research to more than one journal or publication except if is a re-submission of a rejected or withdrawn manuscript. Authors can re-publish previously conducted research that has been substantially altered or corrected using more meticulous analysis or by adding more data. The authors and editor-in-chief must agree to the secondary publication, which must cite the primary references and reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. Concurrent submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal is unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Acknowledgment of sources
A paper must always contain proper acknowledgment of the work of others, including clear indications of the sources of all information quoted or offered, except that what is common knowledge. Author(s) must also acknowledge the contributions of people, organizations and institutes who assisted the process of research, including those who provided technical help, writing assistance or financial funding (in acknowledgement). It is the duty of the author(s) to conduct a literature review and properly cite the original publications that describe closely related work.
Authorship of the work
Authorship of the work may only be credited to those who have made a noteworthy contribution in conceptualization, design, conducting, data analysis and writing up of the manuscript. The corresponding author has the responsibility to include name of only those co- authors who have made significant contributions to the work and that they have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Privacy of participants
The Journal honors and respects the privacy of the participants and will not use any information obtained from them without their informed consent. However, it is the reasonability of the authors to share only such information that improves the understanding of the study. Furthermore, authors must ensure that in instances where the identity of the participant needs to be revealed in the study, explicit and informed consent of the concerned party is obtained. In the event of the demise of a participant, consent must be obtained from the family of the deceased. The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
Data access and retention
If question arises about the accuracy or validity of the research work during the review process the author(s) should provide raw data to the editor-in-chief.
Images
The author(s) should ensure that images included in a submission or in the data collection as part of the research are free from manipulations. There needs to be an accurate description of the images contained in a submission.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
The potential and relevant competing financial, personal social or other interest of all author(s) that might be affected by publication of the results contained in the manuscript must be conveyed to the editor-in-chief in a note to the editor in the form of separate file. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed alongside a brief overview of the role played, if any by the responses during the various stages of research.
Copyright
Authors may have to sign an agreement allowing the journal to reserve the right to circulate the article and all other derivative works such as translations.
Ethical guidelines for editors
Editorial team’s responsibility
Editorial team of the journal is responsible to establish and maintain quality of the journal by publishing quality papers while promoting freedom of expression within the cultural, constitutional/legal framework. The team is also responsible to provide integrity and credibility of the research contributions and meeting the needs of authors and readers by maintaining all the ethical standards stated here and there in the policies of the journal.
Fair play and impartiality
The Journal assures that selection of research is impartial and purely on merit basis. The journal categorically disregards the discriminating factors, e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, cultural sentiments, political affiliation, seniority and/or institutional association of the author(s) while selecting articles for publication.
Confidentiality
The Journal ensures confidentiality of the author(s) and reviewers during the process of double-blind peer review. This aspect has further been explained in the policy section of Peer Review Process.
Editing and formatting guidelines
To make the job easy for the authors, detailed author guidelines are provided under the Submission heading.
Review process
Details about review process has been delineated in Peer Review Process Section.
To curb unethical practices, reviewers can report to the editor about ethical issues and possible research and publication misconduct in case the submitted research paper has indulged in (e.g. inappropriate research design, incomplete detail on participants consent, data manipulation, and presentation. Such comments by the reviewer is highly welcomed and the editor will look into the validity of reported case and identify subtle (simply copy-paste) and/or blatant (paraphrasing) type of plagiarism, if, practiced by the author(s). In case, unethical practice is proved the editor will publish a corrigendum, remove and retract a published article subsequent to its publication.
Transparency
The Journal discourages the submission of multiple papers as a principal investigator by an author in the same issue. To provide space for diverse authors, only ONE co-authorship will be allowed for those authors who will also contribute a research paper as a principal investigator in the same issue. For the members of the editorial board (including the editor), it will only be limited to ONE paper per issue either to submit research paper as a principal investigator or co-author. It should be noted that authorship is the exclusive right of those who have substantially contributed in the said article.
Conflict of interest
Editor will not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against whom there is any conflicts of interest (e.g. resulting from competitive, collaborative and/or professional standing. The editor will also apply this guideline on their reviewers and editorial board members. To ensure this, a statement of conflict of interest has inserted in the specific guidelines to the reviewers. The common interests (e.g. financial, academic and/or any other type) for all editorial board members and editorial staff.
Disclosure
Editor-in-chief will not use any unpublished information/data from the submitted research paper without the permission of the author(s), and any information received after peer review process must be kept confidential and not used for personal gains.
Publication decisions
It the exclusive jurisdiction of the editor-in-chief to short list research papers which have relevancy with the scope of the journal based on his judgment free of any prejudice. After completion of the reviewing process, submission of revised manuscript, and assessing the quality and validity, the editor-in-chief has a right to accept or reject a research paper purely on merit, academic standards and professional demands of the journal. Author(s) will be conveyed cogent reasons for rejecting a research paper. This may include:
- Failure to fit in the scope of the journal (can be communicated after preliminary review);
- No contribution to the existing theoretical foundations;
- Major errors related to design, analysis, write up and format; and
- Any misconduct or conflicting factors (e.g. plagiarism, copyright infringement, legal issues, fake data, authorship issues).
Establishing a procedure for appeal
Author(s) has the right to appeal to the editor-in-chief against the rejection of a research paper, objections to publications causing harm to any party and infringing ethical boundaries in any manner.
Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers
Suitability and promptness
The editor-in-chief assigns a submitted article to a reviewer keeping in view her/his research interest and provides a chance to the reviewer(s) to whether agree or disagree to review the submission. It the reviewer thinks that if they do not have the subject expertise required to carry out the review and s/he should inform the editor immediately after receiving a request. A responsible behaviour, during the whole process, is expected from the reviewer.
Standards of objectivity
To ensure objectivity in the review, reviewers are expected to carry out objective review keeping in consideration the academic, scholarly and scientific standards. All judgments need to be meticulously established and maintained in order to ensure the full comprehension of the reviewers’ comments by the editorial office and the author(s). Both reviewers and author(s) in rebuttal should avoid unsupported assertions. Reviewer may justifiably criticize a manuscript but it would be inappropriate and impressible to resort to personal criticism on the author(s). And reviewers should ensure that their decision is purely based on the quality of the research paper and not influenced, either positively or negatively, by any personal, financial, or other conflicting considerations or by intellectual biases.
Disclosure and conflict of interest
A reviewer should not, for the purpose of his/her own research, use unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript, without the approval of the editor-in-chief. The data included in the research paper is confidential and the reviewer need not use the same for his/her any personal study. Reviewer must declare, if there is, any potentially conflicting interests (e.g. personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious). In this situation, s/he is required to follow journals policies on situations they consider to represent a conflict to reviewing. A reviewer is expected to be honest to declare conflicts of interest, if, the research paper under reviews is the same to his/her presently conducted study. And if the reviewer feels unqualified to separate his/her bias, s/he should immediately return the manuscript to the editor-in-chief without review, and justify to him/her about this.
Confidentiality
It is the academic responsibility of the reviewers to honour the confidentiality of the submitted work and not discuss its content in any platform except in cases where a professional advice is being sought with the authorization of the editor. A reviewer is professionally and ethically bound not to disclose the details of the research paper prior to its publication without the prior approval of the editor-in-chief.
Dealing with misconduct in the submission
If a reviewer feels that the submission is almost the same of someone else’s work, or the results in research paper to be untrue/unrealistic/fake, or if there has been an indication for violating the ethical norms in the treatment of human beings (e.g. children, female, poor people, disabled, elderly, etc.), or if the research paper is based on any previous research study or is replica of an earlier work, or the author has not acknowledged/referenced others work appropriately, s/he has ethical responsibility to inform the editor-in-chief and provide its citation as a reference.
Originality
For evaluating originality, peer reviewers should consider the following elements: Does the research paper add to the existing knowledge? And do the research questions and/or hypotheses are appropriate to the objective of the research work?
Structure
The reviewer is expected to look if the paper has followed the prescribed format and in case of violation, return the same to the editor-in-chief. Besides, If there is serious problem of language expression and reviewer gets an impression that the research paper does not fulfill the linguistic requirements and readers would face difficulties to read and comprehend the paper, the reviewer should record this deficiency in his/her report and suggest the editor-in-chief to make its proper editing. If there is duplication in illustrations including photographs, models, charts, images and figures, the same needs to be reported. The reviewer is expected to critically review the statistical analysis of the data. There is a need of linking the methodology section in detail and make sure that the author(s) has demonstrated the understanding of the procedures being used and presented in the manuscript. Furthermore, it has to be ensured that there exists a close relationship between data, findings and discussion.
Review report
A reviewer is supposed to record her/her observations in the light of the above. A reviewer is expected to fill in completely the review form as per requirement and additional comments if s/he thinks proper. Such comments need to summarize a reviewer’s final decision and inferences drawn from full review. For the understanding of the editor-in-chief and author(s), a reviewer should highlight any deficiency in some detail with specificity. The part that requires a reviewer’s decision regarding research paper, should clearly indicate as Reject, Accept without revision, or Need Revision and either of the decisions should have justification of the same.
However, final decision about publishing a research paper (either accept or reject) solely rests with the editor-in-chief and it is not a reviewers job to take part in this decision. The editor-in-chief will surely consider reviewers comments and have a right to send the paper for another opinion or send back to the author(s) for its revisions before making the final decision.
