Initial Checks

All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked by a professional in-house Managing Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared and they follow the ethical policies of the journal. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or meet the standards of the journals will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the journals’ Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editors to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and it is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage. Reject decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief.

 

Peer-Review

A manuscript passing the initial checks will be assigned to at least two independent experts for peer-review. A single-blind review is applied with authors' identities known to reviewers. Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with the express agreement of the reviewer.

In the case of regular submissions, in-house assistant editors will invite experts with recommendations by an academic editor. These experts may also include Editorial Board members and Guest Editors of the IIKII journals. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered. The reviewers should not have published with any of the co-authors during the past five years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the co-authors of the submitted manuscript.

 

Optional Open Peer-Review

The IIKII journals operate optional open peer-review: Authors are given the option for all review reports and editorial decisions to be published alongside their manuscript. Besides, reviewers can sign their review, i.e., identify themselves in the published review reports. Authors can alter their choice for open review at any time before publication. However, once the paper has been published, changes will only be made at the discretion of the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. IIKII encourages authors to take advantage of optional open peer-review as proof of the rigorous process employed in publishing their research. To guarantee impartial refereeing, the names of referees would be revealed with the referees’ agreement after the paper has been accepted for publication.

 

Editorial Decision and Revision

All the articles, reviews, and communications published in IIKII journals go through the peer-review process and receive at least two reviews. The in-house editors will communicate to the corresponding author of the manuscript on the decision of the  reviewers which will be one of the following:

 

• Accept after Minor Revisions: The manuscript is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments. The authors are given five days for minor revisions.

• Reconsider after Major Revisions: The acceptance of the manuscript depends on the revisions. The author(s) needs to provide a point by point response or provide a rebuttal on some of the reviewer’s comments that cannot be considered for the revision. Usually, only one round of major revisions is allowed. The authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within a suitable time frame, and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.

• Reject and Encourage Resubmission: If additional experiments are needed to support the conclusions, the manuscript will be rejected and the authors will be encouraged to re-submit the paper once further experiments have been conducted.

• Reject: The manuscript has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is provided.

 

All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point way. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response.

 

Author Appeals

The authors may appeal a rejection by sending an email to the journal’s Editorial Office. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers' and/or Editor's comments. The Managing Editor of the journal will forward the appeal, the manuscript, and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Editorial Board member. The Academic Editor will give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A rejection decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.

 

In the case of a special issue, the Managing Editor of the journal will forward the appeal, the manuscript, and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief who will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A rejection decision at this stage will be final and cannot be reversed.

 

Production and Publication

Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo professional copy-editing, English editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, pagination, and publication on the journal’s website.

 

IIKII undertakes to organize the peer review process of articles in accordance with the principles of fairness and impartiality.