For Editor

Overview

Editors are responsible for ensuring that each submitted manuscript is handled with fairness, consistency, and academic integrity. Editorial evaluation should be objective and based on the content of the manuscript rather than personal, institutional, geographic, or commercial considerations.

• Editors should uphold journal scope, policy, and scientific standards.
• All manuscripts must be reviewed with neutrality and professionalism.
• Editorial decisions should reflect both reviewer input and editorial judgment.
• Editors should support an efficient, respectful, and transparent workflow.

Editorial Role

The editor’s role extends beyond decision-making. Editors help maintain the quality, relevance, and integrity of published content and contribute to the overall reputation of the journal.

Initial Screening

Before peer review, editors should perform an initial assessment of each manuscript for scope alignment, completeness, language quality, originality, and basic scientific suitability.

Initial Checks May Include

• Relevance to the journal’s scope and editorial priorities
• Completeness of submission files and author information
• Basic manuscript organization and readability
• Potential ethical concerns, plagiarism issues, or duplicate publication risk
• Presence of required declarations, consent statements, or approvals where applicable

Peer Review Management

Editors are responsible for managing peer review in a fair, confidential, and timely manner. Reviewer selection should be based on subject expertise, independence, and the ability to provide constructive scholarly assessment.

• Assign reviewers with suitable expertise relevant to the manuscript topic.
• Avoid reviewer choices that may create bias, conflict, or lack of independence.
• Encourage constructive, evidence-based, and professional reviews.
• Follow up on delayed reviews to maintain efficient editorial timelines.
• Assess whether reviewer comments are sufficiently clear and publication-relevant.

Editorial Decisions

Editorial decisions should be based on scientific merit, reviewer comments, editorial standards, and the manuscript’s readiness for publication.

Possible Decision Outcomes

• Accept without further revision
• Minor revision
• Major revision
• Reject with encouragement to resubmit after major redevelopment
• Reject due to scope mismatch, insufficient quality, or ethical concerns

Good Editorial Practice

• Provide clear rationale for the decision.
• Ensure decision letters are respectful and professionally written.
• Do not rely mechanically on reviewer opinions without editorial evaluation.
• Resolve conflicting reviewer recommendations with balanced editorial judgment.

Quality Control

Editors should ensure that accepted manuscripts meet scientific, editorial, language, formatting, and ethical expectations before entering production or publication.

• Check that revisions have adequately addressed reviewer and editor comments.
• Confirm consistency in title, abstract, keywords, references, and author details.
• Verify clarity of tables, figures, legends, and supplementary material.
• Ensure declarations such as funding, ethics, and conflict of interest are included.
• Confirm that final files are complete and publication-ready.

Editorial Ethics

Editors must uphold the highest standards of publication ethics. Manuscripts should never be evaluated based on commercial interest, personal preference, or non-academic factors.

• Maintain impartiality throughout editorial handling.
• Address suspected misconduct such as plagiarism, data fabrication, or duplicate submission.
• Ensure fair treatment of authors regardless of nationality, institutional affiliation, gender, or seniority.
• Follow journal and accepted publishing ethics frameworks when ethical concerns arise.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts under editorial consideration are confidential documents. Editors must protect submission materials, reviewer identities where applicable, and editorial correspondence.

• Do not disclose manuscript content to unauthorized individuals.
• Do not use unpublished manuscript information for personal or professional benefit.
• Handle reviewer identities according to the journal’s review model and confidentiality policy.
• Maintain secure handling of editorial files, messages, and manuscript versions.

Conflict of Interest

Editors should recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where a personal, institutional, collaborative, or financial conflict may affect objective judgment.

• Avoid handling submissions from close colleagues, collaborators, or students where bias may arise.
• Disclose any relevant competing interests to the journal office.
• Transfer editorial responsibility when impartial handling cannot be ensured.
• Support transparent editorial practice in all decision stages.

Communication Guidelines

Editorial communication should be respectful, concise, and professionally worded. Editors should guide authors and reviewers clearly without using dismissive or ambiguous language.

• Use polite and constructive language in all editorial correspondence.
• Clearly communicate revision priorities and decision reasoning.
• Acknowledge reviewer effort and maintain professionalism even in difficult cases.
• Respond to procedural questions in a timely and policy-consistent manner.

Production Readiness

Before final publication, editors should confirm that the accepted manuscript is complete, accurate, and suitable for production, indexing, and public release.

• Check title, author names, affiliations, abstract, and keywords for final consistency.
• Review references and citation completeness.
• Confirm final approval status of revised manuscript files.
• Ensure issue assignment, online first status, and publication metadata are correct where applicable.

Editorial Support

Editors may contact the journal office for assistance with reviewer selection, ethical issues, difficult decision cases, production queries, author disputes, and workflow coordination.

• Support for reviewer invitation and replacement
• Guidance on suspected plagiarism or publication ethics issues
• Help with revision assessment or conflicting reviewer recommendations
• Coordination regarding accepted manuscript transfer to production