The basis of any review is an objective assessment of the scientific novelty and originality of the presented work, and its compliance with other established requirements.
The reviewers assess if the article may be accepted without revisions, with minor or major revisions, or if it should be rejected, according to the criteria and procedure described in the «Peer-review Procedures» section of the Editorial Policy.
Reviews are meant to be critical, but we ask reviewers to be aware that disparaging language and personal criticism may be seen as reflecting bias or ulterior motives on the part of the reviewer.
Peer-reviewer responsibilities to authors
- Provide written, unbiased feedback on the scholarly merits and scientific value of the work, together with the rationale for your opinion.
- Provide your peer-review as soon as possible within the deadlines set by the editors. If you cannot do so, please contact the journal office immediately on the journal platform.
- Avoid personal comments or criticism.
- Maintain the confidentiality of the peer-review process by not sharing, discussing with third parties, or disclosing information from the reviewed paper without permission from the editorial office.
Peer-reviewer responsibilities to editors
- Alert the editor to any potential personal or financial conflict of interest (see Ethical policy, Conflicts of interest) you may have and decline to review when a possibility of a conflict exists.
- Determine the scientific merit, originality, and scope of the work and suggest ways to improve it.
- Note any ethical concerns, such as the substantial similarity between the reviewed manuscript and any published paper or any manuscript concurrently submitted elsewhere.
Peer-reviewer responsibilities to readers
- Ensure that positively reviewed papers meet the journal standards.
- Protect readers from incorrect or flawed research or studies that cannot be validated by others.
- Be alert to any failure to cite relevant work by other scientists.
Comments to authors
Reviewer’s comments are extremely important as they help authors improve their articles.
If you believe that the article is not of high quality according to a certain evaluation criterion, please provide a reasoned comment and suggest to the author(s) ways to improve the article.
If you believe that the authors should take into account additional literature, please indicate the authors and the names of the sources and, if possible, provide references to the sources.
Summary. Please provide a general summary of the paper. This summary can be brief. Your thoughts on the level of the paper’s advance and its importance/interest to the community would be helpful. If you feel that prior literature undercuts any part of the paper, please provide references.
Other comments. Please comment on any other issues (technical, data presentation, textual changes) that are not necessarily linked to any of the specific points of the paper.
Confidential comments to the editor. These comments will be blinded to the authors.
The editors also ask reviewers to indicate which articles they believe are innovative or meaningful to the journal’s audience. The Journal Editorial Office will actively promote these articles on their online platforms.