EDITORIAL POLICIES

The editorial board of the journal is sincerely grateful to scholars who give their time to peer-review articles submitted to the journal. Rigorous peer-review is the foundation of high-quality academic publishing.

Peer review process

Manuscripts submitted to the TARE  journal are reviewed by at least two experts after the preliminary screening by the Editorial Board of the journal on the suitability of the manuscript. Then two reviewers in the same or related field are assigned by the Editor in Chief in consultation with the Editorial Board. Based on the evaluation report of the reviewers, the editorial board then make a final decision for acceptance or rejection of the manuscript.

INSTRUCTIONS TO PEER REVIEWERS

Reviewers are asked to evaluate the quality of the manuscript and to provide a recommendation to the editor on whether a manuscript can be accepted, requires revisions or should be rejected. The invited reviewers can accept or decline any invitations, based on the manuscript title and abstract. If the invitation is declined the invited reviewer can suggest alternative reviewers. We generally expect review comments within 14 days of the receipt of the manuscript however, the reviewer can request an extension in case more time is required to compose a report. As part of the assessment, reviewers will be asked to comment on the originality, scientific quality, relevance to the field of the journal, quality of the presentation, scientific soundness, overall merit and English level of the manuscript, and to provide an overall recommendation for the publication of the manuscript. Reviewers will be provided with a refereeing form as a guide to constructing the review report. The review itself will be shared only with the author, and possibly with other reviewers and the Editorial Board.

If reviewers have any interest that might interfere with an objective review, they should either decline to review a paper or disclose the potential conflict of interest to TARE. The editorial office will check the conflict of interest as far as possible before the invitation, however appreciate the cooperation of reviewers in this matter.

Conflict of Interest Policy

Authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest at the time of manuscript submission. Reviewers must disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and they should disqualify themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if they believe it to be appropriate. Conflict of interest for a given manuscript exists when a participant in the peer review and publication process, author, reviewer, and editor has ties to activities that could inappropriately influence his / her judgment, regardless of whether the judgment is affected. Conflicts can occur for many reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, financial relationships, and intellectual passion. Submission of the manuscript by an editor or by the author at the same institution as one of the editors or by a family member of the editor or by an author whose relationship with the editor might create the perception of bias. The peer-review process of the above-mentioned papers will be handled by one of the editorial board members who does not have conflicts of interest with the authors or paper.

Reviewer Competences

Reviewers who realize that their expertise is limited have a responsibility to make their degree of competence clear to the Editor in Chief asking for their opinion. Although reviewers need not be expert in every aspect of the content, the assignment should be accepted only if they have adequate expertise to provide an authoritative assessment.

Impartiality and Integrity

All comments and conclusions by reviewers should be based solely on the scholarly merits and scientific value of the paper, exclusive of being bias personally or professionally. A reviewer should not take scientific, financial, personal, or another advantage of material available through the privileged communication of peer review, and every effort should be made to avoid even the appearance of taking advantage of information obtained through the review process.

Timeliness and Responsiveness

Reviewers are responsible for acting promptly, adhering to the instructions for completing a review and submitting it on time. If it is not possible to meet the deadline for the review, then the reviewer should promptly decline to perform the review or should inquire whether some accommodation can be made for the deadline. For detailed guidelines to reviewers of scientific journal publications please visit: http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/wp-content/uploads/entire_whitepaper.pdf

Reviewer responsibilities

• Providing written, unbiased, constructive feedback on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the work, together with the documented basis for the reviewer’s opinion

• Indicating whether the writing is clear, concise, and relevant and rating the work’s composition, scientific accuracy, originality, and interest to the journal’s readers

• Avoiding personal comments or criticism

• Maintaining the confidentiality of the review process: not sharing, discussing with third parties, or disclosing information from the reviewed paper

• Notifying the editor immediately if unable to review on time and, if able, providing the names of alternative reviewers

• Alerting the editor about any potential personal, financial or perceived conflict of interest and declining to review when a conflict exists

• Complying with the editor’s written instructions on the journal’s expectations for the scope, content, and quality of the review

• Providing a thoughtful, fair, constructive, and informative critique of the submitted work, which may include supplementary material provided to the journal by the author

• Determining scientific merit, originality, and scope of the work; indicating ways to improve it; and, if requested, recommending acceptance or rejection using whatever rating scale the editor deems most useful

• Noting any ethical concerns, such as any violation of accepted norms of ethical treatment of animal or human subjects or substantial similarity between the reviewed manuscript and any published paper or any manuscript concurrently submitted to another journal that may be known to the reviewer

• Refraining from direct author contact

After the review

After you submit a review you should receive a notification that the review was successfully received. If the authors revise and resubmit the manuscript after review, a member of the editorial board will often review the changes to decide if the reviewer comments have been fully addressed. Sometimes, however, the editor will send the manuscript back to the original reviewers to get their feedback about the acceptability of the revised manuscript.

• If this happens, focus on if the authors have resolved the problems you pointed out in your first review.

• Try to avoid raising new problems unless they have to do with the author’s revisions. For example, if you asked the authors to explain their methods more clearly, and can now see problems with the experimental design that was not apparent before, it is still appropriate to mention them.

• If the authors decided not to follow one or more of your suggestions and explained why in their response letter, evaluate their reasons fairly and decide if you agree with their decision.

• If your suggestion arose from a misunderstanding of the manuscript, check to see if the authors have revised the relevant section to make it clearer or if they have explained a particular problem as a limitation of the study. Be fair.

• If you still feel strongly that the manuscript should not be published because of a problem that has not been addressed, you should indicate this to the editor and explain why a particular change or addition is necessary.