The journal follows a double-blind peer review policy. This model is employed to uphold standards of impartiality, fairness, and quality throughout all stages of manuscript evaluation.
Definition and Mechanism
In the double-blind review model, two key steps are taken to ensure the anonymity of the process:
Reviewer Anonymity: Reviewers evaluating the manuscript are not informed of the author(s)' names. Likewise, authors will never know the identity of the reviewers.
Author Anonymity: The names and identifying information of the authors, including their institutional affiliations, remain hidden from the reviewers during the evaluation stage.
Necessity and Aims of Double-Blind Peer Review
The journal mandates this strict anonymity for the following key reasons:
Limiting Bias: Author anonymity significantly limits potential reviewer biases related to the author's personal characteristics (e.g., gender, country of origin, institutional prestige, academic rank, or prior publication record). This ensures that all works are evaluated on equal footing, regardless of the author's background.
Focus on Content: By concealing identities, reviewers are compelled to focus exclusively on the content, methodology, results, and overall contribution of the article to the specialized field. Manuscripts by well-known authors are judged solely on the quality of that particular manuscript, not on their prior reputation.
Integrity of the Scientific Record: The impartial nature of this type of review helps maintain the credibility and integrity of the published scientific record.
Author Responsibilities for Maintaining Anonymity
To facilitate the double-blind review process, authors have a fundamental responsibility to prepare their submission files correctly: The main manuscript file must be submitted without the authors' names or any identifying information within the text, images, or supplementary data.
Identifying details, institutional affiliations, and acknowledgements must be included only and exclusively in a separate file titled the "Title Page." Authors should exercise caution when citing their own previous work; for example, phrases like "our previous research" should be replaced with neutral statements such as "previous research has shown."Although absolute anonymity is sometimes difficult (due to citation styles or highly specialized topics), the author must make every effort to avoid inadvertently revealing their identity. The double-blind peer review policy is central to the journal's operations and helps maintain the selective standards of this publication.
