Peer review process

Pre-review stage

Upon receiving a new manuscript, the Editor-in-Chief will conduct an initial pre-review check to ensure the article is legible, complete, correctly formatted, original, within the scope of the journal, in the style of a scientific article and written in clear English. An initial quality assessment is also conducted to ensure the reported results are significant and not incomplete.

All submissions to the journal are screened using the plagiarism detection software, iThenticate.
Any article that has problems with any of the above criteria may be rejected at this stage. This pre-review decision is also reviewed by the Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Session Editor.

Reviewing stage

Articles passing successfully through the pre-review stage then begin formal peer-review.
Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper.

Reviewers are selected to be experts in the field of papers.

The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest.

Invitation to review an article

To uphold the impartiality of the journal, reviewers should consider any potential conflict of interest before agreeing to review a submission and should contact the editorial office to declare any potential conflict of interest if you are in the following instances:

  • direct competition with the authors.
  • a co-worker or collaborator with one of the authors.
  • a position to exploit the authors' work (commercially or otherwise).
  • a position which prevents you from giving an objective opinion of the work.
  • unable to act as a reviewer due to a conflict of interest, we will then select an alternative reviewer.

Reviewer reports and anonymity

Reviewer reports are sent to the authors with the decision letter. Reviewer reports are generally sent intact but may undergo minor editing for clarity, to correct spelling or typographical errors, or to remove any text that inadvertently reveals the reviewer's identity.

Reviewer names are kept strictly confidential. Reviewers' identities may only be disclosed to VJST Editorial Board members, who are also instructed to maintain confidentiality. VJST operates a 'single-blind' review process, in which reviewers know the identity of the authors but authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.

Reviewers are asked not to transmit reports directly to the authors. We also ask that reviewers do not otherwise disclose their identity to the authors or discuss the papers they have reviewed with colleagues unless they have been published.

Revised manuscript

When authors make revisions to their manuscript in response to the reviewers' comments, the editors will make decition or return to the original reviewers for reevaluation

Proofing

Once the article is accepted, a proof will  be electronically sent to corresponding author. The proofread copy should be returned to the VJST within 48 hours.