Peer review process
Double-blind reviews are applied for the Academia Journal of Biology (AJB)
1. 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. Next, the editor-in-chief will send the new manuscript to the Scientific Secretary for review and forward it to the Specialized Editor. The Specialized Editor will an initial quality assessment is also conducted to ensure the reported results are significant and complete.
All submissions to the journal are screened using the plagiarism detection software, iThenticate https://www.ithenticate.com/
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, Specialized Editor. This pre-review stage takes an average time from 5 to 7 days.
2. Reviewing stage
The articles pass successfully through the pre-review stage and then begin formal peer review by round 1.
In round 1, the articles deemed suitable are then typically sent to three independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The reviewers are selected to be experts in the field of papers.
The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final.
The revised draft will be accepted or rejected or a peer review by round 2 will be taken for re-evaluation.
The Editors are not involved in decisions about papers that 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.
This reviewing stage takes an average time from 2 to 3 months (However, some articles have faster or slower review times due to various reasons).
3. 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 manuscript. The reviewers should contact the Editorial office to declare any potential conflict of interest if they 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 that prevents you from giving an objective opinion of the work.
If the reviewers are unable to act as reviewers due to a conflict of interest then the Specialized Editor will then select an alternative other reviewer.
4. 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 AJB Editorial Board members, who are also instructed to maintain confidentiality. The Academia Journal of Biology operates a 'Double-blind' reviewers process, in which both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process.
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. Reviewer reports are sent to the authors with the decision letter for authors to make revisions to their manuscript for about 1 month.
5. Revised manuscript
When authors make revisions to their manuscript in response to the reviewers' comments. The Editorial Board will send the revised manuscript to the reviewer to review the author's revision.
The revised manuscript will be accepted when the reviewer accepts all revisions and author responses. Otherwise, the editor will make a decision to accept or reject or will be taken a round 2 for review or go back to the original reviewer for a re-evaluation.
6. Proofing
Once the article is accepted, the proof will be electronically sent to the corresponding author. The proofread copy should be returned to the AJB within 48 hours.
