REVIEWERS GUIDELINES

---

“IAJIRT” clearly understands the importance of an effective peer review process when authors choose to submit their manuscripts to our journals. We try hard to establish and sustain peer-review integrity in our journal and a vital part of this means ensuring that reviewers have the appropriate resources to carry out their work as efficiently and effectively as possible. 

We strongly recommend that our reviewers are familiar with and follow COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

In addition to providing verified and correct contact information, potential reviewers should include accurate personal and professional information that fairly represents their level of experience.

We expect the following from our reviewers during the peer review process, during the compilation of the Referee Report, and post review:

Confidentiality

The reviewers should not discuss the reviewed manuscript with anyone else without the editor's express consent in order to preserve the integrity of the review process.

While doing the review, reviewers are free to ask one or two colleagues for advice, but they should only do so with the editor's express consent. In the Referee Report's Comments to Editors section, it is also necessary to acknowledge the involvement of colleagues, along with their names and affiliations.

Reviewers are not permitted to duplicate, distribute, or exchange information about the submission for any reason, including furthering their own studies.

Standards of objectivity

Reviewers ought to do their reviews with objectivity. Every suggestion and remark should be backed up by pertinent evidence.

Timeliness

An invitation to participate in peer review must be accepted and responded to in a timely manner.

Reviewers should accept to review only if they believe they are qualified to evaluate a given submission and can complete it in the allotted or mutually agreed upon time limit.

The reviews must be finished by the date on the invitation. Reviewers are required to get in touch with the Handling Editor right away if there are any issues that could prevent them from submitting the Referee Report on schedule.

Competing interests

It's critical to maintain objectivity when evaluating a manuscript's origin, the authors' nationality, their political or religious views, their gender, or other personal traits.

We respectfully request that reviewers disclose any potential conflicting interests that might slant their assessment of the submitted work (e.g., financial stake in the manuscript's publication or non-publication; current or past collaboration with the authors; history of disagreement with the authors).

The request to evaluate a paper should be declined if the reviewer is now employed by any of the authors' institutions or if they have recently (within the last three years, for example) been mentors, mentees, close collaborators, or joint grant holders. 

Reviewers shouldn't accept to read a manuscript only for the purpose of seeing it and not really intending to turn in a referee report.

Because the reviewers have already evaluated one version of the manuscript for another journal, it does not prevent them from assessing this version of it. That being said, the Comments to Editors section ought to make mention of this.