Peer Review Process

The peer-review process in the Small Animal Advances (SAA) can be broadly summarized into 10 steps. 

  1. Submission of Paper

The corresponding or submitting author submits the paper to the journal. This is usually via an online system.

  1. Editorial Office Assessment

At this stage,  the paper’s composition and arrangement are checked against the journal’s Guide for Authors  to make sure it includes the required sections and stylizations. The quality of the paper is not assessed at this point.

  1. Appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC)

The EIC checks the paper’s appropriateness and originality for the journal. If case the EIC finds the article unqualified, the paper may be rejected without being reviewed any further.

  1. EIC Assigns an Associate Editor (AE)

The AEs in SAA handle the peer review process.

  1. Invitation to Reviewers

The managing editors send invitations to individuals who would be appropriate. Commonly, three independent reviewers’ responses are required, if not further invitations are issued for other sufficiently knowledgeable reviewers.  

When a reviewer is invited to pre-review a manuscript, s/he is expected to act in accordance with COPE instructions. The reviewer should read the instructions for reviewers provided by the journal, consider the previously defined criteria of the journal, provide feedback on the papers, and make a major contribution to the outcome. However, it should be noted that the journal editor is responsible for the final decision on the manuscript publication. Reviewers can improve the journal quality by providing rigorous comments, identifying invalid research, and preventing ethical breaches. The journal reviewers could foster a strong relationship with their peers and the affiliated journals in the field to pave their way to join the Editorial Board. The above-mentioned responsibilities are summarized below:

-Single Blind Peer Review and Contribution to Editorial Decision

-Punctuality and Promptness

-Confidentiality of Results, Reports, and Decisions: In case of data fabrication or image manipulation, the reviewers should report the issue to the editor for further action.

-Standards of Objectivity: Reviewers express their comments and views clearly with supporting arguments and reviews.

-Acknowledgment of Source: Reviewer particularly focuses on substantial similarity or overlap between the submitted manuscript and other published resources. 

-Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Reviewers should not accept to review a manuscript if a conflict of interest exists. In case of an undisclosed conflict of interest by the authors, the action will be taken according to COPE's regulations.

If the journal becomes suspicious during the peer review process, it will act in accordance with COPE guidelines. The potential manipulation of the peer review process is recognized by following the guideline provided by COPE.

  1. Response to Invitations

As the reviewers receive the invitation, they might accept or decline it due to their preference, area of expertise conflicts of interest, and availability.

  1. Review is Conducted

The reviewers allocate some time to read the manuscript and evaluate the paper in terms of form, quality, and initial impression of the work. In case of major problems, the reviewers may reject the paper without further work. Otherwise, they will read the paper several more times, and make notes so as to build a detailed point-by-point review. The prepared review file is then submitted to the journal, with a recommendation to accept or reject it – or else with a request for revision (usually flagged as either major or minor) before it is reconsidered.

  1. Journal Evaluates the Reviews

The managing editor considers all the returned reviews before making the final decision. If the reviews differ widely, the editor may invite an additional reviewer so as to get an extra opinion before making a decision.

  1. The Decision is Communicated

The editor sends a decision email to the author including any relevant reviewer comments.

  1. Next Steps

The possible decisions sent to the authors include acceptance, acceptance with major or minor revisions, or rejection. In case of acceptance, the paper is sent for the publication process. In case the article is rejected or accepted with major/minor revisions, authors may want to accept some of the comments and suggestions that have been made by the reviewers, and at the same time refute some others. It is strongly recommended that authors send in a 'rebuttal' note (in the form of a Microsoft Word file (i.e., a "Rebuttal.doc" or "Rebuttal.docx" file) in which they respond to all of the comments and suggestions made by the reviewers in an item-by-item fashion. They should clearly show which comments and suggestions they accept, and which comments and suggestions they refute. Where a comment or suggestion is refuted, the author is expected to provide the reason why. However, if authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted. Then, the managing editor should integrate the constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. At this point, a letter is sent to the reviewers to make them aware of their review outcome. If the paper was sent back for revision, the reviewers should expect to receive a new version, unless they have opted out of further participation. However, this follow-up review might be performed by the managing editor for only minor changes. Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed. Articles may be rejected without review if the Editor-in-Chief considers the article obviously not suitable for publication. The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. No research can be included in more than one publication.

*If there are delays in the peer-review process, SAA keeps the author(s) notified about the cause of the delay and allows them to withdraw their manuscript if they desire.

The three most common types of peer review are:

  • Single blind
  • Double blind
  • Open review

Single-blind review

In this type of peer-review, the author has no knowledge of the reviewers. This is the most common form of peer review among science journals.

Double-blind review

In this type of peer review, neither the author(s) nor the reviewers know the identity of each other. This is the most common form of peer review in social science and humanities journals.

Open peer review

In this type of peer-review, the identity of the author and the reviewers are known by all participants. Although this is not a popular type of review among journals, there is a growing minority of journals using this form of peer review.

 

SAA operates a single-blind peer-review system. Manuscripts are initially screened by the journal's Editorial team (Editors-in-Chief, Senior Editors, and Associate Editors) and suitable manuscripts are sent to at least three independent reviewers for consideration. Decisions will be made on the recommendations of the reviewers, but final decisions lie with the Editorial team. The proportion of published research papers where at least one of the authors is an editor, editorial board member or reviewer does not exceed 25% based on either of the latest two issues.

Authors will be able to check the progress of their manuscripts at any point in the peer review process by logging into the submission system.