PEER REVIEW PROCESS

The choice to publish an article is made through an editorial evaluation and peer review. Initially, all manuscripts are evaluated by an editorial committee comprised of members of the editorial team. The primary goal is to determine whether or not to send a document for peer review and to make a quick decision on those that are not. The rejection is based on the novelty or relevance of the submission to the scope of this journal. 

 

Initial Editorial Assessment

The Asian Journal of Health Research is keen to deliver a quick publication process by conducting an initial evaluation with an editorial committee comprised of editorial team members. The primary goal is to decide whether or not to send the work for peer review. The important point is the breadth, adherence to the guidelines, and wording. A paper may be returned to the author with a request for adjustments in order to assist editors in selecting whether or not to send it out for review. Authors should expect the Initial Editorial Assessment decision from this step of the review process within 1-2 weeks of submission. 

 

Review Process

The article will be sent to peer reviewers after clearing the Initial Editorial Assessment. Each manuscript was reviewed by at least two reviewers who were chosen based on their competence. The entire reviewing procedure is double-blind, which implies that the authors and peer-reviewers do not know each other's identities. In each reviewing cycle, reviewers should complete the review within three weeks after receiving the review request. 

 

Decision-Making Process

The decision to approve for publishing is based on the recommendations of the peer reviewers, with two acceptance recommendations required. If the recommendations of the two reviewers differ, the editor has the option of consulting with a third reviewer. The editor-in-chief and editorial committee (national or international advisory board) make the final choice to publish after considering the recommendations of reviewers.

 

Review Criteria

Each paper that the editor/s assess as suitable for peer review is allocated to two reviewers who are asked to assess the paper against one of the Journal's three sets of reviewing criteria: Articles submitted for review must be original works, and may not be submitted for review elsewhere whilst under review for the Journal. After review, the Editor-in-Chief will inform the corresponding author on whether the paper has been accepted, rejected, or needs revision. Categories of decision Accept Minor revisions (accept with revisions as advised by Editors) Major revisions (possible acceptance following major revision and resubmission) Reject All efforts are made to provide fair and thorough reviews as speedily as possible. If an author(s) believes that a manuscript has been wrongly rejected, a detailed appeal letter that responds point-by-point to the reviewers' comments should be sent to the Editor who, after having reviewed the referees' reports, will make the final decision. Reviewed by Editor-in-Chief or Editorial Team only Letter to the Editor or a short comment on any topic of current interest For these types of submissions, the corresponding author will receive a fairly rapid decision on publication.

 

DOUBLE BLIND PEER REVIEW

To ensure the integrity of the double blind peer-review for submission to this press, every effort should be made to prevent the identities of the authors and reviewers from being known to each other. This involves the authors, editors, and reviewers (who upload documents as part of their review) checking to see if the following steps have been taken with regard to the text and the file properties:

The authors of the document have deleted their names from the text, with "Author" and year used in the references and footnotes, instead of the authors' name, article title, etc

With Microsoft Office documents, author identification should also be removed from the properties for the file 

For Microsoft 2003 and previous versions, and Macintosh versions of Word: Under the File menu select: Save As > Tools (or Options with a Mac) > Security > Remove personal information from file properties on save > Save.

For MacIntosh Word 2008 (and future versions)

  • Under the File menu select “Properties.”
  • Under the Summary tab remove all of the identifying information from all of the fields.
  • Save the File

For Microsoft 2007 (Windows):

  • Click on the office button in the upper-left hand corner of the office application
  • Select "Prepare" from the menu options.
  • Select "Properties" for the "Prepare" menu options
  • Delete all of the information in the document property fields that appear under the main menu options
  • Save the document and close the document property field section

For Microsoft 2010 (Windows):

  • Under the File menu select “Prepare for sharing”
  • Click on the “Check for issues” icon
  • Click on “inspect document” icon
  • Uncheck all of the checkboxes except "Document Properties and Personal information"
  • Run the document inspector, which will then do a search of the document properties and indicated if any document property fields contain any information
  • If the document inspector finds that some of the document properties contain information it will notify you and give you the option to "Remove all," which you will click to remove the document properties and personal information from the document
  • For PDF files: With PDFs, the author’s names should also be removed from Document Properties found under File on Adobe Acrobat’s main menu.