Journal Policies and Guidelines

These general guidelines apply to all journals unless stated otherwise. To ensure the quality output of the knowledge resources in various fields, all Editon Consortium Journals are double blind peer reviewed (the author and the reviewer are not disclosed to each other during the review process). Strict criteria for quality, originality and significance apply to all articles in our journals in order to maintain a world-class reputation. Only members of the editorial board, who have been vetted, are involved in peer reviewing of manuscripts.

Review Process

All submissions made to the editor (whether through the OJS system of email) are automatically forwarded to journal-specific chief editors. The manuscript is first subjected to plagiarism check. If the paper is found to be plagiarized, it is rejected and immediate communication made to the author to revise or resubmit or make other decisions. If it is plagiarism free, the editor deletes the authors’ details, codes it and sends the coded manuscript to two reviewers.

Once the reviewers are through, they send back the manuscript to the editor with comments and the author is given a chance to make corrections as per the reviewers’ directions. After revision, the authors return the revised manuscript to the editor who forwards them again to the first reviewers and the process begins again.

The process is repeated until the reviewers and the editor are convinced that the manuscript meets all the standards for publication. Note that papers can be rejected at any stage should the author fail to make corrections as guided. The chief editor ensures that all comments and suggestions given are fair and without bias.

The speed of the process depends on the reviewers’ speed and the author’s ability to respond quickly. From our end, we endeavour to make the review process as quickly as possible; where a reviewer should not take more than five days. Communication is done, before assigning manuscripts to reviewers, to ensure the reviewer is in a position to complete the process within five days.

Evidence of peer review

For the purposes of evidence of peer review, the author is provided with at least two reviews of their papers with comments after the process is completed. An employer or any other Quality control organisation can request for this evidence from us and we can avail.

Conflict of interests (Coi)

Editon recognise the conflict of interests that may arise where members of editorial boards submit papers in any of our journals and especially where they are editors or members of editorial boards. Measures are put in place to minimise the impact of conflicting interests. We understand that high quality and uncompromised research output is the backbone of academia. The following measures are put in place:

a) Where the Managing editor submits a paper in any of the journals;

In this case, the managing editor sends the paper directly to the editor-in-chief of such a journal. This also applies where a paper is submitted in which the managing editor is a co-author. The editor then handles the process as managing editor and makes no correspondence to the author. The paper is sent to the reviewers who return reports to the editor and the editor treats the author like any other. Requesting all corrections to be effected and ensuring due diligence is observed in the process of peer review to the end. The managing editor must also recognise that any compromise with the process results to low quality paper.

b) Where the editor-in-chief submits a paper in any of the journals;

In case the editor-in-chief is submitting a paper (or a paper is submitted where s/he is a co-author) where he/she is editor, the managing editor handles the whole process by appointing a member of the editorial board as editor-in-chief for that particular paper.

c) Where a member of the editorial board submits a paper in a journal they are reviewers;

In this case, the editor-in-chief must not in their assigning of reviewers assign them their papers or disclose the ownership to reviewers as per our double blind peer review policy. In all processes, due diligence must be observed to ensure papers are published without the conflict of interest compromising on quality.