Role
Editor Responsibilities toward Authors
- Providing guidelines to authors for preparing and submitting manuscripts
- Providing a clear statement of the Journal’s policies on authorship criteria
- Treating all authors with fairness, courtesy, objectivity, honesty, and transparency
- Establishing and defining policies on conflicts of interest for all involved in the publication process, including editors, staff, authors, and reviewers
- Protecting the confidentiality of every author’s work
- Establishing a system for effective and rapid peer review
- Making editorial decisions with reasonable speed and communicating them in a clear and constructive manner
- Being vigilant in avoiding the possibility of editors and/or referees delaying a manuscript for suspect reasons
- Establishing clear guidelines for authors regarding acceptable practices for sharing experimental materials and information, particularly those required to replicate the research, before and after publication
- Establishing a procedure for reconsidering editorial decisions
- Describing, implementing, and regularly reviewing policies for handling ethical issues and allegations or findings of misconduct by authors and anyone involved in the peer review process
- Informing authors of solicited manuscripts that the submission will be evaluated according to the journal’s standard procedures or outlining the decision-making process if it differs from those procedures
- Developing mechanisms, in cooperation with the publisher, to ensure timely publication of accepted manuscripts
- Clearly communicating all other editorial policies and standards
Editor Responsibilities toward Reviewers
- Assigning papers for review appropriate to each reviewer’s area of interest and expertise
- Establishing a process for reviewers to ensure that they treat the manuscript as a confidential document and complete the review promptly
- Informing reviewers that they are not allowed to make any use of the work described in the manuscript or to take advantage of the knowledge they gained by reviewing it before publication
- Providing reviewers with written, explicit instructions on the journal’s expectations for the scope, content, quality, and timeliness of their reviews to promote thoughtful, fair, constructive, and informative critique of the submitted work
- Requesting that reviewers identify any potential conflicts of interest and asking that they recuse themselves if they cannot provide an unbiased review
- Allowing reviewers appropriate time to complete their reviews
- Requesting reviews at a reasonable frequency that does not overtax any one reviewer
- Finding ways to recognize the contributions of reviewers, for example, by publicly thanking them in the journal; providing letters that might be used in applications for academic promotion; offering professional education credits; or inviting them to serve on the editorial board of the journal
Reviewer Responsibilities
- Evaluate article submissions to JSWSE based on the requirements of that journal, predefined criteria, and the quality, completeness and accuracy of the research presented. They provide feedback on the paper, suggest improvements and make a recommendation to the editor about whether to accept, reject or request changes to the article. The ultimate decision always rests with the editor but reviewers play a significant role in determining the outcome.