When a manuscript is submitted to the INSAM Journal, it undergoes an initial prescreening by Editor-in-Chief and appropriate members of the Editorial Board in order to determine whether or not the paper fits the scope of the journal. In that process, the Editorial Team is guided by the INSAM Journal Editorial Policy: Editorial Responsibilities.
If the Editor-in-Chief and appropriate members of Editorial Board establish that the manuscript meets the journal’s minimum standards for publication, the paper will then undergo the external peer-review process. The Editor-in-Chief or the Editorial Assistent will inform the authors whether the manuscript is accepted for external peer-review process within 15 days from the date of the manuscript submission.
The average number of weeks between article submission & publication is 20.
The peer review process is anonymous.
There are two reviewers per article. Every manuscript is evaluated by two independent experts on the subject matter.
The choice of reviewers is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief and the Guest-Editor(s) of The Main Theme section. The Editors and the Editorial Staff take all reasonable measures to ensure that the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process and the authors remain anonymous to reviewers until the end of the review procedure. In the peer-review process, every reviewer is guided by the Editorial Policy: Reviewers’ Responsibilities and Editorial Policy: Peer-Review Form. All of the reviewers of a paper act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the Editor may assign additional reviewers.
The reviewers must be knowledgeable about the subject area of the manuscript; they must not be from the authors’ own institution and they should not have recent joint publications with any of the authors. The Editorial team shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. With respect to reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be paid to ensure that the reviews are objective and high in academic standard. When there is any doubt with regard to the objectivity of the reviews or quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.
In the main review phase, the Editor sends submitted papers to two experts in the field. The reviewers’ evaluation form contains a checklist in order to help referees cover all aspects that can decide the fate of a submission. In the final section of the evaluation form, the reviewers must include observations and suggestions aimed at improving the submitted manuscript; these are sent to authors, without the names of the reviewers.
Authors are advised to avoid the formulations in the text that could reveal their identity to the reviewers. The Editor guarantees that all personal data of the author (notably the name and the affiliation) will be removed from the manuscript before sending it to the reviewers, and that all reasonable measures will be taken to ensure that the identity of the author remains unknown to the reviewers until the completion of the peer review process.
All of the reviewers of a paper act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. In case that the reviewers’ opinions are again not in accord, the Editor-in-Chief, together with the Guest Editor of The Main Theme section or with the Editorial Board makes his final decision without consultations with additional reviewers.
During the review process Editor may require authors to provide additional information (including raw data) if they are necessary for the evaluation of the scholarly merit of the manuscript. These materials shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.
The reviewers are not paid for their work.
