International Journal of Forensic Odontology

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EDITORIAL POLICY AND PEER REVIEW POLICY

International Journal of Forensic Odontology follows a single anonymized peer review process where at least two independent, blinded, expert peer reviewers are involved whose names are hidden from the author.

All submissions to our journals are first reviewed for completeness and only then considered for the Editorial evaluation who will decide whether they are suitable for peer review. Where an Editor is on the author list or has any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another member of the Editorial Board will be assigned to oversee peer review.

Editors will consider the peer-reviewed reports when making a decision, but are not bound by the opinions or recommendations therein. A concern raised by a single peer reviewer or the Editor themself may result in the manuscript being rejected. Authors receive peer review reports with the editorial decision on their manuscript

1. Awaiting Editorial Assistant Processing: The Editorial Assistant will carry out quality checks of the submitted article at which point you may need to provide further information before your article is sent for Peer Review.

2. Awaiting Editor Assignment: When the selected article has passed initial quality checks by the Editorial Assistant, it will be assigned to an appropriate Editor who will evaluate your article for scope, quality, and fit for the journal. Papers that do not meet these criteria will be rejected.

3. Awaiting Reviewer Selection: When the selected article meets the Journal’s scope and has been approved for peer review, the Editorial Team will find suitable external expert reviewers that are available to review and the article will be sent to relevant Associate Editors for internal review. For most articles, a minimum of two reviews are required. Articles can be sent to multiple prospective reviewers before the required number is secured.

4. Peer Review in Progress: Peer reviewers are usually given 2 weeks to submit their review of your article. If at all the reviewer withdraws from the process, the Editorial Team will begin the reviewer selection process again or reassign a reviewer for the particular article.

5. Awaiting Editor Decision: When the article has received the minimum number of reviews required to make a decision, the Editor will take into account the expert reviewers’ opinions to make an informed decision of accept, reject or revise.

6. In Production: When the article has been accepted, the respective corresponding author will receive an email to confirm and the article will move through the final quality checks and into Production where it will be processed for publication and will be emailed by the Production Editor with a timeline and be provided with a link to a platform called In Production where you can continue to track your article’s progress.

Timeframes: While we aim in completing the peer review process as quickly as possible, kindly bear in mind that the reviewers give their time voluntarily and there may be occasions where several reviewers have to be invited before the required number can be arranged, or when a reviewer fails to deliver a review and the process has to start over again. The average time to make the first decision is approximately 2-4 weeks and the details are mentioned in the journal’s website

Article provenance: MM Publishers is committed to transparency. Every article we publish includes a description of its provenance (commissioned or not commissioned) and whether it was internally or externally peer reviewed. Articles described as ‘internally peer reviewed’ will be assessed by one or more of the journal’s editors.

Peer Review Terms and conditions

Peer reviewers play a mainstream and pivotal role in the peer-review process. International Journal of Forensic Odontology requests that all reviewers strictly adhere to a set of basic principles and standards during the peer-review process in research publication; these are set out below. Kindly follow the mentioned instructions carefully before you submit a review, as, by agreeing to be a reviewer for journals, you are acknowledging that you agree to and accept these conditions. These conditions are based on the Committee on Publication Ethics Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers which also provides further information on how to be objective and constructive in your review.

https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers

· Conflicts of interest

· Integrity

· Confidentiality

· Timeliness

· Scientific misconduct

· Feedback

· Ownership of your review

· Open peer review

· Our use of your review

· Restrictions on your use of your review

· Your registration details

Conflicts of interest

During the review process we ask you to declare any potentially conflicting or competing interests (which could be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious in nature) so that editors can assess these and factor them into their decisions. Please refer any major concerns over potentially competing interests to the editorial office before beginning your review. In addition, you should not agree to review a manuscript just to gain sight of it with no intention of submitting a review.

The following situations are considered conflicts and should be avoided:

· Co-authoring publications with at least one of the authors in the past 3 years

· Being colleagues within the same section/department or similar organizational unit in the past 3 years

· Supervising/having supervised the doctoral work of the author (s) or being supervised/having been supervised by the author(s)

· Receiving professional or personal benefit resulting from the review

· Having a personal relationship (e.g. family, close friend) with the author(s)

· Having a direct or indirect financial interest in the paper being reviewed

Ø It is not considered a Conflict of Interest if the reviewers have worked together with the authors in a collaborative project or if they have co-organized an event

Integrity

During the review process, wherein an environment of uncertainty exists about which news and which experts to trust, integrity in peer review is vital to the quality and accuracy of our published research as expected to maintain good research conduct and support research integrity. We adhere to following the integrity guidelines from National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Humans to maintain a culture that nurtures good practice and where honest and ethical conduct of science is an expected norm. That is, individual actions must comply with the principles of honesty, rigor, transparency and open communication, care and respect, and accountability for a research environment in which individuals and organizations are empowered and enabled to own the research process. A supportive and honest research culture is a central tenet of the International Journal of Forensic Odontology vision of success and permeate the behaviors and practices of individuals at every level.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts submitted to journals are authors’ private, confidential property; reviewers should keep manuscripts and the information they contain strictly confidential. If you do choose to discuss the manuscript and/or your review with a professional colleague whose input you request as part of your review process, you are responsible for ensuring that they are made fully aware of the confidential nature of the discussion and that they must not disclose any information about the manuscript until the article is published. The identity of any co-reviewer and any potential conflicting or competing interests they may have must be disclosed when submitting your review. Reviewers should not retain the manuscript for personal use and should destroy copies after submitting their review.

Timeliness

If you feel qualified to judge a particular manuscript, you should agree to review only if you are able to return a review within the proposed or mutually agreed time-frame. If you cannot review, it is helpful to make suggestions for alternative reviewers if relevant, based on their expertise and without any influence of personal considerations or any intention of the manuscript receiving a specific outcome

Scientific misconduct

If you have concerns that misconduct occurred during either the research or the writing and submission of the manuscript, or you may notice substantial similarity between the manuscript and a concurrent submission to another journal or a published article; please do let the journal Editor know.

Feedback

As a reviewer you must provide a fair, honest, and unbiased assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. For example, be specific in your critique, and provide supporting evidence with appropriate references to substantiate general statements. Be professional and refrain from being hostile or inflammatory and from making libelous or derogatory personal comments. If the work is not clear because of missing analyses, the reviewer should comment and explain what additional analyses would clarify the work submitted. It is not the job of the reviewer to extend the work beyond its current scope.

Ownership of your review

You will remain the owner of the review you submit to us. It is your responsibility to ensure that you obtain the consent of any co-reviewer or other third party who may have contributed to your review. In submitting your review to Int J of Forensic Odontology, you are agreeing to license your work to us so that we may use it for the purposes outlined below.

Open peer review

In Int J of Forensic Odontology we use open peer review process, meaning that Reviewers are required to sign reviews with their name, position and institution, any conflict of interests should be declared. Reviews will be published online alongside the authors’ original versions and replies to the reviewers’ comments if the article is published.

All the authors and reviewers are requested to respect confidentiality during the peer review process. In the open peer review process the reviewers can contact the authors directly and vice versa. All the queries should be directed through the editorial office of the relevant journal. Reviewers should contact the editorial office confidentially should the need arise in the case of, for example, a concern over a matter of publication ethics.

In rare instances we may determine after careful consideration that we should not make certain portions of the prepublication record publicly available. For example, in cases of stigmatized illnesses we seek to protect the confidentiality of reviewers who have these illnesses. In other instances, there may be legal or regulatory considerations that make it inadvisable or impermissible to make available certain parts of the prepublication record. In all instances in which we have determined that elements of the prepublication record should not be made publicly available, we expect that authors will respect these decisions and also will not share this information.

Our use of your review

Depending on a journal’s editorial policy, we offer the opportunity to make additional confidential comments to the editor. Unless the reviewer has been offered confidentiality, reviews will usually be passed on in full to authors and other reviewers when an editorial decision is made. Reviews should be civil and constructive and editors reserve the right to edit or remove any comments felt to be inappropriate

Authors are given the option of nominating other journals from MM Publishers which they would like their manuscript transferred if it is rejected for publication by their first choice. This may result in the paper being resubmitted to other journals from MM Publishers in succession. If the author of the manuscript you reviewed has taken up this option, your review will be passed on to the editor(s) of the nominated journal(s) along with the manuscript and you might be invited to review a revised version. If the article is selected for publication in another journal from MM Publishers, your review may also be published (depending on the editorial policy of the journal in question). You will be contacted for your permission before this happens.

For more information on reviewing forInternational Journal of Forensic Odontology, please read their reviewer guidelines.

Restrictions on use of your review

We keep the author's manuscript confidential until its published and do not restrict the use of your review once the manuscript has been published and you must not disclose any information about an unpublished manuscript, including your review of it.

Please note that if the article is NOT published you may refer to the journal which requested your review and the fact that you have reviewed an article for it. However, you should not post any details of the article which was reviewed, or any part of the review that would breach the confidentiality under which the article was provided to you for review.

Your registration details

We record the details on the database for the journal you register to review for. We also take your permission to hold your details on the reviewer databases for other journals from MM Publishers with similar content. If you agree to this, you may opt out at any time by emailing the editorial office of the journal you registered to review for. Please ensure you read the MM Publishers Privacy policy for information on how we store and use your data.