Reviewers Guidelines

PEER REVIEW PROCESS
All manuscripts submitted to this journal undergo a selection and assessment process by the Editorial Board members. The journal applies this process as the preliminary selection to determine whether the manuscripts have conformed to the submission guidelines of the journal, including the writing guideline, focus, and scope, and that they are of excellent academic quality. Manuscripts that have conformed such criteria will be peer-reviewed.

Desk Review. At the desk review stage, the examination of manuscripts is to ensure that they have met the writing guideline, focus, and scope with excellent academic quality. If they do not meet these conditions, the authors will get feedback, and they will have an opportunity to revise their manuscript according to the given criteria. However, there is also the possibility that the Editorial Board will directly reject the manuscript.

Screening for Plagiarism. Plagiarism and self-plagiarism are not allowed. Each author has the responsibility to ensure that the manuscript submitted to this journal is original and plagiarism free. However, the editorial board will scrutinize the manuscript before the official review process started, which uses the Turnitin tool. The result of manuscript screening should be less than 25% similarity. Editors have the right to decline the submission when it is found that the manuscript is detected with plagiarism.

Plagiarism includes:
(a) the word for word plagiarism (the author uses the words of other authors (exactly) without mentioning the source);
(b) plagiarism over the source (the author uses the idea of others without giving enough recognition (without mentioning the source expressly); and
(c) plagiarism of authorship (the author acknowledged as the author of the paperwork of others).

Double-blind Peer Review. The review process applies the double-blind peer review method, in which case neither authors nor reviewers know each other’s identities. When the manuscript has passed the desk review stage, editors will deliver manuscripts to two reviewers who are experts in the field of the submitted manuscript. The task of reviewers is to assess originality, clarity of presentation, contribution to the field/science. The final decision of manuscript acceptance is solely decided by the editors according to reviewers' comments. Typically, reviewers will do the review process within three weeks. Manuscripts that did not successfully pass the desk review process will not proceed to this stage.

Reviewer’s Decision. The reviewers will provide the following recommendations:
1. Accepted (the manuscript is acceptable for publication);
2. Accepted with minor revisions (the manuscript is acceptable for publication after it undergoes a revision in response to the reviewers’ concerns);
3. Accepted with major revisions (substantive inadequacies in the manuscript, such as data analysis, the main theory used and rewriting of paragraphs, need to be revised); or
4. Rejected (the manuscript is not acceptable for publication, or the given reviews relate to fundamental issues).

The final decision of manuscript acceptance is solely decided by the Editorial Board by taking into account reviewers' comments.

Revision Stage. Once the manuscript has been received with notations of minor or major revisions, it will be returned to the author with a review summary form. For manuscripts accepted with major revisions, authors are allotted three weeks to revise. Whereas for manuscripts accepted with minor revisions, one week is allotted for revision. When returning the revised manuscript, the author is required to fill in and attach the review summary form. 

Final Decision. At this stage, the manuscript will be re-evaluated by the Editorial Board to ensure that the author has revised in response to the reviewers’ concerns. In this final decision, the manuscript may still be rejected if the author did not seriously conduct the revisions necessary.

Proofread. Once the manuscript has been deemed acceptable by the Editorial Board, it will undergo a proofreading process to maintain linguistic quality.

Publication Confirmation. At this stage, the final layout of the manuscript will be resent to the author to ensure that the content follows the author’s writing. At this stage, the author may revise any typographical error found in the final manuscript. Once confirmation from the author is given, the Editorial Secretary will process the manuscript for online publication on the website as well as a print publication.