Review Policy

Peer Review Policy and Process

JPAA follows a double blind peer reviewing policy. All submissions are reviewed internally and externally.

Initial Screening: Initial screening for the suitability of the article for publication in JPAA is carried out by the associate editors and subsequently the manuscript is sent for blind reviewing. Each article is reviewed by one local professional and two professionals from academically advanced countries. Authors are informed about the comments or suggestions of the reviewers and are required to revise their paper in the specific time.

Regretting after initial review: A large number of submissions are rejected without being sent out for external peer review on the grounds of priority, insufficient originality, scientific flaws, lack of interest to the readers or the absence of scope of the journal. Usually an immediate decision is taken on such papers.

Sending paper to reviewers: The remaining articles are assigned to an associate editor, who will send it to one local and two external reviewers selected from a list of experts. The paper may also be sent to a specialist statistical reviewer if the paper demands such expertise. Once the reviews have been received, the editorial team makes a decision to accept or reject a manuscript, or to request revisions from the author in response to the reviewers’ comments

Research articles authored by a member of a journal’s editorial team are independently peer reviewed; an editor will have no input or influence on the peer review process or publication decision for their own article. The review process generally takes 04 to 08 months but may take longer that depends on review reports from the reviewers

Selection of Peer Reviewers

Selection of reviewers is of greater significance for publishing a high quality papers. JPAA selects reviewers keeping their expertise, reputation, experience and qualification in mind. The editorial board discourages using those reviewers who do not give potential feedback and specific comments or are slow, non serious or biased in any sense. JPAA gets reviewers’ consent before sending them papers to them for review.

Originality of Manuscript

JPAA accepts manuscripts for consideration with the understanding that:

• Manuscripts are original material and are not under consideration for publication/ published elsewhere.
• The author(s) have to provide an undertaking that the material in the article is original (not plagiarized) and those who contributed in various capacities have either been included as authors or have been duly acknowledged.
• For any type of plagiarism, the author (s) will be the sole responsible.
• The authors will have to fill an undertaking form to authenticate originality of the manuscript and adherence to the publication ethics. JPAA believes that authors must follow the publication ethics and malpractices policies as laid down by COPE and APA. • The paper is published after its clearance for plagiarism as per HEC policy.
• In case of any breach of policy rules is found, the editorial team reserves the right to take legal action/ penalty as decided accordingly.