Review Policy

Peer Review Policy and Process

JSE 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 JSE is carried out by the associate editors and subsequently the manuscript is sent for blind reviewing. Each article is reviewed by two local professionals or one national and one professional from academically advanced countries. Moreover, the Journal of Science Education clearly follows the guidelines given by HEC and the ORIC department of AIOU. Authors are informed about the comments or suggestions of the reviewers and are required to revise their papers at a 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 nonrelevance with the scope of the journal. Usually, an immediate decision is taken on such papers.

Sending paper to reviewers: The author’s declaration is being sought out from the authors with the signatures of all authors along with their contribution and the similarity index claim of the articles. The selected articles are assigned to an editorial team, who will send them to two local or one local and one external reviewer selected from a list of experts. There is an inbuilt proforma for the review. 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 authors to incorporate the suggested changes provided by the Reviewers’ comments. The article is being sent to the authors until all the formalities are carried out.

As per HEC’s recent guidelines, all articles are independently peer reviewed; an editorial team has 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 depending on the review reports from the reviewers.

Selection of Peer Reviewers

The selection of reviewers is of greater significance for publishing high-quality papers. JSE 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, nonserious or biased in any sense. JSE gets reviewers’ CVs and consent before sending their papers to them for review.

Originality of Manuscript

JSE 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. JSE 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.