This guide is written to help you peer review manuscripts submitted to Innovation Press journals. Reading this should answer most of the queries you have and guide you in completing a peer review report in the most thorough and prompt way to ensure the paper is properly reviewed and published quickly. If you have any further queries, please contact our Editorial Offices at office@the-innovation.org

Our Considerations on peer review

Authors have historically complained of the time it takes to get a paper published. Innovation Press tries hard to process papers as thoroughly, fairly and rapidly as possible. As a result, peer reviewers are asked to submit their comments within 14 calendar days.
All manuscripts submitted to the Innovation Press journals are subject to double-blind peer review. We believe that using anonymous peer reviewers is the best way to get honest opinions on papers. You should consider the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers before accepting to review a manuscript and throughout the peer review process.

The Peer Reviewer

After receiving a request to peer review, it is essential that peer reviewers respond in a timely fashion, particularly if they cannot do the review, to avoid unnecessarily delaying the process.
Peer reviewers should declare any conflicts of interest (seeking advice from the publisher if they are unsure), and possess sufficient knowledge in the field to perform a thorough assessment of the manuscript.

Ethics of Peer Review

Reviewers must comply with the ethical regulations as below; any misconduct in peer review will be investigated seriously.

Potential Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must declare all potential conflicts of interest, which may prejudice the review report either in a positive or negative way. Reviewers should not agree to review a manuscript with any conflicts of interest with their own research. Conflicts of interest may be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious in nature. Reviewers are not allowed either to review a manuscript just to gain sight of it with no intention of submitting a review report, or agree to review a manuscript that is very similar to the one that the reviewer has in preparation or consideration at another journal.

a. Confidentiality
Reviewers must keep all contents of the manuscript confidential and refrain from using information obtained during the peer review process for the advantage of their own or other individuals. They should not reveal their identity to the authors, either in their comments or in metadata for reports submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format.

b. Report Misconduct
Reviewers should report to the journal Editor in case they come across any potential research or publication misconduct, like plagiarism or breaches to research ethics, etc. It is appropriate to cooperate with the journal in confidence, but not to personally investigate further unless the journal asks for additional information or advice.

c. Unbiased Comments
It is important for reviewers to remain unbiased regardless of the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors, origins of a manuscript or other commercial considerations.

Peer reviewers must keep any information regarding the identity of the authors and the content of the manuscript confidential.
Peer review comments should be objective and constructive without being of a hostile or derogatory nature.
Peer reviewers must not enter unpublished manuscript files, images or information into public databases or tools that do not guarantee confidentiality, are accessible by the public and/or may store or use this information for their own purposes (for example, generative AI tools like ChatGPT).
Peer reviewers must not use artificial intelligence tools to generate manuscript review reports, including LLM based tools like ChatGPT.
Peer reviewers are responsible for ensuring any references included within their report are accurate and verifiable.
Further information on ethical peer review issues and conflicts of interest can be found in the COPE guidelines.