Peer -Review Process
DOUBLE-BLIND PEER-REVIEW PROCESS
The Dirasat: Educational Sciences double-blind peer-review process is summarized in the following steps:
1. Submission of the Manuscript:
The submitting/ corresponding author should submit the manuscript for the Dirasat: Educational Sciences online submission system. The submitting/ corresponding author is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process; and must ensure that all eligible co-authors, who qualify for the authorship criteria, have been included in the author list and have read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript.
2. Editorial Office Assessment:
The Dirasat: Educational Sciences editorial office checks the manuscript’s style, composition, and arrangement against the journal’s Author Guidelines to ascertain it includes the required sections and stylizations. At this point, the scientific quality of the manuscript is not reviewed.
3. Appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board Members:
The Editor-in-Chief and managing editor send the submitted manuscript to the editorial member most acquainted with its scientific theme and reviews it blindly and comprehensively. The editor-in-chief and editorial member check that the manuscript is appropriate for the journal and is original and sufficiently of interest. If the manuscript successfully passes this step, the editorial member suggests 2 reviewers; if not, the manuscript is rejected without further review.
4. Invitation of Reviewers:
The Editor-in-Chief sends invitations to potential reviewers he believes are appropriate for the manuscript. As responses are received, other invitations are issued, if necessary, until the required two admissions are accepted.
5. Response of Invitations:
Potential reviewers consider the invitation based on their experience, conflict of interest, and availability. Then they accept or reject. If possible, upon refusal, they may also suggest alternative reviewers.
6. Review is Conducted:
The process of double blind-peer review generally involves an exchange between the Chief-in-Editor and the team of reviewers, also known as the referees. After the referees receive the manuscript from the editor, they read it thoroughly and comprehensively and provide individual critiques, usually within four weeks.
In their review critiques, the referees:
- Comment on the validity of the science, identify scientific errors and evaluate the design, methodology, and statistics used.
- Judge the significance by evaluating the importance and validity of the findings.
- Determine the originality of the work based on how much it advances the scientific field.
- Evaluate the appropriateness and recency of the references and identify missing or inaccurate references.
- Recommend that the manuscript be published or rejected. Editors do not have to heed this recommendation, but in most cases do.
Then submit the review to the journal with the recommendations: to accept or reject or submit elsewhere or a revision request usually flagged as either major or minor before further reconsideration.
7. The Journal Evaluates the Reviews:
The Editor-in-Chief and editorial members closely observe all reviews received before making a comprehensive decision. In the case of conflicting opinions, the Editor-in-Chief usually sends the manuscript to a third reviewer for confirmation.
8. Revising and Resubmitting:
The Editor-in-Chief sends the decision through the journal electronic system to the submitting/ corresponding author, including any relevant comments of the editor and reviewers, in a completely blind manner. The corresponding author needs to go through and consider the comments of the reviewers carefully as the revision will largely be based on those comments. The authors also need to respond to each comment point by point indicating the change, whether or not a revision can be done or give sufficient information properly. After the revision is done, the corresponding author submits the revised paper again to the journal.
9. Editorial Process:
The editor cross-checks and takes into consideration all the important amendments and revisions carried out by the author as per the comments and directions before making the final decision. The editor can then send the corrected article again to the reviewer in case the need arises or can even return the article to the author if it is not worked up according to the research and format. The revision will pass the review through the editor only or by both the reviewers and editors for the next round. Usually if the editor and the reviewers think that the revision has addressed their previous issues adequately and the paper has improved post-revision, the paper will move forward to the next step.
10. Decision on Article:
The final decision is given to the Editor-in-Chief. If the paper is accepted, an acceptance letter is issued to the authors. The authors may be required to complete certain formalities as a prerequisite for publication. The manuscript will then be edited and put into final production. The submitting/ corresponding authors are informed about the outcome of their manuscripts through emails and the electronic review page of the journal.
11. Production
The submitted articles are worked on before the production process. World-class services are employed to create the finest writing piece for readership.
12. Online Publication
Once the due procedure for final publication is done, the articles are published on the website with the DOI number.
