Peer Review Guidelines

(Document revised on January 2023)

The suitability of manuscripts for publication in Journal of Science and Applicative Technology (JSAT) is judged by peer reviewers and editorial board. All the review process are conducted in blind review. Editor In Chief handles all correspondence with the author and makes the final decision as to whether the paper is recommended for acceptance, rejection, or needs to be returned to the author for revision.

Basic Screening

Editor In Chief and Section Editors will evaluate the submitted papers on prequalification step for suitability of further review process. The manuscripts will be evaluated by two or three qualified peer reviewers selected by Editor In Chief and Section Editors. The peer reviewers should examine the manuscript and return it with their recommendation to the Editor In Chief or Section Editors as soon as possible, usually within 3 weeks. If one of the peer reviewers recommend rejection, the Editor In Chief will ask a third reviewer or Section Editors to decide the acceptance or rejection of the paper.

Papers needing revision will be returned to the authors, and the author must return the revised manuscript to the Editor In Chief via OJS of JSAT. Editor In Chief sends the revised manuscript to Section Editors to check whether the manuscript is revised as suggested by peer reviewers. Sections Editors could give a recommendation to Editor In Chief that the manuscript should return to authors, accept, or reject within 2 weeks. After acceptance by Section Editors, manuscript is forwarded to technical editor to be layout for an editorial board meeting. Editor In Chief would send an acceptance letter announcing the publication issue attached with manuscript reprint to authors.

Editorial process that sets in our journal briefly described in the following flowchart (Figure 1).

Editorial Flowchart

Figure 1. Editorial process flowchart

Peer-Review Process

There are three steps of revision process by authors:

  1. revision manuscript to accomodate peer reviewer suggestions within 2-4 weeks;
  2. revision to accomodate Section Editors suggestions within 2-4 weeks (if any); and
  3. revision to accomodate editorial meeting suggestions within 1 weeks (if any).

Manuscripts that exceed the revision deadline will be withdrawn. Authors may request for extension to Editor In Chief before the revision expires. The time interval from the date the manuscript is submitted to the acceptance for publication varies, depending on the time required for review and revision.

Manuscripts are rejected usually for 3 general reasons:

  1. The topic of manuscript does not fit in the journal scope and may be better suited for publication elsewhere.
  2. The substance of the manuscripts does not meet JSAT standards; the data may be incomplete; the methodology used is not appropriate; lack of novelties and no advancement of the existing knowledge; or there are no consistency among objectives, research design/method, evidence, and conclusion.
  3. Manuscript are not written following JSAT guidelines in Authors Guidelines. These manuscripts may be rejected without review process. Manuscripts could also be rejected in the review process if Authors do not revise the manuscripts as suggested by reviewers and editorial board, also do not give response/rebuttal against the suggestions.

If manuscript is rejected, the author will be notified by Editor In Chief with a statement of reasons for rejection. The author may appeal to Editor In Chief if he or she believes an unfair judgement has been made which enclose the author's reasons. Editor In Chief will review and discuss the reasons with Section Editors responsible for the manuscript, and later decide whether to accept or deny the appeal.

To expedite the review process, only papers that seem most likely to meet editorial criteria are sent for external review. Papers judged by the editors to be of insufficient general interest or otherwise inappropriate are rejected promptly without external review. Manuscripts sent out for peer review are evaluated by at least one independent reviewer (often two or more). Authors are welcome to suggest independent reviewers to evaluate their manuscript, Author can submit the independent reviewer using Potential Review forms through this link: "Potential Reviewer". All recommendations are considered, but it is at the Editor's discretion their choice of reviewers. By policy, reviewers identity are not identified to the authors, except at the request of the reviewer. Once  a sufficient number of reviews are received, the editors then make a decision based on the reviewers' evaluations:

  • Accept Submission - The manuscript is appropriate to be accepted as it stands. 
  • Request Revisions - In cases where the editor determines that the authors should be able to address the referee's concerns in 1 months or less the editor may request a revised manuscript that addresses these concerns. The revised version is normally sent back to some or all of the original referees for re-review. Editor desicion will specify a deadline for receipt of the revised manuscript and link via which the author should upload to the online submission system. When submitting a revision authors are asked to upload (1) A rebuttal letter, indicating point-by-point how the comments raised by the reviewers have been addressed. If you disagree with any of the points raised, please provide adequate justification in your letter. Author can use the Discussion panel in OJS to do this. (2) A marked-up version of the manuscript that highlights changes made in response to the reviewers' comments in order to aid the Editors and reviewers. (3) A 'clean' (non-highlighted) version of the manuscript.
  • Resubmit for Review - This will require the Author to make major changes and another round of review will need to take place.
  • Decline Submission - This means that the submission has not passed peer review and is unsuitable for further consideration. The submission would then move to the Archives.
  • Resubmit Elsewhere - The paper does not fit this journal scope. It should be submitted to some other journal.
  • See comments“ Author must see comments from reviewer and revised the manuscript.

Reprints of all manuscripts will be provided to the corresponding author. The reprints should be read carefully, checked against the typed manuscript, and the corrections may be returned soon. Authors submitting manuscripts should understand and agree that the copyright of manuscripts published are held by JSAT. The statement to release the copyright to Journal of Science and Applicative Technology (JSAT) is stated in Author Guidelines. Copyright encompasses exclusive rights to reproduce, to distribute, and to sell any part of the journal articles in all form and media.  The reproduction of any part of this journal, its storage in databases and its transmission by any form or media will be allowed only with written permission from Journal of Science and Applicative Technology (JSAT).