At a glance
- Decision basis
- Academic merit only
- Final authority
- The Editor-in-Chief
- Conflicts of interest
- The editor steps aside
- Confidentiality
- Complete, and continuing after review
- Misconduct
- Investigated, with no time limit
Publication decisions
- Every decision (acceptance, rejection or a request for revision) is made on academic merit, originality and relevance to the Journal’s scope, and on nothing else.
- The Editor-in-Chief’s decision is final. Where reviewers disagree, the Editor-in-Chief decides on the evidence and may seek a further opinion.
- A manuscript may be declined at any stage for plagiarism, copyright infringement, defamatory or unlawful content, failure to meet the Journal’s standards, or incomplete pre-publication formalities.
- Where a manuscript is rejected, the editors give a summary of the reasons wherever possible.
- The same standards apply to every manuscript, whoever wrote it.
Independence and fairness
Editors act independently of the publisher and of any commercial or institutional interest. Manuscripts are judged without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnic origin, religion, political views or institution.
Managing peer review
- Every manuscript is sent to at least two independent reviewers with the right expertise, after a check for conflicts of interest. No manuscript is published on one reviewer’s recommendation alone.
- Editors keep the review double-blind, making sure that author and reviewer identities are not revealed.
- All communication between authors and reviewers passes through the editorial team. Direct contact between them is not permitted and must be reported to the Editor-in-Chief.
- Editors make sure reviewers meet the responsibility of reviewers, and act if they do not.
Conflicts of interest
An editor who has a personal, professional, financial or institutional connection with a manuscript’s authors or subject must step aside and pass the manuscript to another editor who has none, telling the Editor-in-Chief. Connections that require this include:
- family members, close friends and personal collaborators;
- colleagues at the same institution, supervisors and supervisees, and collaborators within roughly the last three years; and
- any financial interest in the outcome.
A manuscript submitted by a member of the editorial board or Journal staff is handled by a separate editor with no connection to its author. No editor may use material from an unpublished manuscript for their own work without the authors’ written consent.
Confidentiality
Editors may not disclose a manuscript’s contents, its review status, or the identity of its authors or reviewers to anyone outside the editorial team, except as the review requires. This covers every version of the manuscript, the reviewers’ reports and the editorial correspondence. It applies to every member of the editorial team, continues after the review ends (whether the manuscript was accepted, rejected or withdrawn), and requires manuscript files to be accessible only to those who need them.
Misconduct
Editors must act on any credible concern about misconduct, whenever it is raised. They also watch for plagiarism, duplicate submission, fabrication, false authorship and undisclosed conflicts at submission; a manuscript with such a problem is rejected before review.
Where a concern is credible, the Editor-in-Chief appoints a committee of at least two editorial board members, which follows the COPE flowcharts. The authors are always given the chance to respond before any action is taken. If the concern is upheld, the editors publish a correction, an expression of concern or a retraction, linked to the article. In serious cases, such as fabrication, falsification or plagiarism, the Journal may inform the author’s institution.
Communication with authors
- The editorial team is the only point of contact for manuscript correspondence, at submission@ijlsi.com, quoting the Manuscript ID.
- On submission, the corresponding author receives an acknowledgement with the Manuscript ID.
- The first author is notified by email and WhatsApp at each stage, and can follow progress on the tracking page.
- Where revision is requested or a manuscript is rejected, the editors share the reviewers’ comments and explain what is needed.
Editorial standards
Editors follow the COPE Core Practices and the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors, keep the Journal’s published policies accurate and up to date, and draw on a diverse range of reviewers across institutions, regions and career stages.