The process of refereeing, accepting and publishing articles in Great Khorasan Research Journal

a) Arbitration process

Review process

The review process of articles in the research journal of Great Khorasan equal and double-blind refereeing, in the sense that the authors and referees have no knowledge of each other's identity.

The articles submitted by the authors are first reviewed by the editor of the publication in terms of the correspondence of the article's topic with the magazine's "domain and thematic area";

If the editor's opinion is not positive regarding the above matters; A rejection letter is sent to the author.

If the article is approved by the editor; The article is sent to 2 to 3 referees for refereeing; in case of disagreement between the same referees, the final acceptance or rejection decision is made by the third referee or the editorial team;

After sending the article to the jury, the initial result should be announced to the authors in one of the following three ways.

• Acceptable in its current form
• Acceptable after minor modifications
• Acceptable after making general and structural changes and re-reviewing by the referee (in this case, after the corrections have been made by the author, the article will be referred to the relevant referee again for an opinion, if approved by the referee, the article is suitable for publication and if the corrections are not done correctly and the reviewer announces a general revision again, the article will be rejected (a rejection letter will be sent).

Note: In cases where the author does not accept the referee's opinion on all or part of the proposed amendments or has a convincing answer to the objections to the article, he can write his opinions and reasons in a text entitled "Response to the referees" on his personal page on the site. The publication should announce in the section of adding files to the publication's office. The said answer will be reviewed by the editorial board and referees of the article and the result will be notified to the author.

Authors whose articles need to be revised must make the necessary corrections within 15 days and send the revised version of the article. If the corrections are approved by the peer reviewer and the editorial board, initial acceptance will be issued to the authors; At this stage, the authors fill out the commitment form and the conflict form and send it to the journal office.

 

 

b) Revision and accountability process

When your paper is returned to you from the referees, you may be given the opportunity to revise it according to the corrective comments. For this purpose, you will usually receive a letter from the editor in which the changes that the reviewers are considering will be sent to you. This letter usually contains information about "how to return your revised paper", such as "specifying the changes made to the paper according to the referees' opinion" and "the time frame for returning the revised version".

Note: The articles returned to the authors by Great KhorasanResearch Journal have different revision deadlines, which vary from a few weeks to a maximum of three months, depending on the revisions that need to be made. If you do not think you will be able to upload the revised version to the journal site in the allotted time, notify the editor immediately. They should be able to offer you an extension, but it's best to contact them as soon as possible.

When reviewing an article that has received initial approval and is in the process of responding to reviewers' comments, we strongly suggest that you consider the following:

• Thank the reviewers and editors for their time and comments.
• to all the points raised by the editor and referees; pay attention
• If the article needs general corrections, outline the items after those corrections have been made. If the corrections were case-by-case; Do them and report it case by case (leave a comment).
• make corrections within the framework of the points recommended by the judges; Do (unless you feel that their suggested revisions would not improve the quality of your paper. If so, please explain your scientific arguments – even in documentation – and adequately).
• Present any point or opinion presented by the referees that you disagree with in a polite and scientific manner. Remember that if your article is submitted for review by the referees for the second time, the referees will consider these materials again.
• Show the main text edits with a different colored text or by highlighting the changes, or with the Track Changes feature in Microsoft Word software, this action, in addition to describing the point-by-point changes (commentable) in the corrections made by you
• Return the corrected article as an attachment to a letter of response to corrections within the time frame set by the journal and only through the journal's website.

Below is an example of how to respond to a reviewer's comment:

Reviewer's Comment: In your analysis of the data, you have chosen to use a somewhat fuzzy fitting function (regression). In my opinion, non-parametric Friedman test is better. In addition, the results will be more informative and easier to compare with previous results.

A) Answer in agreement with the referee: We agree with the referee's assessment of the analysis method. Because in using the regression method, the results seemed to have relatively less generalizability. Furthermore, in its current form, we agree that it is difficult to say whether this measure is a significant improvement over previously reported values. Therefore, in the new revision, we have reanalyzed the data using the Friedman test.

b) Answer against the reviewer's opinion: We agree with the reviewer that using Friedman's non-parametric test can facilitate the results of such studies. However, the data of this research has made it more justifiable for us to analyze the data based on the regression model according to the study of Smith et al., 1998. To explain the use of this test and Smith's model, we have added two sentences to the article (page 3, paragraph 2).

 

Note that in both comments (for and against) the author is polite and respects the reviewer's opinion. Also, in both situations, the author makes a change to the revised paper that answers the reviewer's question.

The author's protest and complaint process

Authors have the right to complain and request an explanation if they see any violation in any of the journal's policies and ethical guidelines, and they can raise their complaints by sending a letter to one of the addresses below.

E-mail:

• jg.khorasan@gmail.com
• khorasan@imamreza.ac.ir
• jgk.edc@imamreza.ac.ir

All complaints related to violations in the article review process are investigated in accordance with the ethical practices of public publishing.

• Objectionable issues and complaints
• An author or any other researcher may submit complaints on any matter related to the following:
• Plagiarism
• Copyright infringement
• Deception in research results or false research results
• Violation of the established standard for research
• Hidden conflict of interest
• Bias in the review process
• The paper review process has taken an unusually long time
• Comments from the peer review process are not satisfactory
• Writing issues
• Complaint handling policy

After receiving the complaint request, initially, a complaint receipt letter is sent to the complainant to ensure that within three working days excluding the date of receipt of the complaint, actions related to the complaint will be taken. The research process is started by the management team of the journal according to the instructions of the editor. After the end of the investigation, a meeting will be held with a full report of the complaint and the decision taken will be sent to the relevant investigator through the email id sent by the complainant.

- If it is felt that the initial response is insufficient, the complainant can request that their complaint be referred to a senior member of the investigation team.

- If the complainant remains unsatisfied, complaints may be referred to a journal editor whose decision is final.

- If the complainant is still dissatisfied with the editor's final response, the complainant may file a complaint with an external body.

Complaints that are not under the supervision of the editorial board of Great Khorasan Research Journal will be sent to the relevant heads of the university publications.

We consider complaints as an opportunity to strengthen the existing article review system. All complaints received are dealt with reliably and in a timely manner.

b) Article publication steps

In the first step, accepted articles are placed in the list of articles ready for publication.

In the second stage, the articles ready for publication will be categorized and in one of the publishing times they will be categorized in the spring, summer, autumn or winter issue.

In the third step, the article is sent for scientific and literary editing. At this stage, the authors may be asked to make minor changes in the article.

In the fourth step, after fixing the editing errors, the files are sent for layout and preparation for publication.

In the final step and with the approval of the editor, the final articles will be published on the website of the Great Khorasan Journal.