Peer Review Process

Peer Review Process

Every manuscript that is submitted to the IJPCC must pass a double-blind peer review procedure and adhere to the journal's requirements for originality, research integrity, and academic excellence. After passing the first editorial screening, manuscripts will be forwarded to a minimum of two independent reviewers with relevant experience. Both authors and reviewers maintain their anonymity throughout the review process.

The recommendations of the reviewers, the intellectual merit of the paper, and its applicability to the goals and scope of the journal are all taken into consideration when making editorial choices. When making decisions about suitable actions, such as hiring reviewers with specialized knowledge, having additional editors evaluate the proposal, or refusing to examine a submission further, the Editorial Office may confer with specialists and the academic editor as needed.

 

Workflow and Stages

Workflow

1. Initial Editorial Screening 

The Editorial Office conducts an initial assessment to determine whether the manuscript falls within the journal's scope, complies with the Author Guidelines, satisfies formatting and demonstrates sufficient academic quality for peer review. Manuscripts failing to meet these criteria may be declined without external review.

Editors first review the submitted manuscript, called initial review by the editors. It will be evaluated whether the submitted manuscript is suitable for the IJPCC based on focus and scope, similarity score by using Crosscheck-TurnitIn, AI-percentage, methodological flaw, readability of the articles, and adhering to the submitted paper template.

2. Editor Assignment

Eligible manuscripts are assigned to an editor with appropriate subject expertise, who oversees the review process and selects suitable independent reviewers.

3. Reviewer Selection and Invitation

The assigned editor invites at least two independent reviewers with relevant expertise while ensuring that potential conflicts of interest are avoided.

4. Double-Blind Peer Review

Reviewers evaluate the manuscript's originality, significance, methodological quality, validity of the findings, literature support, presentation, and overall contribution to the field. They submit detailed comments for the authors together with confidential recommendations for the editor.

5. Author Revision

Where revisions are required, authors submit a revised manuscript accompanied by a detailed response letter addressing each reviewer comment. Revised manuscripts may undergo additional rounds of peer review where necessary.

6. Final Editorial Decision

The assigned editor evaluates the revised manuscript together with the reviewers' recommendations and advises the Editor-in-Chief. The final decision to accept, request further revision, or reject the manuscript is made by the Editor-in-Chief based on the overall academic quality and reviewers' recommendations.

7. Finalised for publication

After being accepted, the manuscript underwent copyediting and layout editing to get it ready for the camera.

 

Quality Criteria

Reviewers are instructed to assess the quality of submissions solely based on the academic merit of their content along the following dimensions:

  1. Pertinence of the article’s content to the scope and themes of the journal;
  2. Clear demonstration of originality, novelty, and timeliness of the research;
  3. Soundness of the methods, analyses, and results;
  4. Adherence to the ethical standards and codes of conduct relevant to the research field;
  5. Clarity, cohesion, and accuracy in language and other modes of expression, including figures and tables.

In addition, all of the articles will be checked for textual overlap in an effort to detect possible signs of plagiarism by the publisher.

 

Editorial Decisions

The editor will decide whether to publish the work based on input from the peer review process. It will take four to twelve weeks to complete the evaluation procedure. Among the decision categories are:

  • Reject: Rejected manuscripts will not be published, and authors will not be given the chance to submit an updated version of their work to IJPCC.
  • Resubmit for Review: The submission must be revised, however it might be approved with major modifications. But it will need to be reviewed again.
  • Accept with Revisions: Depending on whether minor or major changes are made, manuscripts that receive an accept-pending-revisions decision will be published in IJPCC. An editorial staff will examine revisions to make sure the essential changes are done before publishing.
  • Accept: Manuscripts that are accepted will be published in the respective categories.

 

Competing Interests

The Editors declare no competing interests with the submissions which they have handled through the peer-review process. The peer-review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editor who has no competing interests.

 

Editorial Review Policy

  1. This journal uses a double-blind peer review process, which means that both the reviewer(s) and author(s) identities are concealed from the reviewer(s), and vice versa, throughout the review process. Peer review helps validate research and establish a method for its evaluation.
  2. All submitted papers will be reviewed by a double-blind peer review process, which may take between two and eight weeks from the date of submission.
  3. IJPCC is committed to prompt evaluation and publication of fully accepted papers. To maintain a high-quality publication, all submissions undergo the following rigorous review process.
    • No simultaneous submissions of the same manuscript to different journals.
    • Manuscripts with contents outside the scope will not be considered for review.
    • Papers will be refereed by at least two experts (reviewers) as suggested by the editorial board.
    • All publication decisions are made by the journal’s Editorial team based on the reviewers’ reports.
    • Authors of papers that are not accepted are notified promptly.
    • All submitted manuscripts are treated as confidential documents.
    • All manuscripts submitted for publication in this journal are cross-checked for plagiarism. Manuscripts found to have similarity index of more than 20% during initial stages of review are out-rightly rejected and not considered for publication in the journal.

Retraction Policy

The papers published in IJPCC will be considered to retract in the publication if :

  • There is a clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or honest error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error)
  • The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission, or justification (i.e., cases of redundant publication)
  • It constitutes plagiarism
  • It reports unethical research

 

The mechanism of retraction follows the Retraction Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which can be accessed at https://publicationethics.org/files/retraction%20guidelines.pdf.

 

Correspondence

All correspondence concerning manuscripts should be directed to the Editor of IJPCC and cc to IJPCC@iium.edu.my. The Editor will direct all correspondence to the corresponding author; the corresponding author is responsible for sharing communications with other authors. Beyond communication concerning the review, manuscripts accepted for publication may require additional correspondence to complete copyediting and layout editing.

 

Peer Review Role

The role of peer review in scholarly publishing is crucial to ensure that all manuscripts submitted are high quality papers. Reviewers evaluate and provide feedback on manuscripts submitted according to the publishing criteria of each journal, validity of the research done and the completeness of the research presented.

Manuscripts submitted are subjected to a double-blind peer review process. Thus, the identities of reviewers are withheld from author(s) and vice versa. All manuscripts will be reviewed by at least two reviewers. The whole double-blind peer review process will take 14 working days to complete. However, a reviewer may request from the Editor-in-Chief for more time to review a paper, if required.

All author(s) are advised to avoid multiple submissions of the same article. All manuscripts submitted will undergo the following peer review process:

  • Multiple submissions of the same article will not be tolerated.
  • Manuscripts submitted must be written within the scope and publishing criteria of each journal, failing which, will not be considered for review.
  • Each manuscript submitted will be reviewed by at least 2 reviewers who are subject matter experts of the articles’ research area.
  • The Editor-in-Chief’s decision on publication, made based on reviewers’ report, is final.
  • Authors of rejected papers will be promptly notified.
  • All manuscripts submitted are checked for plagiarism. Manuscripts with a similarity index of more than 10% will be rejected. Details with regards to plagiarism can be read from our Plagiarism Policy.