The Peer-Review Procedure
Each paper is subject to two-round peer-review procedure.
After reception, the papers are scrutinised by the editorial staff in terms of compliance with the formal requirements stipulated by the chief editor of the journal and handed over for review of the expertise level of the papers by the editorial sub-office. For any paper to be included into the second round of the review procedure it is necessary that majority of the recommendations constitutes acceptance recommendations. In case formal shortcomings or mediocre expertise level occur, the papers are returned as early as the first round, for re-development.
During the second round of the reviews the papers are submitted to two reviewers (experts in the relevant field), who, on the basis of a detailed check list, evaluate the papers in terms of their content, subject matter, topic, logic and formal aspects. The checklists also include space for the reviewers for providing verbal evaluation and justification of their decisions. The peer-review process is anonymous.
In case the authors do not agree to the partial requirements of the reviewers, the authors have the option to defend their papers. Those observations/comments of the reviewers that seem to the authors to be non-substantiated or erroneous are not processed by the authors into the text, but, rather, they add a separate file to the modified paper explaining why it is not possible to go by the recommendations/observations of the reviewers. Individual points of issue must be elaborated on in the defence file and, prospectively, reference made to the specific sections in the text. The text of the paper, the peer-review and the defence will be submitted to the relevant editorial sub.office/team, who will issue a binding position.
Through inclusion of the defence element into the peer-review procedure the editorial staff want to protect the authors against insufficient efforts or knowledge of the reviewers concerning the relevant topics, whereby the maximum level of objectiveness of reviewing of the papers is ensured.
