Guidance for Reviewers

IASSIST Quarterly (IQ) follows IASSIST’s code of conduct, and the Committee on Publication Ethics' (COPE’s) Core Practices. All reviewers are expected to act in accord with these guidelines and other applicable ethical standards.

Confidentiality
Conflicts of Interest and Disclosure
Privacy of Reviewers
Promptness
Standards of Objectivity
Suggest Sources
Professional Credit for Reviewing
Relevant COPE Guidance

The terms “reviewer” and “referee” are used interchangeably here.

Peer review assists the editors in making informed editorial decisions and, through editorial communications with authors, may assist authors in improving their manuscripts. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of scholarly endeavor.  Reviewers, then, are critical to the success of the journal, as is their ethical conduct.  

IASSIST Quarterly (IQ) follows IASSIST’s code of conduct, and the Committee on Publication Ethics’ (COPE’s) Core Practices. All reviewers are expected to act in accord with these guidelines and other applicable ethical standards.  Reviewers are expected to follow COPE’s ethical guidelines for peer reviewers.

Confidentiality

IQ uses double-anonymous review procedures:  authors will not know who is reviewing their paper; neither will reviewers know whose paper they are reviewing.  Reviewers should not attempt to discover the identities of authors by any method.  If a reviewer suspects the identity of an author, they should consider whether they will be able to review the manuscript objectively or if they should recuse themself as a reviewer in that instance.

All manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the editors (who would do so only under exceptional circumstances). Invited reviewers who decline the review invitation are still subject to this confidentiality mandate and should not download or keep copies of manuscripts they decline to review.

More specifically, reviewers will hold all information about submitting authors and their manuscripts confidential.  If they should accidentally realize an author’s identity, they will not reveal to the author that they are reviewing the manuscript.  They will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the editors or editorial staff, as appropriate.  Privileged information or ideas obtained by reviewers as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage.  Reviewers will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent, which can only be requested after completion of the editorial process. Reviewers (and editorial staff) are prohibited from entering content from submitted manuscripts into public GenAI tools, as this would constitute a violation of the confidentiality of the peer review process. This is because, when information is entered into such tools, the organization which runs a tool will, in most cases, ingest them into its LLM.  Again, this also applies to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Authors must be aware of this exposure of information when using generative AI and how it may impact the privacy of participants in their studies (the Guide for Authors does include this caveat). Reviewers should pay particular attention to how methodology sections address participant protections in such cases.

Conflicts of Interest and Disclosure

Reviewers must disclose any possible conflicts of interest before accepting a review, and will recuse themselves from reviewing any manuscript with which they have a conflict or the appearance of a conflict resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein.   Any reviewer who has a conflict of interest related to a manuscript should immediately notify the editors to declare it and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Privacy of Reviewers

As a general rule, but in compliance with the GDPR, IASSIST Quarterly collects minimal personal information from authors, reviewers, and editors.  Only three fields are required:  name, email address, and country.  Editors use the GDPR's minimisation principle to limit the amount of personal data retained.  In scholarly publishing, however, data concerning reviewers and others involved in the editorial and publishing process (i.e. authors and the editorial team) remain necessary for the purposes of the journal, and, as such, form part of a record that the GDPR allows “for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes the preservation of which is in the public interest” (Recital 65).  Consequently, the journal's practice is to maintain permanent records for all published articles that include non-public information about those involved in reviewing and producing them, in addition to public information about authors’ names, e-mails, and affiliations.

Promptness

Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that submissions are not delayed in the review process.

Reviewers who accept the invitation should be sure they will be able to review the manuscript by the deadline stated in the request.  Should circumstances arise that will postpone provision of their review, referees should contact the editors as soon as possible to communicate the delay and when (or if) they will be able to complete the work.  The journal (and prospective authors) relies on reviewers’ accurate assessment of their workloads to avoid unnecessarily prolonging the publication timeline.  Editors reserve the right to reassign a manuscript’s review if a reviewer is excessively late and/or does not communicate.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviewers will follow the journal’s rubric for assessing manuscripts to ensure a consistent, objective, and fair basis for all reviews.  Observations and editorial suggestions should be formulated clearly and dispassionately with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.

Suggest Sources

Reviewers are encouraged to:

• Identify additional relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors; 
• Note any statement that is an observation, derivation, or argument that has been reported in other publications but is not cited in the manuscript; and
• Notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.

Professional Credit for Reviewing

If a referee has an ORCID iD and has connected their ORCID record with their IASSIST Quarterly registration, their acceptance to review a manuscript will automatically trigger addition of an item to their ORCID record noting their service in that capacity.  (Such items will not note the specific manuscript[s] reviewed, only their service as a reviewer.) 

Relevant COPE guidance

Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers