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
Guidance for Reviewing IASSIST Quarterly Submissions
- Relevance and Significance
- Originality and Innovation
- Contribution to Knowledge
- Methodology and Rigor
- Clarity and Organization
Suggest Sources and Make Notes
Professional Credit for Reviewing
Relevant Resources

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

Reviewers may self-nominate by checking the Reviewer box under User Roles in their IASSIST Quarterly account and adding their specific areas of expertise in the Reviewing Interests field. Reviewers for a given paper are found by matching their reviewing interests with the topics of the manuscript. Attention is given to when a reviewer last accepted an assignment in order not to overburden individuals with multiple successive reviews.

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 publication without revealing their status as reviewer.

Treating manuscripts as sensitive information, reviewers (and editorial staff) are also prohibited from entering content from them, in whole or in part, into GenAI tools, as this would constitute a violation of the confidentiality of the peer review process. 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 includes this caveat). Meanwhile, 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 guidance for assessing manuscripts (below) 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.

Guidance for Reviewing IASSIST Quarterly Submissions

The categories below encapsulate the criteria on which the IASSIST Quarterly bases its acceptance decisions. Reviewers should use the questions for each category to assess a manuscript’s fitness for publication. Reviewers make recommendations for editorial action, but final decisions are made by the editors.

Possible recommendations available to reviewers include:

Accept - only applied when no revisions are needed and the manuscript can be sent directly to publication production. This is extremely rare.
Revise and Resubmit - reviewers should send comments about needed revisions to the editors. This may be noted in a version of the manuscript with Tracked Changes turned on and added Comments; in a separate Word file; or a combination of both. Option applied most often.
Send for Data Replication - applied when reviewers have concerns about the methodology or data as represented in the manuscript.
Reject - can be chosen if an article is out of scope for the IQ’s mission or otherwise does not meet the criteria detailed below.

Relevance and Significance

Are there any ethical concerns related to the research, such as plagiarism, conflicts of interest, or risk to human/animal subjects?
Does the submission address an important and timely research question or topic?
How relevant is the research to the journal's scope and audience?

Ethical concerns should be brought to the editors’ attention immediately. Such concerns will be shared with the author(s) to provide an opportunity for clarification. However, concerns that cannot be resolved should result in a Reject recommendation. Likewise, reviewers are encouraged to recommend rejection for submissions judged to be off-topic for the IQ's scope or audience; to be duplicative of past articles' themes; or to make no new contributions.

Originality and Innovation

Does the submission contribute new insights, theories, or methodologies to the field?
Does the submission offer a unique perspective or approach to the topic?
Are the findings, methods, or interpretations original?

Positive answers to these questions provide strong reasons for reviewers to recommend the manuscript be accepted, unless there are questions about the author’s methodology or rigor. If a manuscript is strong in this category and in Methodology and Rigor, but has deficiencies in areas like clarity and organization, reviewers should consider a Revise and Resubmit recommendation.

Contribution to Knowledge

What is the scholarly contribution of the submission to the field?
Does the submission advance understanding or challenge existing knowledge?
How significant is the contribution in the context of existing literature?

As with the previous category, positive answers to these questions provide strong reasons for reviewers to recommend the manuscript be accepted, unless there are questions about the author’s methodology or rigor. If a manuscript is strong in this category and in Methodology and Rigor, but has deficiencies in areas like clarity and organization, reviewers should consider a Revise and Resubmit recommendation.

Methodology and Rigor

Is the methodology appropriate for the research question?
Are the research methods well-described and understandable?
Are the data collection and analysis methods rigorous and transparent?
Are ethical guidelines followed regarding data management, authorship, and citation practices?

Negative answers to these questions should lead reviewers in the direction of rejection, particularly if the issues are foundational to the study, i.e. the study would have to be completely redone to address the problems. Reviewers may also recommend Send for Data Replication before a final decision is made if there are concerns about the data’s reproducibility.

If the problems are only with how the methodology is described, though, this could result in a Revise and Resubmit recommendation. Also, if different reviewers have conflicting recommendations about the same paper due to methodological/rigor issues, the editors might settle on a Revise and Resubmit decision depending on the specific concerns. (Manuscripts are always assigned two reviewers. Differences of opinion between the two might result in the editors choosing to serve as the tie-breaker themselves or selecting a third reviewer to do so, depending on the specific circumstances involved.)

Clarity and Organization

Is the submission readable, well-written and organized?
Are the ideas and arguments presented clearly and logically?
Is the language appropriate for the intended audience?

Negative answers to these questions should lead a reviewer to a Revise and Resubmit recommendation at the least.

Suggest Sources and Make Notes

Reviewers are also encouraged to:

Identify additional relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors;
Note any statement in the manuscript that is an observation, derivation, or argument that has been reported in other publications but is not cited; 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 Resources

COPE's Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers

The Editorial Reference Handbook is one of the deliverables of the EU funded TIER2 Pilot projects to improve reproducibility across multiple contexts. "Co-created by over 20 journals from academic and commercial scholarly publishers, the Handbook targets in-house staff managing the manuscripts primarily, but it will also benefit reviewers, authors and even those providing services to publishers by making the fundamental checks and requirements transparent and understandable."