Peer Review Process
Veterinary Sciences and One Health Journal (VSOHJ) uses a double-blind, unbiased and transparent peer review process of the submitted manuscript to assure the high quality of the reviewing process. Actually, peer review process is the main pillar of modern science and standard review of the submitted article may lead to high quality of science which can be presented to a scientific community. All type of the manuscripts should be submitted via online submission system of VSOHJ. The submitted manuscript should have the minimal VSOHJ requirements and suitable for the Aims and Scope of VSOHJ. The Editor-in-Chief sends the manuscript to Two expert reviewers (one Internal and other external reviewer) who are not belonging to the same institution as the authors and not from the editorial board of the VSOHJ. Turnitin software uses to check similarities or plagiarism as per the journal requirements before starting reviewing. A notifying email regarding the submitted manuscript will send to corresponding authors within one to two months, informing them about the weather acceptance or rejection of their manuscripts through our online system. VSOHJ depends on external reviewers in reviewing the submitted manuscript and also asks authors to suggest the reviewers. In addition, the editorial board members did not share in the reviewing process as reviewers as per policies/guidelines of editorial members of VSOHJ but they have a major contribution in finding out the manuscript's reviewers depending upon their specialty and academic reputation.
- Online submission of the article: The corresponding or other concerned author submits the article to the VSOHJ via online submission system.
- Initial requirements: The Deputy Manager Editor checks the article's composition, initial requirements and arrangement against the journal's Author Guidelines to make sure it includes the required sections, limits of words and stylizations but the quality of the article is not checked at this point.
- Initial Evaluation of the submitted manuscript by Editor-in-Chief: The Editor-in-Chief checks that the article is suitable for the journal and belongs to original and interesting work regarding scientific point of view. If not, the submitted article may be rejected without being reviewed any further.
- Similarity Index or Plagiarism requirements: The submitted article at this step is assessed through iThenticate for similarity results, if it is less than 19% (less than 5% from one source), the article is considered for reviewer assigning; else, the article is rejected due to high similarity index.
- Invitation or request to Reviewers: The Editor-in-Chief sends invitations to individuals he or she believes would be suitable, relevant and expert reviewers. As willingness or responses are received, further invitations are sent, if necessary, until the required number of acceptances is obtained (two accepted reviewer decisions).
- Response or willingness to Invitations: Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their own expertise, conflicts of interest, and availability. They then accept or decline.
- Review is conducted or done: The reviewer has various review process and sets time aside to read the article several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work either important for valuable addition in the scientific knowledge or not. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewer may feel comfortable rejecting the article without further work. Otherwise, they will read the article several more times, taking notes so as to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal, with a recommendation to accept or reject it – or else with a request for revision (usually flagged as either major or minor) before it is reconsidered.
- VSOHJ Evaluates the Reviews: The Editor-in-Chief considers all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the reviews differ widely, the editor may invite an additional reviewer so as to get an extra opinion before making a decision.
- Primarily or initial Decision: The Editor-in-Chief sends a decision email to the author including any relevant reviewer comments. The reviewer's name is anonymous or secrete to the author (s).
- Author Sends Revised Manuscript: The author should do the changes asked or demanded by the reviewer to do, and should highlight these changes in red, blue or yellow shadow.
- Final Decision of the submitted manuscript: If accepted, the author should pay the publication fee, and the article sends to the page designer then to the publisher.
Summary
The neutral and independent reviewers submit their suggested points to the section Editors. On the submitted points of the reviewers, the section/ subject editor gives the recommendation from the above points to managing editor along with own comments. However, if editor would like to get revisions, the manuscript is sent to the authors. After the recommendation of the section editor along with his/her own comments, the final decision will be done by the Editor-in-Chief of VSOHJ.