The Peer Review Process

The IECEP Journal follows a double-blind review process and follows this procedure:

 1. Submission of Paper

At least one of the authors, usually the corresponding author, must register to the journal. He then submits the paper to the journal through the journal online submission system.

2. Editorial Assessment and Appraisal

The journal editorial board (EB) checks the form of the paper based on the Author Guidelines of the journal to make sure it has the proper format and the required contents.  Preferably, the paper should follow IMRaD format: Introduction, Methodology (Proposed Method), Results and Discussion/Conclusion. Also, the EB checks for the appropriateness and originality of the paper. Outright paper rejection is possible at this stage.

3. Paper Assignment

A submitted paper will be assigned to a member of the EB. Each EB is assigned a set of topics and is responsible for the conduct of the peer review of all papers falling in these topics.

4. Invitation to Reviewers

The conducting editor sends invitations to appropriate reviewers based on expertise, availability, and conflict of interest. If the reviewer accepts the invitation, the paper is sent to him; if he declines, he may be requested to suggest an alternative reviewer.

5. Paper Review

It is expected that each reviewer allocates ample time to read and understand the paper. Specifically, the reviewer checks the weaknesses and strengths of the paper. The review result is then submitted to the journal conducting editor, indicating whether the paper is accepted without revision, rejected, or accepted with major/minor revision for reconsideration.

6. Journal Evaluates the Reviews

The overall decision is made by the conducting editor after considering all returned reviews. As a rule of thumb, each paper is reviewed by at least three (3) reviewers and requires at least two (2) acceptances for it to continue with the process, otherwise, the paper is rejected. The EB reserves the right to invite additional reviewers for additional opinions, especially when the initial reviews differ broadly.

7. The Decision is Communicated

The conducting editor sends the decision with the review results to the Editor-in-Chief. The editor-in-Chief then informs the author on the decision and review results via email.

8. Final Steps

All accepted papers with no revision will be sent to production for final formatting and proof-reading. Publication will follow after the submission of the Copyright Transfer form by the authors to the EB. For papers with revisions, the Editor-in-Chief sends the decision and review results containing the comments and suggestions of the reviewers to improve the paper. The reviewers are notified on the results of their reviews and they should expect to receive a revised version of the paper. For minor revisions, the conducting editor can do the follow-up review. The corresponding author for rejected papers will also be notified via email on the results of the review.