PEER REVIEW AND PUBLISHING PROCESS

Editorial Process. The acceptance and publication of submitted manuscripts is on the basis of the review and approval by the editorial board following a double-blind peer review process. Being interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, submissions from authors of different fields and backgrounds are welcome. The MJSIR editorial board is comprised of editors with different backgrounds. Submissions are reviewed by the editor-in-chief, and if necessary, by the associate editors, for pre-screening. If the manuscript is suitable for consideration by MJSIR, the editors will also decide on at least two independent peer reviewers. The editorial staff will send the submitted manuscript to these peer reviewers for evaluation. The peer reviewers' evaluations are summarized by the editorial staff and are used to inform the editor-in-chief or associate editor's decision on whether or not to accept for publication.

Peer Review Process. Per recommendation of associate editors or other members of the editorial board, two referees or peer reviewers are asked to provide constructive, honest, and prompt evaluation of the submitted manuscripts. The criteria for peer reviewers are: 1) experts on the topic as indicated by similarity in discipline, or previous work on the topic; 2) have previous publication in the discipline or related to the topic. MJSIR also has a statistical consultant who reviews the manuscript whenever there is a conflict between reviewers or between reviewer and author in relation to the validity of the statistical methodology. In case of conflict between reviewers, if necessary, the associate editor or a third reviewer is engaged. Authors are to meet the accepted standards of the topic or discipline in terms of contribution to knowledge, methodological rigor, and presentation. The board then evaluates the referees' comments and notes the opinion of the manuscript before passing the decision with the referees' comments back to the author(s).

Criteria for Final Acceptance and Rejection. The editor-in-chief finally accepts an article when: 1) it is endorsed for publication by at least two referees; 2) the comments/instructions of the reviewers are substantially addressed or complied with by the author/s; 3) it complies with the publication ethics and journal form and style. In cases when the two reviewers disagree, especially about the validity of the methodology or on a deemed major issue in the discipline, another reviewer is engaged or the evaluation of the statistical consultant or associate editor or other editorial board member is sought.

Appeals and Complaints Policy. MJSIR provides authors with the opportunity to appeal to the editorial decision on their manuscript should they have evidence that their manuscript was treated unfairly during the peer-review process. Authors have the right to appeal to the editor-in-chief or the associate editor who handled the manuscript. The steps are: 1) request for reconsideration to the editor-in-chief or associate editor who made the decision and send a rebuttal detailing why you disagree with the decision; 2) wait for the decision of the editor-in-chief or associate editor, either invite you to resubmit a revised paper or confirm the original decision; 3) if dissatisfied with the decision of the editor-in-chief or handling associate editor and additional evidence is presented, a second appeal can be made to the editor-in-chief and may assign a member of the advisory board to consider the appeal. Appeals are only considered on the basis of whether the peer review process was found not conducted appropriately. Other complaints will also follow the same process.

Privacy statement. The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Frequency of publication. The MJSIR printed copy is released in the months of July and January. Articles may be submitted following this schedule. However, all accepted articles are published online as soon as it is laid-out by the production team and proofread and approved by the author.

Online Visibility and Author Citation. Researches in this journal are made available online for the purpose of knowledge access and sharing. It has become important for researchers to be visible online not only to increase the citation index of the authors and their work, but also to better detect plagiarism of authors’ original work.

Having an Open Research and Contributor Identification (ORCID) and having the ability to be identified by Google Scholar increases the chances of recognition in the author’s field.