Science Benefiting People - Open Access e-ISSN: 2676-2633
Welcome to Volume 3 Issue 5 of the Journal of Disability Research (JDR). Let us start by emphasizing our continuing intention to publish innovative, high impact, insightful work open access, the output strongly connecting with prospects for improving the quality of life of those limited by disability. In the lead up to our first publication, just 20 months ago, we of course looked forward to receiving submissions from a wide variety of sources. We have not been disappointed. The highly multidisciplinary nature of the submissions has clearly given rise to challenges, not least that of seeking out those able and willing to evaluate the research quality. A strong corollary has been considerable enrichment in our pool of referees, with highly encouraging growth in this, leading to notable reduction in the average time taken in reaching a final decision. In line with the number of high impact manuscripts that we continue to receive, we have increased issue production, from four in 2023 to the present monthly rate, seeking to accommodate the clear desire for timely publication. Confidence increases as we have continued to observe a steep rise in attraction to the research contained within JDR, presently achieving some 50,000 views, also reflecting widespread global interest in JDR material (please see the figure below):
Located within the King Salman Centre for Disability Research (KSCDR), JDR makes its publications freely available, with publications also being free of publication charges, at least at this time. Not wishing to lose focus, it is of course our further intention to push for greater visibility, impact and recognition, moves that will inevitably lead to greater rates of rejection. The stimuli from this are intended to work to the benefit of all, anticipating not only the inclusion of one’s research in JDR but also that the work influences the world of disability research. JDR progress leads to our paying gratitude to all those who have made this possible. Nonetheless, the clear steer from KSCDR is towards our achieving greater prominence and impact upon those living with disability. We look forward to achieving such aims. Please work with us towards this.
I am very pleased to announce a new member of the Editorial Board of JDR, Prof. Dr. Peter V. Paul, The Ohio State University.
Peter V. Paul, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at The Ohio State University. He wears bilateral cochlear implants and has a son, who has Down syndrome and autism. One of Dr. Paul’s major professional responsibilities is the education of d/Deaf and hard of hearing students. His major research interests involve the areas of English language and literacy, and he has published extensively (over 270 publications), including eight different scholarly texts. Dr. Paul has received the College of Education 2000 Senior Research Award, the Richard and Laura Kretschmer National Leadership Award (2010), the Edward Fay Award (2022; Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf), the College of Education’s Faculty Impact Award (2022), and the King Salman International Award for Disability Research (2022). Dr. Paul has served on several editorial boards of journals and is the current editor of the American Annals of the Deaf.
D A Bradley, 29th May 2024
JDR - Editor in Chief
Orcid ID:
David Bradley-0000-0001-9485-5242-Orcid.org
Affiliation:
Sunway University, Malaysia. University of Surrey, UK.
Area of Research Interests:
Applications in Biomedical, Industrial, and Environmental Areas.
Home Page:
Prof David Bradley | University of Surrey
Prof. David Andrew Bradley | Sunway University
Prof. Elena Grigorenko Orcid ID: Elena Grigorenko (0000-0001-9646-4181 - ORCID Affiliation: Yale University, University of Houston, Department of Pediatrics and Genetics at the School of Medicine, USA. Area of Research Interests: The Effects of Genes on Disability and Diagnostic Tests. Home Page: | Dr. Guilherme H. Elcadi Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5005-9957 Affiliation: Ergonomics Division, School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology, & Health Area of Research Interests: Ergonomics Division, School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology, & Health Home Page: | |
Prof. Datin Yook-Chin Chia Orcid ID: Yook-Chin Chia (0000-0003-1995-0359) - ORCID Affiliation: Department of Medical Sciences, School of Medical and Life Sciences, Sunway University, Malaysia. Area of Research Interests: Hypertension & Geriatrics in Primary Care, Primary Care Gastroenterology Home Page: | Dr. Kevin Wells Orcid ID: Kevin Wells (0000-0002-4658-8060) - ORCID Affiliation: Centre for Vision, Speech, and Signal Processing (CVSSP), University of Surrey, UK. Area of Research Interests: Biomedical Optics, Medical Imaging Home Page: | |
Prof.Ghaleb Alnahdi Orcid ID: Ghaleb-0000-0003-1692-9765-Orcid.org Affiliation: College of Education, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, KSA. Area of Research Interests: Inclusive Education, Intellectual Disability, Transition Services, Teacher Education, Rasch Analysis. Home Page: | Dr. Jaya Shanker Tedla Orcid ID: Jaya,0000-0002-2876-4227-orcid.org Affiliation: King Khalid University, Department of Medical Rehabilitation Sciences, KSA. Area of Research Interests: Medical Rehabilitation Sciences, Pediatric Physical Therapy Home Page: | |
Dr. Ming Tsuey Chew Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8219-6032 Affiliation: Sunway University Area of Research Interests: Biomedical sciences; diagnostic cytology; anatomy pathology; nuclear medicine; radiobiology; NCD Home Page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1w-0G2IAAAAJ&hl=en | Prof. Dr. Peter V. Paul Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8090-432X Affiliation: Department of Educational Studies at The Ohio State University Area of Research Interests:
Home Page: | |
Dr. Aminu Bello Usman Orcid ID: Affiliation: Area of Research Interests:
Home Page: |
Title: Journal for Disability Research (JDR)
e-ISSN: 2676-2633
Print ISSN: 1658-9912
The Journal of Disability Research seeks to encourage greater understanding of the nature of disability, also in furthering ways and means to promote rehabilitation, identifying steps towards amelioration of the various many factors that can limit greater quality of life. The overarching aim of the journal is to provide an important communication channel in disseminating and exchanging ideas, reaching out to a global audience of interested parties, including, but not limited, to health practitioners and researchers. Accordingly, coverage will aim to include but not be limited to:
Empirical work and theoretical framing, both of which are welcome, should seek to contain discussion of the practical implications of the findings. The journal considers all original manuscripts that report scientifically sound research and provide a substantial amount of significant new information.
Coverage
Although not exhaustive some of the keywords covered by JDR are presented below.
JDR – Humanities
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JDR – Medical
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JDR - Engineering and Technology
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JDR – Education
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Publication types
JDR evaluates and publishes top-quality articles in the enumerated sections. These contributions are welcome in any of the following formats:
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From time to time the Editorial Board will invite particular articles or editorials from experts in various parts of the world and consider the production of a supplement or special issue devoted to a particular subject or theme of major importance. Articles that help to promote education in all aspects of disability are encouraged.
JDR Word cloud
The Journal of Disability Research seeks to encourage greater understanding of the nature of disability, also in furthering ways and means to promote rehabilitation, identifying steps towards amelioration of the various many factors that can limit greater quality of life. The overarching aim of the journal is to provide an important communication channel in disseminating and exchanging ideas, reaching out to a global audience of interested parties, including, but not limited, to health practitioners and researchers. Accordingly, coverage will aim to include but not be limited to:
Empirical work and theoretical framing, both of which are welcome, should seek to contain discussion of the practical implications of the findings.
The journal considers all original manuscripts that report scientifically sound research and provide a substantial amount of significant new information. All material presented must be acquired according to ethical standards and approved by legally appropriate ethical committee(s).
We encourage authors to be aware of standardised reporting guidelines when preparing their manuscripts:
Please check this short video that guides you on how to submit a manuscript to JDR.
The manuscript should include: Title page (title, authors, affiliations, contact, abstract, keywords (up to 10), conflict of interest statement); Main text (introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, figures with captions, tables with captions) Acknowledgments (Funder), References.
There are no word limits for submissions but manuscripts should be concise and well-written.
Manuscripts may be written in any standard program including Word and LaTeX. Authors will upload a pdf for peer review. Upon submission of revised manuscripts authors will also be requested to submit a pdf version with tracked changes. Only after final acceptance of a manuscript will the author be requested to submit Word or LaTeX files for typesetting.
There are no strict formatting requirements, but all manuscripts should follow the basic structure for reporting scientific research above.
References may be in any style, provided that formatting is consistent throughout. It is essential to include full author(s) name(s), journal or book title, article or chapter title, year of publication, volume and issue. DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) for each reference should be added wherever possible. They are not mandatory but strongly encouraged. Bibliography management tools such as EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, Reference Manager are recommended.
Tables should be black and white/greyscale only and formatted as simply as possible for best accessibility. See some guidelines here: https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/tables/
Images should be submitted in high resolution for the typesetter after final acceptance of the manuscript.
To support the visually impaired, this journal includes Alt Text (alternative text), a short piece of text tagged to your figure to describe for readers contents of the image. This text can be used by screen readers to make the object accessible to people that cannot read or see the object. Add Alt Text using Microsoft Word tools or as a separate figure caption. Further information on Alt Text for images can be found here: https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/ .
Authors will be required to fill out a data availability statement when submitting their manuscript. Data should be made available for peer reviewers, preferably in an open repository. Data may be cited with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) in the reference section of the article. See the Data Citation: Guide to Best Practice.
By publishing in the journal authors are required to make research data available to editors and reviewers, and to readers upon request. For some research data, deposition in repositories is required and this is encouraged for all research data. For some papers, the decision to publish will be affected by whether or not authors share their research data.
Required
Optional / Encouraged
Feature | Text |
Definition of research data | This policy applies to the research data that would be required to verify the results of research reported in articles published in the journal. Research data include data produced by the authors (“primary data”) and data from other sources that are analysed by authors in their study (“secondary data”). Research data includes any recorded factual material that are used to produce the results in digital and non-digital form. This includes tabular data, code, images, audio, documents, video, maps, raw and/or processed data. |
Definition of exceptions | Research data that are not required to verify the results reported in articles are not covered by this policy. This policy does not require public sharing of quantitative or qualitative data that could identify a research participant unless participants have consented to data release. The policy also does not require public sharing of other sensitive data, such as the locations of endangered species. Alternatives to public sharing of sensitive or personal data include:
Stating the procedures for accessing your research data in your article and managing data access requests from other researchers. |
Embargoes | Embargoes on data sharing are only permitted with the agreement of the Editors. |
Supplementary materials | Sharing research data as supplementary information files is discouraged. Research data of the types listed in “Mandatory data sharing (specific papers)” must not be uploaded as supplementary information files. The journal will require authors to deposit these in an approved repository as a condition of publication. |
Data repositories | The preferred mechanism for sharing research data is via data repositories. Please see <recommended repository list> or https://repositoryfinder.datacite.org/ for help finding research data repositories. Research data of the types listed in “Mandatory data sharing (specific papers)” must be uploaded to an appropriate repository. The journal will require authors to deposit these in an approved repository as a condition of publication. |
Data citation | The journal encourages authors to cite any publicly available research data in their reference list. References to datasets (data citations) must include a persistent identifier (such as a DOI). Citations of datasets, when they appear in the reference list, should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite and follow journal style. |
Data licensing | The journal encourages research data to be made available under open licences that permit reuse freely. The journal does not enforce particular licenses for research data, where research data are deposited in third party repositories. The publisher of the journal does not claim copyright in research data. |
Researcher/ author support | Questions about complying with this policy should be sent to info@scienceopen.com |
Data availability statements | The journal requires authors to include in any articles that report results derived from research data to include a Data Availability Statement as part of the submission process. The provision of a Data availability statement that is compatible with the journal’s research data policy will be verified as a condition of publication. Data availability statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. Where research data are not publicly available, this must be stated in the manuscript along with any conditions for accessing the data. Data Availability statements must take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required for multiple types of research data):
The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party name] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [third party name]. |
Data formats and standards | The journal encourages authors to share research data using data formats and standards recognised by their research community. Please see FAIRsharing.org for more information on established data sharing formats and standards. The journal prefers research data to be shared in open file formats – those that do not require proprietary software to access - where possible. For example, tabular data should be shared as CSV files rather than XLS files. |
Mandatory data sharing (specific papers) | For certain types of research data, submission to a community-endorsed, public repository is mandatory. The journal will require authors to deposit data of these types in an approved repository as a condition of publication. |
Research data and peer review | Peer reviewers are encouraged to check the manuscript’s Data Availability statement. Where applicable, they should consider if the authors have complied with the journal’s policy on the availability of research data, and whether reasonable effort has been made to make the data that support the findings of the study available for replication or reuse by other researchers. Peer reviewers are entitled to request access to underlying data (and code) when needed for them to perform their evaluation of a manuscript. |
Data Management Plans | The journal encourages authors to prepare Data Management Plans before conducting their research and encourages authors to make those plans available to editors, reviewers and readers who wish to assess them. |
In all cases of publication ethics the journal will refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines: https://publicationethics.org/
Reporting research that involves human subjects or data requires a declaration that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/). Approval from the institutional review board (IRB) or other appropriate ethics committee must be obtained before undertaking the research to confirm the study meets national and international guidelines. A statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board must be included as ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ article. For example: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)." The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.
The manuscript should follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) according to those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly. Additionally, when studies describe groups by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, disease, etc., explanation regarding why such categorization was needed should be clearly stated in the article.
Each manuscript submission will be undergo an automated check for plagiarism and will reviewed by a least two subject experts in a single-blind workflow. Manuscripts that have been previously posted as preprints may submit open reviews of the preprint for consideration by the editorial team. Reviewers have the option of posting their reviews publicly on the ScienceOpen platform after an article has been published. All public reviews will receive a Crossref peer-review DOI
The Journal of Disability Research (JDR) collaborates with SciScore to further raise the scientific rigor of the journal. SciScore’s advanced scientific rigor and reproducibility checks is integrated into the manuscript submission workflow. SciScore, a product of SciCrunch, is a pioneering tool that automatically evaluates manuscripts for key indicators of scientific rigor, such as sample size calculation, blinding, randomization procedures, comprehensive data reporting, cell line authentication or validation, and verifies the identity of the antibodies used, among other areas. By integrating SciScore into the ScienceOpen platform, JDR ensures that all submitted research undergoes a rigorous assessment process, thereby promoting transparency and reliability in scientific publications.
What is scientific rigor check?
The SciScore core report is an automated assessment of a research paper’s methodologies and reporting that combines criteria from a variety of NIH-supported principles and guidelines, such as ARRIVE, CONSORT, and MDAR. It includes three tables and a reporting score. The report primarily covers rigor adherence and key resource identification to help promote reproducibility in life science research.
The reporting score - a score out of 10 - is a number researchers, journal editors, and funders can use to help them decide how rigorous and transparent a research manuscript is. The score is based on both rigor adherence and key resource identification within the materials and methods sections. A good score is essential to help ensure that interested parties have enough information to accurately judge the reproducibility of a research article.
How to get a better score on this section:
For a short video explaining scientific rigor check, please visit here.
For more information, please consult here.
Open Access Publishing Agreement
By submitting my manuscript to the Journal of Disability Research published by the King Salman Center for Disability Research (hereafter the ‘Publisher’), I herewith grant permission to the Publisher to publish my article upon editorial acceptance under the following publishing agreement.
I hereby confirm that this is my original work and that
And that the work
I understand that in granting this consent I am granting to the Publisher the Rights to publish under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license the Contribution in the English language in digital form; moral rights will be retained by the original Author/s and copyright will be held by the Author.
I agree to this Publishing Agreement, consent to execution and delivery of the Publishing Agreement electronically, and agree that confirming my consent electronically during the manuscript submission process with an electronic signature shall be given the same legal force as a handwritten signature.
Terms of Use
Article Processing Charges (APC)
A fee of 1100 USD will be charged for all publications accepted to the journal to offset the costs of publication. This fee must be paid after final editorial approval and before the typesetting process. Authors will be provided with a payment link and instructions after acceptance.
Retained Rights
The Author retains all proprietary rights in addition to copyright, such as patent rights in any process, procedure, or article of manufacture described in the Contribution.
Author's Representations
The Author(s) certify that they have participated sufficiently in the intellectual content, conception, and design of this work or the analysis and interpretation of the data (when applicable), as well as the writing of the manuscript, to take public responsibility for it and have agreed to have their name listed as a contributor. The Author(s) believe the manuscript represents valid work. Neither this manuscript nor one with substantially similar content under their authorship has been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere, except as described in the cover letter. The Author(s) certify that all the data collected during the study is presented in this manuscript and no data from the study has been or will be published separately. If requested by the editors, the Author(s) will provide the data/information or will cooperate fully in obtaining and providing the data/information on which the manuscript is based, for examination by the editors or their assignees. Financial interests, direct or indirect, that exist or may be perceived to exist for individual contributors in connection with the content of this paper have been disclosed in the cover letter. Sources of outside support for the project are named in the cover letter.
Use of Information
The Author(s) acknowledges that, during the term of this Agreement and thereafter (for as long as necessary), the Publisher and the Journal may process the Author’s data, including storing or transferring data outside of the country of the Contributor’s residence, to communicate with the Author(s) and that the Publisher has a legitimate interest in processing the Author(s)’ personal data. By entering into this Agreement, the Author(s) agree to the processing of personal data (and, where applicable, confirms that the Author has obtained permission from all other authors to process their data). The Publisher and the Journal shall comply with all applicable laws, statutes, and regulations relating to data protection and privacy and shall process such personal data.
Retraction Policy
Journal of Disability Research follows ScienceOpen's retraction policy. Please follow the link for details: https://about.scienceopen.com/scienceopens-retraction-policy/
This is an Open Access journal which means that all content is freely available without charges to access the full text of articles. All articles are published in a "Gold" Open Access model with a CC BY 4.0 license. You are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author(s). You must give appropriate credit to the author(s), provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
Article Processing Charges (APC)
A fee of 1100 USD will be charged for all publications accepted to the journal to offset the costs of publication. This fee must be paid after final editorial approval and before the typesetting process. Authors will be provided with a payment link and instructions after acceptance.
1. Purpose and Scope
The purpose of these editorial policies is to ensure the integrity, transparency, and quality of the publication process at the Journal of Disability Research. The scope includes all aspects of manuscript submission, peer review, editing, and publication.
2. Manuscript Submission
3. Peer Review Process
4. Editorial Decision
5. Conflict of Interest
6. Ethical Standards
7. Data Sharing and Reproducibility
8. Publication Ethics
9. Confidentiality
10. Editorial Independence
11. Transparency
12. Continuous Improvement
1. Initial Identification and Reporting
2. Preliminary Assessment
3. Formal Review Process
4. Decision Making
5. Implementation of Decision
6. Publication and Communication
7. Post-Publication Follow-Up
8. Policy Review and Improvement
Purpose: The purpose of this informed consent policy is to ensure that all research involving human participants published in the Journal of Disability Research (JDR) adheres to ethical standards that protect the rights, dignity, and welfare of the participants. This policy outlines the requirements for obtaining and documenting informed consent from research participants.
Scope: This policy applies to all research articles submitted to the JDR that involve human participants, including but not limited to clinical studies, surveys, interviews, and observational research.
Policy:
Researchers must obtain informed consent from all participants prior to their involvement in the study. This consent must be voluntary, informed, and documented.
Information: Participants must be provided with comprehensive information about the study, including its purpose, procedures, risks, benefits, and the nature of their involvement.
Comprehension: The information must be presented in a manner that is understandable to the participants, considering their language, literacy level, and cognitive abilities.
Voluntariness: Participation must be voluntary, free from coercion, undue influence, or any form of pressure.
Informed consent must be documented in writing. The consent form must include:
Failure to comply with this informed consent policy may result in the rejection of the manuscript or retraction of the published article.
1. Purpose
The purpose of this advertising policy is to ensure that all advertisements in the Journal of Disability Research are appropriate, ethical, and do not compromise the integrity of the journal.
2. General Principles
3. Acceptance Criteria
4. Prohibited Content
5. Review and Approval
6. Placement and Frequency
7. Digital and Online Advertising
8. Sponsored Content
9. Ethical Considerations
10. Continuous Improvement
In whatever form, peer review is crucial to maintaining the integrity of the scientific record. The process necessitates that all parties involved conduct themselves properly and ethically, and it heavily relies on trust. Reviews should result from an in-depth and thorough evaluation of a research manuscript. Reviews should aim to help editors decide if an article is scientifically sound, meets academic standards and is worth reading in its present form. They can either encompass the entire paper of just a single aspect.
How to submit a review on ScienceOpen when you are invited by journal editors
When you receive an invitation to review an article on ScienceOpen, a link to the article, a proposed due date, and information on how to submit your review will be provided.
Submitting a review:
When you follow the link in the invitation email and start reviewing, first you will be asked to evaluate the paper in four different categories from 1 star (poor) to 5 stars (excellent). The categories are as follows:
1. Level of importance:
Is the publication of relevance for the academic community and does it provide important insights?
Does the work represent a new approach or new findings in comparison with other publications in the field? (Note that this doesn’t preclude publication, as the paper has already been published!)
2. Level of validity:
Is the hypothesis clearly formulated?
Is the argumentation stringent?
Are the data sound, well-controlled and statistically analysed?
Is the interpretation balanced and supported by the data?
Are appropriate and state-of-the-art methods used? (Note that ScienceOpen also accepts publication of “negative” results.)
3. Level of completeness:
Do the authors reference the appropriate scholarly context?
Do the authors provide or cite all information to follow their findings or argumentation?
Do they cite all relevant publications in the field?
4. Level of comprehensibility:
Is the language correct and easy to understand for an academic in the field? Are the figures well displayed and captions properly described?
Is the article systematically and logically organized?
You will be provided with a space to paste in your written review. You may choose to use the questions above as prompts for your written review. Alternatively, you may provide your own format and fill in the content as you see fit. We trust that you will strive to make your review constructive, yet critical.
Basic principles for reviewers according to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (2013):
Peer reviewers should:
only agree to review manuscripts for which they have the subject expertise required to carry out a proper assessment and which they can assess in a timely manner
respect the confidentiality of peer review and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond those that are released by the journal
not use information obtained during the peer-review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage, or to disadvantage or discredit others
declare all potential conflicting interests, seeking advice from the journal if they are unsure whether something constitutes a relevant interest
not allow their reviews to be influenced by the origins of a manuscript, by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors, or by commercial considerations
be objective and constructive in their reviews, refraining from being hostile or inflammatory and from making libellous or derogatory personal comments
acknowledge that peer review is largely a reciprocal endeavour and undertake to carry out their fair share of reviewing and in a timely manner
provide journals with personal and professional information that is accurate and a true representation of their expertise
recognize that impersonation of another individual during the review process is considered serious misconduct.
Please keep in mind during the peer review process:
reply without purposeful delay and within a reasonable timeframe, particularly if you are unable to complete the review.
state explicitly the areas for which you have the necessary experience, if any, and whether you lack the subject matter expertise needed to complete the review or can just evaluate a part of the text.
only accept a manuscript for review if you are reasonably certain you can return a review within the suggested or mutually agreed timeframe, and quickly notify the journal if you need an extension.
disclose any potentially competing or conflicting interests (such as those that are intellectual, professional, political, financial, personal, or religious); if in doubt about whether anything qualifies as a relevant interest, they should consult the journal.
follow the journals' regulations about circumstances that they deem to be in conflict with reviewing. If no guidance is given, you should notify the journal if you have a close personal relationship with any of the authors such as working at the same institution (or plan to join or apply for a job there), are or have been mentors, mentees, close collaborators, or joint grant holders recently (e.g., within the past three years).
make sure recommendations for substitute reviewers are based on qualifications and aren't motivated by personal gain or the desire to see a particular result (positive or negative) for the submission.
decline to accept a manuscript review merely for the purpose of seeing it and without planning to write a review.
if you don't think you can give an objective, fair review, you should decline.
refuse to evaluate if you have any personal connection to any of the work or reporting in the submission.
refuse to assess a manuscript that is requested that is strikingly identical to one they are working on or that is being considered by another publication.
decline to review if you don’t find proper the peer review model of the journal.
Please prepare your report in accordance with:
subject knowledge, good judgement, and an honest and fair assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the work and the manuscript.
objectivity and being constructive in your reviews and provide feedback that will help the authors to improve their manuscript.
not make personal comments or unfounded accusations.
not suggest that authors include citations to your (or your associates’) work to increase your (or your associates’) citation count or to enhance the visibility of your or your associates’ work. Reference suggestions must be based on valid academic or technological reasons.
providing specific criticisms and evidence with appropriate references to substantiate general statements such as, ‘this work has been done before’, to help editors in their evaluation and decision and in fairness to the authors. (COPE, 2013).
ScienceOpen disciplines: | Social policy & Welfare, Political science, Education & Public policy, Special education, Biomedical engineering |
Keywords: | Inclusion, Disability, Rehabilitation |
DOI: | 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-SOCSCI.CLK7JR2.v1 |