Double Blind Peer Review
The Journal of Law, Governance and Management upholds sector standards of international excellence in academic publishing. This journal maintains a double-blind peer review policy, in which both the reviewers and the author/s are anonymous. To facilitate this, authors have to anonymize their manuscripts to ensure that their identity has not been given away in the article’s content.
Peer review is an important process of evaluation, designed to keep the quality of scholarly work high. The process aims to give constructive feedback to the authors, so that their work can become of the highest academic standard possible. Peer reviews are also helping editors to decide the paper’s suitability for publication in the journal. As a principle, The Journal of Law, Governance and Management will not accept peer reviews that contain harsh or discriminatory comments, that are unduly negative or could be unduly biased toward a specific ideological or disciplinary position, or due to a range of reasons that result in an over-critical judgment. We wish to support scholars, particularly those who are at an early stage of their research career or have not benefitted from training at an elite institution. Our peer review system is primarily designed to support authors in developing their work, and therefore peer reviewers must provide overall supportive and constructive criticism in aiding the author/s to develop and improve their submission and learn how better to compose a publishable article.
Timely Reviews
We ask reviewers to provide review reports in a timely manner, in order to help the journal to provide a high quality publishing service that benefits the global scientific community. Please contact the editorial office if you need a deadline extension of your review.
A Step by Step Reviewer’s Guide:
- Investigate the article’s content in the light of the mission statement of The Journal of Law, Governance and Management and the guidelines for authors:
- Does the article meet the submission criteria (aims, length, scope and presentation) of the journal?
- Make an assessment of the article:
- Is the research relevant?
- Is the information sufficiently novel and of potential interest to an international readership of educational researchers, teachers, teacher educators and/or educational policy makers?
- Does the research contribute to the body of educational knowledge and theory?
- Is the methodology correct?
- Is the research question clearly formulated and underpinned by a state-of-the-art description of what is already known through the literature?
- Are the methods for answering the research question clearly defined and adequate?
- Is the data analysis, be it quantitative or qualitative or mixed methods, accurate and in line with scholarly standards?
- Are all conclusions justified and supported by the results?
- What is the quality of the presentation?
- Is the article clearly structured, using subheadings and suitable signposts?
- Are the important concepts defined?
- Is the English language level sufficient?
- Have all the references and sources been presented in the publisher’s house style?
- Is the article scientifically sound?
- Is the same information already published before, either by the same author or by another scientist?
- Are the data robust enough to warrant the conclusions?
- Are the references to other scholarly works sufficient and complete?
- Is there a concluding paragraph discussing shortcomings, limitations, practical applications and suggestions for further research?
- Is the article free of fraud, plagiarism or any other unethical behavior?
- Write a review report:
- Follow the steps on the review form.
Keep in mind: As a reviewer, you may disagree with the author’s opinions, but if these are consistent with the available evidence, you should allow them to stand. If you provide feedback, you are required to give constructive criticism. Positive feedback as well as negative feedback can help an author to improve the manuscript.
- Make a recommendation:
- Accept: if the manuscript can be published in its current form.
- Accept after minor changes: if the manuscript needs revisions that you estimate are feasible by the authors, such as pertaining to definitions of concepts, references to recent literature, language issues.
- Accept only after major revisions and a new review: for example, when the theoretical framework is inadequate; when the research questions are ill-defined; when the methodology is unsound; when important data is lacking; when more research or additional data analysis is necessary; when the conclusions are not warranted by the data; when the style of writing is unscholarly; and other issues you estimate will take a serious effort to address.
- Reject: if the paper is not suitable for publication within this journal or if the revisions that would have to be undertaken are too fundamental.
- Some things to keep in mind:
- Use appropriate language in addressing your comments to the author. Carefully construct your comments so that the author understands fully what to improve. Generalized and vague statements should be avoided, along with negative comments that are not supported with arguments. Lectito editors never edit reviewer comments and thus we ask you to use appropriate language. Confidential comments to the editors can be made on the review form in the special box assigned for it.
- The Journal of Law, Governance and Management requires that reviewers give suggestions to the author how to improve clarity, succinctness and overall quality of the manuscript particularly in the case of required revisions or reject.
Confidentiality
Reviewers should not share the content of the manuscript, including the abstract, with someone else. Double blind peer review is a confidential process in which both the author and reviewer should be careful to keep the content confidential. Reviewers are requested to inform the editorial office if they prefer a colleague to write the review on their behalf.
Misconduct: dealing with misconduct and retraction
Misconduct is the intention to deceive readers by giving false data, result or interpretation. Hereby we follow principles of honesty and full transparency. Research found to have fraudulent content or demonstrates evidence of misconduct thereby will be retracted. Where mistakes are considered minor or incidental then corrections are acceptable. We follow the retraction guideline of COPE.
In line with COPE guidelines, editors will withdraw a publication if:
- they have clear proof that the findings are inaccurate, fabricated or falsified;
- the findings have been previously published elsewhere without sufficient acknowledgment to earlier sources, notification to the editor, permission to republish, or justification or if it contains material or data that is not authorized for use.
- if a copyright has been violated, or there is another major legal problem (eg, libel, privacy)
- if research found to be unethical. It is the editor's decision to take act. Editors must take all complaints and suspicion of misbehaviour seriously, but they must also recognize that they may not always have the legal authority or the resources to launch significant investigations. So, if there is a judicial procedure about copyright violation or any other legal procedure retraction process will not be involved.
The retraction process will not be involved if it can be corrected. Authors should always be given a chance to reply to the claim.
Editors of the journal have the right to alert potential misconduct to appropriate agents (for example, funders, employers or the editorial board). Authors and peer-reviewers have the right to respond to allegations and for investigations to be carried out with due diligence. An allegation should be substantiated and proved right or wrong by the editors.
When errors affect the interpretation of information, the journal has the right to publish 'corrections' (errata), whatever the cause of the error. Likewise, the journal has the right to publish 'retractions' if work is proven to be fraudulent or 'expressions of concern' when there is a suspicion of misconduct. Depending on the size of the misconduct, the author's institution may be informed, and the author can be refused for a time to publish in the academic journals of Lectito.
The journal uses the software of iThenticate to detect plagiarism. Plagiarism or duplication of another text is forbidden even if it is an author's previous publication. No more than 10% of any new submission content may be previously published by the author/s previous works. Plagiarism includes misappropriation or theft of intellectual property by copying another's work (including the author’s own, if previously published). Authors must thereby avoid duplication of another's research and must always make explicit what the source of their information is. The way to refer to sources is set out by the submission guidelines of the journal. The journal has the right to refuse publishing articles that are suspected of duplicating another's work.
Duplication is not applicable to the copying of information from an unpublished university dissertation or thesis, posters or abstracts or results presented at meetings or conferences, provided that it is the author's own work. Results in databases and clinical trials registries can also be duplicated.
Authors that translate and publish material that has been published elsewhere should ensure that they have appropriate permissions. They should always identify the source of the original material.
In rare circumstances, we reserve the right to delete an item from online publication if we feel it is essential to comply with our legal duties. This includes, but is not limited to, situations in which we believe the article is libellous, breaches personal privacy or confidentiality laws, is the subject of a court order, or may constitute a major health danger to the broader public. In such cases we have the responsibility to inform the owner of copyright. In such cases where whole paper is deleted we will write an announcement explaining why the whole item was deleted which also explained in the next part, sanctions of misconduct.
Sanctions of misconduct
These sanctions may be conducted separately, mixed, in order or all together. These sanctions are stated respectively:
- A letter to the author explaining misconduct, and asking for correction or explanation.
- A letter of criticism for future misconduct.
- A letter to head of the institution.
- Publication of a notice of redundant publication or plagiarism.
- A refusal letter to author to not accept future submissions.
- Retraction of paper.
- Informing other authorities and scientific journals.
Media Relations
Some scientific findings are in the interest of community, mainstream, and social media. So, publishers, editors and writers can contact the media or publish findings on social media. While doing this they will give precise information, fair summary of work and exact findings to the media to prevent speculation. Publishers will also inform authors if journalists are invited to a meeting.
Advertising
Advertising may be an important source of revenue for many scientific publications.
On our online academic content platform, the publisher may allow for restricted, suitable, and occasionally targeted advertising. We have the right to refuse or delete any advertisement that we believe violates the ethical issues or influences editors, authors, and the public in a decisive way or violates any code of ethics.
In this direction we are careful that editorial procedures should not be affected by ad income: editorial and marketing management should be completely separated.
Misleading advertisements will be rejected, and editors must be prepared to publish comments that meet the same standards as the rest of the journal's content.