Reviewer guidelines

Please follow these guidelines when agreeing to review for the Scottish Journal of Open Research (SJOR).

We are in a pilot phase and seek to provide a supportive environment for everyone involved in the process. Our pool of reviewers consists of board members and external reviewers, and we are grateful for the time they volunteer. 

The editor decides if a submission is in-scope and of high enough quality to warrant peer-review, and then assigns two reviewers (one for book reviews) through the online platform.  

Reviewers should confirm within 2 weeks if they are able to review the article. Once they have agreed to review, they are kindly asked to submit their review report within 4 weeks. An automatic reminder will be sent 5 days before and after the review is due.

Ethics 

We ask reviewers to be respectful, professional and constructive, and adhere to ethical standards set by the Committee on Publication Ethics: COPE reviewer ethics 

Privacy 

Our default review mode is Anonymous Reviewer/Disclosed Author. Please note that we currently do not follow an open review policy; however, we are considering this form of openness for the future. Reviewers may choose to stay anonymous or share their identity by signing the review. Currently, SJOR is not set up for open review (i.e. the review being published alongside the article), and we kindly ask reviewers not publish their review independently. 

Review reports 

Reviewers are asked to evaluate the quality of the submission by providing constructive comments within 4 weeks of accepting the request. There is no required format for the review. We do not allow the use of AI tools for completing the review. 

Reviewers may wish to use the following points as a guidance for their report:
•    Summarise the main claims and conclusions 
•    Comment on the structure of the manuscript 
•    Discuss if arguments and conclusions are presented in a logical matter 
•    Consider significance for target audience 
•    Point out potential strengths and weaknesses 
•    Provide constructive comments on how to improve the submission 

Review process 

In their response to the editor both reviewers share their recommendation, which can be one of the following: 

'Accept as is' – 'Minor revision' – 'Major revision' - 'Reject'.  

In this pilot phase we follow a light-touch editorial process and possible reasons for rejection are: 'Out-of-scope article' or 'Quality not high enough'.  

Reviewers may add any confidential comments to the editor if applicable. The editor shares the reports from both reviewers with the author, alongside any editorial comments and the editorial decision, and informs the author of the next steps. A second round of reviews may be initiated if needed.    

 Conflict of interest