Reviewer Guidelines

ASFIRJ Editorial Procedure and Peer Review Processes

Peer review is an integral ingredient in the scientific process, culminating in the publication of articles for consumption of fellow scientists or other interested stakeholders in the society. For this reason, all papers submitted to ASFIRJ must undergo a thorough peer-review process in which expert peers in the topic area of respective submitted manuscripts are invited to provide critical assessment of the submitted manuscripts. The feedback received from the invited peers are critical in informing the editors’ decision on any submitted manuscript. The peer review process thus ensures that all submissions to ASFIRJ attain the highest expected standard of rigor, excellence, and scientific quality.

Any submission to ASFIRJ first undergoes a thorough check by the editorial assistance to ensure ASFIRJ in-house formatting and requirements are adhered to. Any manuscript that does not meet the required formatting is returned to the authors to amend the submission and re-submit again.

Once the formatting checks are successful, the manuscript is passed to a sectional or an associate editor, as the case may be, who then assesses the scientific content of the manuscript to ensure that it meets possible publication in ASFIRJ. If the manuscript is judged by the handling editor to be potentially suitable for publication in ASFIRJ, the handling editor appoints suitable peer reviewers to review the manuscript and make acceptance recommendation to the handling editor.
The handling editor, on the basis of the recommendations from the invited peer reviewers, makes a decision. Reports from at least two peer reviewers are required to make an editorial decision on any manuscript sent out for peer review. Upon acceptance, manuscripts undergo copy-editing by the team of editorial assistance, after which the article is published in an issue on ASFIRJ website. Authors are informed once the manuscript is published online.

Your Role as a Reviewer for ASFIRJ:

As a peer reviewer, your role is crucial in ensuring the highest scientific quality of articles published in ASFIRJ. The review process confers on the peer reviewer a professional responsibility through which s/he contributes to the scientific community by using their skills to enhance the quality and standard of scientific publications. As a reviewer, you are expected to perform your task timely, transparently, and in an ethical manner. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) outlines various ethical standards the reviewer should be aware of and adhere to. Details are available at: Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers - COPE (publicationethics.org).

To ensure the scientific integrity of submissions to the journal, it is important that reviewers invited to review manuscripts for ASFIRJ have sufficient time to perform the assigned task and submit their report within the requested time. We understand that reviewers usually have many professional tasks being performed in parallel, potentially conflicting with other tasks, causing reviewers often not to meet the deadline required to submit their review reports. In that case, the editors will appreciate that reviewers communicate their situation and any inability to submit their review reports within the specified timeframe.

To be eligible to review a paper for ASFIRJ, the reviewers should meet the following criteria:
• Absence of any conflicts of interest in relation to the content of submitted manuscript or with any of the authors.
• Not have published together with the authors in the last two years.
• Has relevant experiences in the field of the submitted paper to judge the scientific quality.

Benefits for You as a Reviewer for ASFIRJ

ASFIRJ values the crucial work done by its reviewers and to show our appreciation of their contribution, reviewers for the journal are entitled to the following benefits:

• Annual Reviewer Certificate: ASFIRJ keeps record of all reviewers who successfully complete their reviews and are issued a personalized annual reviewer certificate that recognize their work within each year.
• Exceptional Reviewer Awards: ASFIFJ gives an award to the first three most dedicated and outstanding reviewers within a calendar year. The awards are given to the reviewers who completed all their reviews in a timely manner without the need for extension of initial allocated time, as well as judged by the editorial board to have provided outstanding assessment of the manuscripts assigned to them. The Exceptional Reviewer Awards are given annually.
• Promotion to ASFIRJ Editorial Board: Reviewers whose main excellent track record for ASFIRJ consistently for a minimum of three years may be recommended for promotion to ASFIRJ subject to the approval by the Editor-in-Chief. The content of the reviewer’s report will be rated by handling editor from a scientific point of view as well as general usefulness to the improvement of the manuscript. It is this rating that will be used as a reference to determine promotion to the Editorial Board.
• Annual Reviewer Acknowledgement: Reviewers within a calendar year are included in the journal’s annual reviewer acknowledgment list published in an issue in the immediate subsequent year.

Single Blind Peer Review and Confidentiality

ASFIRJ operates a single-blind peer review system in which case the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers of their manuscript, but the reviewers will know the identity of the authors. Until the article is published, reviewers should keep the content of the manuscript confidential. Reviewers must ensure not to reveal their identity to the authors when commenting the submitted manuscript.

Reviewer’s Report

It is the duty of reviewers to provide a critical assessment of any manuscript they are invited to review. The reviewer’s assessment must meet the highest standard of quality expected of a scientific paper. Reviewers’ assessment must be guided by the scientific content of every submission rather than trivial errors in grammar or formatting. While the reviewer must pay close attention to ensure that the writing of the manuscript meets minimum standards of a scientific communication, the critical assessment of the scientific content of the manuscript is more important and must be given priority.

The peer review report must be written in English. As a guide, we invite reviewers to consider the following recommendations when evaluating a manuscript for ASFIRJ.
• Please read all sections of the manuscript, including abstract, main text, supplementary material (if provided) to ensure that you are acquainted with the content of the manuscript. Please also pay careful attention to the figures, tables, data, and correctness of language used in the manuscript.
• Ensure that you provide a critical synopsis of the whole manuscript and at the same time comment on the different sections and field-specific concepts presented in the manuscript.
• The reviewer’s comments should be comprehensive and detailed to allow the authors the opportunity to understand them and appropriately respond to the points raised.
• Avoid recommending references to your work, your close associates, or other authors, when such references clearly are not helpful to improve the quality of the submitted manuscript. Every recommended reference must clearly improve the quality of the submitted manuscript.
• The tone of your review report should be neutral, and your criticisms should be constructive to the extent of helping the authors improve their work. ASFIRJ does not accept any derogatory comment.
• ASFIRJ does not accept the use of artificial intelligence (AI) or AI-assisted tools (such as ChatGPT) for peer review of submitted manuscripts and in generating the peer review report. It is the sole responsibility of reviewers on the content of their review reports. The use of AI technologies in the peer review process constitutes a breach of peer review confidentiality.
• ASFIRJ adheres to established scientific publication standards and guidelines, including those from the ICMJE (medical journals), CONSORT (trial reporting), STROBE (observational studies), PRISMA (systematic reviews and meta-analyses) and other guidelines recommended by the EQUATOR network (https://www.equator-network.org/), TOP (data transparency and openness), and ARRIVE (reporting of in vivo experiments). Reviewers should report any deviations or concerns they observe regarding these guidelines.
• If you, as a reviewer, becomes aware of any scientific misconduct or fraud, plagiarism or any other unethical behavior related to the submitted manuscript, you should immediately bring these to the attention of the handling editor.

Structuring the Reviewer’s Report

Reviewers can outline their review reports in the following structure:

• One paragraph summary of the content of the manuscript, highlighting the key findings and strengths of the study.
• General comments: Reviewers should provide general comments that highlight the scientific content of the manuscript, including relevance of the topic to the field; appropriateness of the approaches and study design used to address the topic; validity and reliability of employed methods, including measurement instruments; areas of weakness; the appropriateness of references used; any ethical issues; etc. Reviewers’ comments should be sufficiently specific to enable the authors to respond and address the concerns appropriately.
• Specific comments: In addition to the general comments, reviewers should provide specific comments to the authors throughout the manuscript that touch on specific deviations and inaccuracies related to the scientific content of the manuscript, as well as areas weakness. These specific comments should primarily focus on the scientific content, but at the same time reviewers should highlight issues spelling, formatting, and language problems.

Potential Questions to Consider when Reviewing a Manuscript

Reviewers can use the following questions as pointers to perform their assessment of the submitted manuscript and as a guide to preparing their review report:

• Is the title an accurate reflection of the subject of the manuscript?
• Does the abstract succinctly and accurately provide a summary of the content of the manuscript?
• Is the paper well written and are expressions and concepts used clear?
• Does the manuscript present what is already known and unknown (gaps) on the topic?
• Does the manuscript give an accurate summary of key recent research on the topic?
• Is the purpose (aim or objective) of the paper, its originality and novelty clear?
• In the methods section of the manuscript clear and what was done clearly and accurately described?
• Are the study materials, methods, instruments used, and measurements made clearly described?
• Are the research methods valid, reliable, reproducible, and meet requirements for best practices?
• Are ethical standards followed in implementing the research and in writing the manuscript?
• What did the study find and has this been clearly described?
• Are the results of the manuscript presented in a logical and coherent manner?
• Do the graphics used (tables and figures) clearly complemented the results?
• Have the tables, graphics, figures, images followed highest specified standards?
• Do the tables, graphics, figures, images add value or distract from the content of the manuscript?
• Are there issues with titles, labels, statistical notation or image quality of tables, graphics, figures, images included in the manuscript?
• Does the manuscript present the summary of the key findings?
• Does the manuscript highlight the strengths and limitations of the study?
• Does the manuscript compare its findings to similar papers on the topic?
• Does the manuscript discuss the meaning and implications of the findings?
• Does the manuscript describe and discuss the overall story formed so far on the topic?
• Do the conclusions reflect the achievement of the study aims?
• Does the manuscript discuss the gaps or inconsistencies on the topic and ways forward described?
• Is the referencing accurate, adequate and balance in relation to the topic of the manuscript?

Rating the Manuscript

In addition to the above outlined questions, reviewers should rate the manuscript following the different aspects provided below:

• Novelty: Does the manuscript address an original and well-defined question? Do the findings of the manuscript advance current knowledge on the topic area?
• Scope: Does the manuscript align with the scope of ASFIRJ?
• Quality: Does the manuscript adhere to highest standard of writing and presentation of its findings? Are the manuscript sections appropriately written?
• Scientific Accuracy: Was the study design correct and sound? Do the methods employed follow expected standards in the study context? Are the data analyses choices and implementation of the highest technical standards within the scope of the topic area? Are the data and emanated results sufficiently robust to draw conclusions?
• Interest to Readers: Are the findings and conclusions of the manuscript of interest to the readership of ASFIRJ?
• Overall Merit: Does the manuscript have an overall benefit to warrant publication in ASFIRJ? Do the findings of the manuscript advance current knowledge in the topic area?
• English Level: Is the English language appropriate and understandable?

Giving Your Overall Recommendation

Your overall recommendation to the handling editor should come in either of the four underlisted decision paths, which must be clearly well justified.

• Accept As It Is: The manuscript can be accepted without any further changes.
• Accept Following Minor Revisions: The paper can be accepted after satisfactory minor revisions on the basis of the comments raised by the reviewers and the editor. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within ten days.
• Reconsider Following Major Revisions: The manuscript can be accepted after satisfactory major revisions on the basis of the comments raised by the reviewers and the editor. Authors will be provided with the reviewers’ feedback and will be requested to respond to the comments raised and revise their manuscript accordingly. In their revision, the authors should provide a point-by-point response to the reviewers’ comment. Upon satisfactory revisions, the manuscript will be accepted, but if the revisions are unsatisfactory and fundamental issues not addressed, the manuscript will be rejected. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised manuscript within a maximum of 30 days and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.
• Reject: The manuscript is considered to contain serious flaws and does offer any original contribution to the topic area.