Peer-Review Process

Peer-Review Process

This section provides a brief overview of the peer review process at the International Journal of Health Technology and Innovation (IJHTI).

Review Criteria

Manuscripts are evaluated according to the following criteria:

  • The material is original and timely/contemporary.
  • The manuscript is written clearly and follows the guidelines for authors.
  • Appropriate study methods have been used.
  • The data are valid.
  • The conclusions are reasonable and well supported by the data.
  • The information contained in the manuscript is important, topical, and medically relevant.
Peer Review Mode

IJHTI uses double-blind peer review, which means the identity of the author and reviewer is kept confidential and vice versa.

Normally, every manuscript is reviewed by at least two reviewers. However, sometimes the opinions of more reviewers are sought. Peer reviewers are selected based on their expertise and ability to provide high-quality, constructive, and fair reviews. For research manuscripts, the editors may, in addition, seek the opinion of a statistical reviewer.

The existence of a manuscript under review should not be revealed to anyone other than the peer reviewers and editorial staff. Peer reviewers are required to maintain confidentiality to the manuscripts they review and must not divulge any information about a specific manuscript or its content to any third party without prior permission from the journal’s editors.

Information from submitted manuscripts may be systematically collected and analyzed to help improve the quality of the editorial or peer-review processes. Identifying information remains confidential. Final decisions regarding the publication of manuscripts are made by the Editorial Office.

Provenance and Peer Review

IJHTI is committed to its core value of transparency. Commissioned articles or articles that undergo rapid communication (fast-track review) will be published with a description of their provenance (i.e., commission or reasons for rapid communication) and how the review was organized (i.e., with or without external peer review). For articles published without external peer review (usually non-research articles, e.g., editorials, interviews, or other editorial materials), the reviews are completed directly by the editors.

Online Review System

To ensure the most convenient and efficient peer review process possible, our peer reviews are conducted electronically.

Peer Review Flowchart
  • Handling (Assigned) Editors pass the submitted manuscript to the Editor(s)-in-Chief.
  • Depending on the topic of the submitted manuscript, the Editor(s)-in-Chief passes the article to the Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief or an Editorial Board member with related expertise.
  • The assigned Editorial Board members with related expertise review the manuscript or recommend external reviewers to the Editorial Office. A literature search may be conducted to identify appropriate external experts.
  • External experts review the manuscript.
  • The external experts make recommendations.
  • The recommendations are sent to the Editor(s)-in-Chief, along with a review from the assigned member of the Editorial Board.
  • The Editor(s)-in-Chief decides on the manuscript, for which there are four options: accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject.
Note:

Generally, all research articles, reviews, and clinical case-based articles should undergo the standard peer-review process, as outlined above. However, if an article is approved for the rapid communication pathway, it will undergo a rapid review process, facilitated by previous peer review comments and revisions obtained after rejection from another esteemed journal. In such cases, there will be a “Provenance and Peer Review” statement in the footnote of the article.

To assure impartial decision-making and to avoid any potential conflicts of interest, authors with a position in the journal’s editorial team will be excluded from any editorial handling of their manuscript (including reviewing, editing, and the final decision). Articles from the Editor-in-Chief will be assigned to an Associate Editor or, in cases where the Associate Editor is not available, to an Editorial Board Member with related expertise. After the review comments have been received from external reviewers, the manuscript will be returned to the Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member to make a final decision.

Peer-review for Revised Manuscripts

It is uncommon for a paper to be accepted for publication without changes – most papers are revised at least once in light of comments from reviewers and editors.

When a Revised Paper is Received:
  • Minor changes will usually be assessed directly by the editor.
  • The article will undergo peer review after all major changes, it will be sent to reviewers again, and after all necessary comments have been received from reviewers and editors, the article will go into production.
  • After receiving the revised paper, it is usually verified in a week and thorough check from the editor and reviewer, the article will be processed further and published.
Submission Turnaround Time
  • In-house review: 14 days
  • External peer review: 21 days
  • Publication ahead of print: within 1 month after being accepted
  • Formal publication: within 1-3 months after being accepted.
Copyediting and Proofreading

The publishers reserve the right to copyedit and proofread all accepted articles. Page proofs will be sent to the lead author for final review.

Publication Fee
  • The IJHTI does not charge any any submission or publication charges from author or reader.
  • Readers and authors can access it online for free.
Open Access Information and Policy

All articles published by IJHTI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. This means:

  • Everyone has free and unlimited access to the full-text of all articles published in IJHTI journal
  • Everyone is free to re-use the published material if proper accreditation/citation of the original publication is given.
  • Open access publication is supported by the authors' institutes or research funding agencies.

No special permission is required to reuse all or part of article published by IJHTI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. Reuse of an article does not imply endorsement by the authors or IJHTI

Meaning of Open Access
  • peer-reviewed literature is freely available without subscription or price barriers,
  • literature is immediately released in open access format (no embargo period), and
  • published material can be re-used without obtaining permission as long as a correct citation to the original publication is given.

under the Creative Commons Attribution License and including latest version of the CC BY license, which grants authors the most extensive rights.

This means that all articles published in IJHTI journal, including data, graphics, and supplements, can be linked from external sources, scanned by search engines, re-used by text mining applications or websites, blogs, etc. free of charge under the sole condition of proper accreditation of the source and original publisher. IJHTI believes that open access publication fosters the exchange of research results amongst scientists from different disciplines, thus facilitating interdisciplinary research. Open access publication also provides access to research results to researchers worldwide, including those from developing countries, and to an concerned general public. Although IJHTI publishes under the open access model, management /editorial board believe that open access is an enriching part of the scholarly communication process that can and should co-exist with other forms of communication and publication, such as society-based publishing and conferencing activities.

Advantages of Open Access for Authors
  • The High Availability and Visibility and Citation Probability of our open access articles is facilitated through the free and unlimited accessibility of the publication over the Internet.
  • Everyone can freely access and download the full text of all articles published with IJHTI: readers of open access journals, i.e., mostly other researchers, do not need to pay any subscription or pay peer-review charges to read articles published by IJHTI.
  • Open access publications are also more likely to be included in search engines and indexing databases.
  • The Higher Citation Impact of open access articles results from their high publicity and availability. Open access publications are demonstrably more frequently cited.