Editors of PeaceX journals have responsibilities toward the authors who provide the content of the journals, the peer reviewers who comment on the suitability of manuscripts for publication, the journal’s readers and the community, the owners/publishers of the journals, and the public as a whole. Depending upon the relationship between the editor and publisher for particular journals, some of the roles and responsibilities between the two may overlap in some of the following:.

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Editor Responsibilities Towards Authors

• Providing guidelines to authors for preparing and submitting manuscripts.

• Providing a clear statement of the Journal’s policies on authorship criteria.

• Treating all authors with fairness, courtesy, objectivity, honesty, and transparency.

• Establishing and defining policies on conflicts of interest for all involved in the publication process, including editors, staff, authors, and reviewers.

• Protecting the confidentiality of every author’s work.

• Establishing a system for effective and rapid peer review.

• Making editorial decisions with reasonable speed and communicating them in a clear and constructive manner.

• Being vigilant in avoiding the possibility of editors and/or referees delaying a manuscript for suspect reasons.

• Establishing clear guidelines for authors regarding acceptable practices for sharing experimental materials and information, particularly those required to replicate the research, before and after publication.

• Establishing a procedure for reconsidering editorial decisions.

• Describing, implementing, and regularly reviewing policies for handling ethical issues and allegations or findings of misconduct by authors and anyone involved in the peer review process. 

• Informing authors of solicited manuscripts that the submission will be evaluated according to the journal’s standard procedures or outlining the decision-making process if it differs from those procedures.

• Developing mechanisms, in cooperation with the publisher, to ensure timely publication of accepted manuscripts.

• Clearly communicating all other editorial policies and standards.

 

Editor Responsibilities Towards Reviewers

• Assigning papers for review appropriate to each reviewer’s area of interest and expertise.

• Establishing a process for reviewers to ensure that they treat the manuscript as a confidential document and complete the review promptly.

• Informing reviewers that they are not allowed to make any use of the work described in the manuscript or to take advantage of the knowledge they gained by reviewing it before publication.

• Providing reviewers with written, explicit instructions on the journal’s expectations for the scope, content, quality, and timeliness of their reviews to promote thoughtful, fair, constructive, and informative critique of the submitted work.

• Requesting that reviewers identify any potential conflicts of interest and asking that they recuse themselves if they cannot provide an unbiased review.

• Allowing reviewers appropriate time to complete their reviews.

• Requesting reviews at a reasonable frequency that does not overtax any one reviewer.

• Finding ways to recognize the contributions of reviewers, for example, by publicly thanking them in the journal; providing letters that might be used in applications for academic promotion; offering professional education credits; or inviting them to serve on the editorial board of the journal. 

 

Editor Responsibilities Towards Readers and the Community

• Evaluating all manuscripts considered for publication to make certain that each provides the evidence readers need to evaluate the authors’ conclusions and that authors’ conclusions reflect the evidence provided in the manuscript

• Providing literature references and author contact information so interested readers may pursue further discourse

• Identifying individual and group authorship clearly and developing processes to ensure that authorship criteria are met to the best of the editor’s knowledge

• Requiring all authors to review and accept responsibility for the content of the final draft of each paper or for those areas to which they have contributed; this may involve signatures of all authors or of only the corresponding author on behalf of all authors. Some journals ask that one author be the guarantor and take responsibility for the work as a whole

• Maintaining the journal’s internal integrity (e.g., correcting errors; clearly identifying and differentiating types of content, such as reports of original data, opinion pieces [e.g., editorials and letters to the editor]; and identifying published material with proper references).

• Ensuring that all involved in the publication process understand that it is inappropriate to manipulate citations by, for example, demanding that authors cite papers in the journal.

• Disclosing sources (e.g., authorship, journal ownership).

• Creating mechanisms to determine if the journal is providing what readers need and want (e.g., reader surveys).

 

Editor Responsibilities Towards Journal Owners

• Conducting peer review of submitted manuscripts.

• Complying with the guidelines and procedures of the owner organization, including any terms specified in the contract with that organization.

• Making recommendations about improved evaluation and dissemination of scientific material.

• Adhering to the owner’s and publisher’s fiscal policies towards the Journal, at least in so much as they do not encroach upon editorial independence.

• Adhering to the agreed-upon mission, publication practices, and schedule.