NORCAL Publications

Editorial boards are an essential and valuable resource for NorCal journals. Our editors are experts in their respective fields and are responsible for the peer review process and the content of the journal. Their role is to handle the peer review of manuscripts, make the recommendation on the acceptance or rejection of a paper and attract high-quality submissions. Below mentioned are some guidelines for editors, based on COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. NorCal urges its journal editors to make every viable determined attempt to cling the following ethical guidelines for our journal articles that seems creditable for peer review.

Selecting Reviewers:

Editors should ensure that relevant reviewers are selected for submissions (i.e. people who are capable to judge the work and are free from barred competing interests). Editors should uniquely choose at least two reviewers to provide a report.

Editors should terminate to use reviewers who unvaryingly produce discourteous, poor quality or late reviews. Editors should use a vast range of sources not limited to personal contacts to spot potential new reviewers like author’s suggestions, bibliographic databases.

Review Process:

Journal editors should give unbiased consideration to each manuscript submitted for consideration for publication, and should judge each on its merits, without regard to religion, nationality, race, seniority, religion, sex, or institutional affiliation of the author(s). Editors should be ready to justify any important deviation from the described peer review process. Editors should require reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before accepting to review a submission.

Journal editors ought to maintain the peer review process confidential. Journal editors should make all reasonable effort to process submitted manuscripts in an efficient and timely manner. Editors should monitor the performance of peer reviewers and take necessary steps to ensure the high standards. Editors should encourage reviewers to comment on

• The originality of submissions and to be alert to redundant publication and plagiarism.
• Ethical questions and possible research and publication misconduct raised by submissions (e.g. unethical research design, inappropriate data presentation, and manipulation).

Complaints & Misconduct:

• Misconduct and unethical behaviour may be identified and brought to notice of the editor and publisher at any time, by anyone. The identified person needs to provide appropriate evidence to escalate the action on the accused. All allegations are considered as sober consequences and immediate action will be taken if proved.
• Editorial board members must commit with a prompt response to the complainants by taking necessary action and correcting the escalated errors. An initial decision is taken by the editor, who should consult with or seek advice from the publisher, if appropriate. Evidence should be gathered while avoiding spreading any allegations beyond those who need to know.

Decisions:

Editors’ recommendation to accept or reject a paper for publication should depend on the peer reviews and their own unique view on the manuscript importance, originality, the study’s validity and its relevance to the province of the journal.

Journal editors have the right to reject a submitted manuscript without resort to formal peer review if they notice the manuscript to be inappropriate for the journal and outside its scope.

If the editor receives a claim that a submitted article is under consideration elsewhere or has already been published, then he or she has a duty to investigate the matter with NorCal.

Editors are not supposed to revert a decision to accept a submission unless significant problems are noticed with the submission.