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Peer Review Guidelines

Peer Review Guidelines

The peer review procedure is an essential part of the publishing process that contributes to maintaining a high research quality of the published papers.

All of the manuscripts that meet the Author’s Guidelines requirements go through a double-blind peer review procedure by independent reviewers.

The Editorial Board selects the reviewers based on their professional experience and expertise.

Reviewers must:

have a PhD;
indicate official affiliation (university, research institute, RPO)
provide a researcher’s digital identifier (ORCID ID or Researcher ID, Scopus ID, RISC number) with a complete profile, incl. publication activities and expertise.

Reviewers responsibilities

the reviewers agree to perform an objective, timely and transparent evaluation of the manuscript, strictly following the standards, flowcharts and guidelines by COPE, the Author’s Guidelines and the Publishing Ethics.

by accepting a manuscript the reviewer undertakes to observe the anonymity of procedure, not to distribute or reproduce in any form the manuscript submitted for a review.
to timely declare any potential conflict of interest or competing interest.
to immediately notify the Editorial Board and the Editor-in-Chief if the reviewer finds a conflict of interest that was not present or determinable at the time of the peer-review procedure started and can potentially affect the objective evaluation of the manuscript.
to notify in timely manner the Editorial Board or the Editor-in-Chief in case the peer-review procedure cannot be completed within the pre-set deadline.
Reviewers are not expected to assess the manuscript for grammatical mistakes, but to focus on quality, scientific contribution and overall style of the research.

Sample questions in preparing a review

Introduction	Is the research question clear? Is the research question justified given the context and what is known about the topic? Are there any significant gaps in the problematics introduction?
Methodology	Are the research methods clear, valid and reliable? Does the methodology correspond to the study?
Results	Are the study results formulated clearly? Does the presented data correspond to the results?
Discussion and conclusions	Is the conclusion supported by the results? Is there a description of potential limitations?
References	Does the literature correspond to the content of the study? Are the key studies referenced? Does the literature follow the standard BDS ISO 690-2021?
Title, abstract and keywords	Does the title, abstract and keywords correspond to the content of the study? Does the abstract contain the aim of the study and the most important methodological details? Are there details in the abstract that are not present in the main text? Are the keywords relevant to the study and appropriate?
Overall note	How does this study contributes to the field and adds to what was already known?

Procedure

(1) Upon agreeing to review a manuscript, the reviewer agrees to send the completed review within the time frame set by the Editor/Editorial Boards Member.

(2) The reviewers receive the manuscript prepared for a double-blind peer review procedure and a review form.

(3) After the review’s completion the peer reviewer sends the completed review form to the following email: research.papers@ibsedu.bg

(4) The review is considered accepted when the reviewer receives an email from the Editor verifying the review was done – “review receipts”.

Our editorial team firmly believes that peer reviewing activities are an essential part and one of the most important processes in publishing. We encourage all of our reviewers to complete a verification procedure at Publons.

Important resources for “Research papers of IBS” reviewers: