The following describes the editorial workflow that each manuscript submitted to the Pharmaceutical Care and Research undergoes as part of the peer review process:
After the manuscript has been submitted for publication, it goes through the initial quality controls. Once initial quality controls are passed, the manuscript is forwarded to appropriate Editor or Guest Editor depending upon whether, it is a regular manuscript or part of the special issue. A suitable Editorial Board Member is selected, who has no conflict of interest with any of the authors of the manuscripts.
Assigned handling editor decides the initiation of review process or decline to do, based on the quality of the presented work and scope of the journal. If the editor determines that the manuscript is not of sufficient quality or that the manuscript is not appropriate for the scope of the journal, the manuscript will be rejected without other treatment. If Editor finds the manuscript of sufficient quality and is within the aims and scope of the journal, the manuscript is sent to external expert reviewers who have no conflict of interest with any of the authors of the manuscripts. The reviewers are selected on the bases of the subject of the manuscript and the availability of the reviewers.
Reviewers are requested to;
- Assess each section of the manuscript
- To provide comments to author
- Comments to editor
- Recommendations (accept, reject, minor revision, or major revision) and
- Willingness to review the revise version of this manuscript in case of minor and major revision.
Reviewers can also upload a review report in the form of an attachment if the suggestions were made in a word document or in the manuscript directly.
To assist our editors, editorial assistant handles all communication with reviewers and authors; however, Academic Editors can check the status of manuscripts and the identity of reviewers at any time. Reviewers are given three weeks to write their review. For the review of a revised manuscript, reviewers are asked to provide their report one week. In both cases, extensions can be granted upon request.
Editor Decision
Two or more reviewers are required to makes a decision. Based on the reviewers’ comments, suggestions and overall assessments, Editor recommends one of the following options:
- Accept
- Reject
- Minor revision
- Major revision
The rejected manuscripts are closed, whereas, manuscripts with minor or major revision are require appropriate actions from the Author for re-consideration by the Editor. The Editor either makes final recommendations or considers another round of review process.
If the Editor considers another round of review process, the manuscript will be assigned to the same reviewers with their previous comments and response letter of author(s) to the reviewer. New reviewers can be assigned if necessary.
If the Editor recommends “Accept,” the manuscript will undergo a final check by the journal’s editor in chief in order to ensure that the manuscript and its review process adhere to the journal’s guidelines and policies. Once this is done, the authors will be notified about the acceptance of the manuscript by the managing editor of the journal.
If the Editor recommends rejecting the manuscript, the rejection is immediate. Also, if the majority of the reviewers recommend rejecting the manuscript, the rejection is immediate.
The editorial workflow gives the editor the power to reject any manuscript for an inappropriate subject, poor quality or inaccuracy in the results. The editor cannot pretend to be an external reviewer of the manuscript. This guarantees a high-quality, fair and impartial review process for each manuscript submitted in the journal, as each manuscript must be recommended by one or more (usually two or more) external reviewers along with the editor responsible for the manuscript to be accepted for publication in the journal.
The peer-review process is single blinded; that is, the reviewers know who the authors of the manuscript are, but the authors do not have access to the information of peer reviewers.