EDITORIAL WORKFLOW

 

Bulletin of Environment, Pharmacology and Life Sciences [BEPLS] is dedicated to provide high quality peer reviewed literature to the scientific community.

Typically, the process begins when the author(s) submit their paper(s) for publication. We request the author to share below details during the submission process:

• Digital Identifier (ORCID, LiveDNA or Scopus ID) of the corresponding author

• In case the corresponding author doesn't have any of the above Digital Identifier, we facilitate the author in getting their digital Identifiers at LiveDNA by providing us his/her updated Curriculum Vitae (CV) with a complete list of publications. Suggest at least three scientists/experts in its field for evaluation of the manuscript (optional)

• Provide the name of scientist(s) (if any) to whom, the manuscript should not be sent for evaluation

The evaluation process is divided into three parts

Step 1: Initial Screening (In-House)

Step 2: Scientific Review by the Subject Expert (Technical Evaluation)

Step 3: Final Decision by Editor-in-Chief

Step 1: Initial Screening

Manuscripts submitted via Online Submission System routinely undergo initial screening by one of the Internal Academic Editor before scientific review. The manuscript shall be rejected without scientific review if the manuscript fails to qualify the step 1. This step is limited to the following checklist, along with the editor's response:

1.    Scope of the article

If the topic of the manuscript is out of the journal's scope, the manuscript will be returned to authors without preceding it for scientific review

2.    Careless preparation of the manuscript

Manuscripts that do not conform to the journal's style and writing standards, are invariable given a chance for resubmission. However, if they have not shown any regard for instructions and are very careless in the preparation (such as too many spelling mistakes, poor English, a large number of cited references not listed in the list of references), their manuscripts will be rejected without scientific review.

3.    Originality of the manuscript

Manuscripts reporting repeated study/replication (a study which is largely similar but not identical to the ones already reported in the literature) are not considered original unless they carry some message that was not reported earlier or there is a strong justification for replication.

4.    Duplication/Plagiarism
Duplicate publications (publish or attempting to publish substantially the same work more than once) and plagiarism are viewed seriously. Explanation from authors is sought if the submitted manuscript is found to be already published in full or part. If no satisfactory reply is received within a month, the manuscript will be rejected without review, and action will be initiated as per the journal's policies.

 

Step 2: Scientific Review by the Subject Expert

All the manuscripts qualifying the first round of initial screening will be assigned to the field experts, also known as external reviewers for technical evaluation.

Peer-Review Process

Reviewer selection is critical to the review process, and our choice is based on many factors, including expertise, reputation, and specific recommendations. We avoid using reviewers who are chronically slow, sloppy, too harsh or too lenient.

Academic Editor invites reviewers to review the subject articles and provide them sufficient information about the manuscript for their decision to accept or reject the invitation, only on the acceptance of the invitation, Academic Editors assign the manuscript to the reviewers for evaluation.

The manuscript is usually sent to two to four expert peer reviewers with the request to complete their review process within 30 days. Although editors always hope for a quick turnaround, but this is not always possible. The peer-review process followed by the journal is double-blind. In this process, the peer reviewer's identities are kept confidential and not revealed to the authors. In the same manner, the author's identities are not revealed to the peer reviewers. This ensures a fair and unbiased review of every manuscript. Once the manuscript assigns to the reviewer, the editorial office will keep in touch with the reviewer and send them friendly reminders to complete the evaluation process within the due date.

The reviewers will then submit their review reports on the manuscripts along with their recommendation of one of the following actions to the Editor:

1.    Consider after Minor Changes

2.    Consider after Major Changes

3.    Reject due to the lack of novelty

4.    Accept without alteration

Upon receiving the reports from all the reviewers, the internal editor has to choose one of the following categories for the reviewed manuscript:

Can be considered after Minor Revision:

Authors will receive minor comments within their manuscript to be justified in the revised copy beside a proper cover letter. All the changes or responses to the reviewer's comments should be marked by Track Changes in the Review menu of Microsoft Word Document. The revised copy must be submitted within 15 days after the decision is being communicated to the author, otherwise, it will lead the author towards the resubmission process.

May be considered after Major Revision:

The Author will receive major comments to be justified in revised copy along with the only chance to reorganize the manuscript as per the journal's format and requirement. This also depicts that the author should pay proper attention to the reviewer's comment, especially the highlighted parts, and each comment must be justified in detail for possible consideration.

In exceptional cases, the editor may discuss the review report with the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal and accordingly may/may not request authors to submit the revised manuscript (must be done with Track Changes) along with the cover letter.

Revised manuscripts of Major Revision must be submitted within a month for consideration; otherwise, the author has to go through resubmission again.

Reject due to lack of Novelty:

Most often, the reason for rejection after peer-review includes methodological and scientific concern. Proper reasons for rejection, along with suggestions from reviewers will be sent to authors to provide a chance to them for publishing in other journals if acceptable.

Withdrawn - Out of Journal's Scope:

All the articles which do not fit within the scope of the journal will be withdrawn along with the possible suggestions to be sent for consideration to the journal.

Acceptance without alteration:

After a detailed discussion on ready to publish manuscripts with Editor-in-Chief, the final copy of the manuscript will be sent to authors to verify the final proof of the manuscript. The manuscript could then be e-published and will be in a queue to be published in one of the upcoming issues of Journal.

Step 3: Final Decision

The editorial workflow is solely authorities the Editor-in-Chief to take the final decision on submitted manuscripts considering the reviewer's comments as well as the relevance and suitability of research data. The Editor-in-Chief also holds the right to reject any manuscript at any stage because of being inappropriate data, lacking novelty, or falsified/incorrect results as well as any conflict of interest.

All the articles approaching the new review stage, according to the reviewer's recommendations, the Editor-in-Chief will decide either to approve the article for publication or another round of review or modification is still required.

To maintain the quality of the Journal and in time issues, the Editor-in-Chief will also be responsible for ensuring a fast track peer-review process to complete all the procedures within a tightly bound time limit.