Referees guidelines

A guide to reviewing (peer review)
I. Peer review's purpose and aim
Peer review is a very important part of scholarly publication, and it has two purposes: a) to filter or to ensure only excellent multi-disciplinary researches are published; b) to improve the quality of the published researches and papers. Reviewing a paper means consuming time for referees, and time can vary from field to field; on average a paper will take 2-3 hours to review properly. Once the reviewer has established that the article is in his/her field of expertise, and (s)he has sufficient time to complete the review, the next item to consider is whether there are any potential conflicts of interest. A conflict of interest will not necessarily eliminate the reviewer, but full disclosure to the editor will allow him/her to make an informed decision. The process of peer review needs to be conducted confidentially, and the reviewer should not disclose the paper to a third party. The reviewer must be aware that any recommendations or advice (s)he makes, can contribute to the final decision, which is made by the editor. ESMS Journal will asked reviewer to evaluate the paper according to the following criteria: a) originality; b) structure; c) correct use of methodology; d) language; e) clearly presented research results; f) previous research; g) ethical issues (plagiarism, fraud and other ethical aspects like confidentiality, ethical treatment, etc.); h) complete report of evaluation (using a quick summary of the paper, the key elements of the reviewing process, comments reflected or not by data, recommendations regarding the paper. Finally, the reviewer must classify the paper in one of the next categories: a) reject (due to poor quality, or out of scope); b) accept without revision; c) accept but needs revision (either major or minor). For the revised paper the reviewer should indicate to the editor clearly identifying what revision is required and advise whether or not you would be happy to review the revised article.
In order to centralize your review and prepare your report the reviewer should use the following template (click here to download).