EDITOR’S ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• The editorial board has the responsibility and authority of appointing the reviewers and acceptance or rejection of the articles based on the reviewers’ opinions.
• All editorial board members must obey the direction provided by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.
• The editorial board and the Editor-in-Chief are expected to be professional experts with several publications. They need to be truth-seeking, fair and unbiased with a sense of responsibility and dedication to professional ethics and observe all individual rights. They are also expected to take responsible measures to fulfill the aims of the journal and its constant improvement.
• The editorial board is supposed to organize a database of the eligible reviewers and constantly update it based on the reviewers’ performance.
• If required, editor may provide the necessary guidelines and dictate the process of submission to the author.
• The decision of the editorial board for the acceptance or rejection of an article has to be based on evaluation of the reviewers’ expert opinion and assessment of their credibility, and scientific documents and sufficient reasoning; and there is no room for imposing personal taste and professional, racial and religious bias.
• Once the plagiarism check is completed of every article, will be assigned with an editor and if, the article is in the area of editor’s research interest, it is expected that assigned editor will take up the assignment at an earliest possible time. If, he or she wants to deny the assignment due to some personal reason, that should also be informed to the editorial office at an earliest possible convenience.
• Endorse the journal to authors, readers and subscribers and encourage colleagues to submit their best work. To bring together a range of key individuals within the field who can advise on journal strategy. Suggesting reviewers for the assigned manuscript. Maintain highest standards of ethics and competence
• Editorial board members will encourage the submission of articles to the journal in their network
• It is mandatory that every editor treat each author with proper dignity, courtesy, fair behavior irrespective of considering the matter and fate of the article.
• Honesty and transparency is must to become an editorial board member, where an editor should judge every submission equally and transparently.
• The editors should provide time-to-time input regarding the targeted readers and their preferences, in other words, creative input from editors will help in understanding the readers and their choices within the scope of the subject.
• The editors may attend the editorial board meetings occasionally scheduled by the editorial office for taking part in the discussion for the improvement of the journal.
• Editor should be responsible for a fast and transparent peer-review process, if required editor may take support from the editorial office.
• Being an integral part of the journal, editors are responsible to coordinate and manage the critical decisions along with the cooperation of editorial office, such as retraction issues or similar matters.
• Providing the final judgment on the articles assigned within the allotted time with proper reason and clarification should be done by the editor.
• The editorial board members may recommend for the timely topics and suggest potential guest editors considering the scope, importance and timeliness of the topic.
• Editor should be responsible for any query regarding reconsideration of editorial decisions and should provide the decision quickly and clearly with proper reasons. Editor is responsible for establishing such protocol.
• Once the assigned editor is notified by the editorial office regarding any information at any stage of the publication process for an assigned manuscript, the editor should respond as early as possible.
• Along with the publisher, the editorial board members are responsible for timely publishing the accepted articles.
• For any manuscript assigned, editor is responsible for selecting potential reviewers considering their expertise in particular subject areas and keeps monitoring the review process.
• It is editor’s responsibility to inform the selected reviewers that reviewers are not entitled to use the any part of the work in any form provided in the article they are reviewing. Reviewers should be also informed about the complete confidentiality of the assignments they are undertaking.
• Editors will be responsible to convey the expectations of the journal to the reviewers with the review scope, quality and timeliness for an effective, fair and constructive review for the assigned submission.
• If, any special issue proposal is submitted to the journal, the assigned editorial board member should review the proposal for suitability with the scope of the journal, timeliness and assessing the scope and the importance of the topic.
• The editors should ensure the smooth functioning of the whole process in coordination with publishing house.

Editor-in-Chief

• Editor-in-Chief is the most senior position in Academic Editors. With the assistance from Managing Editor, Editor-in- Chief leads the journal with the responsibility to:
• The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board are obliged to pay special attention to selecting eligible reviewers considering their expertise, eminence, professional and scientific experience, and ethics. It is also expected to respect the authors’ request of not having their article reviewed by certain reviewers, if the reason is well-founded.
• The Editor-in-Chief needs to encourage in-depth and reasoned reviews and prevent simplistic and unsatisfactory reviews and also oppose biased, unfounded or humiliating reviews.
• The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board are obliged to take the necessary measures to register and archive the article review documents as scientific documents and maintain the identity of the reviewers confidential.
• The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board are obliged to announce the final results about acceptance or rejection of the article to the corresponding author promptly.
• The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board are expected to consider all the information available in an article highly confidential and refrain from making it available to or discussing the details with others.
• The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board are not authorized to use the data or concepts, provided in the article in favor of or against their own or others’ researches before the publication of the article, or use it to criticize or discredit the authors. In addition, after the publication of the article the editorial board and the Editor-in-Chief are not allowed to disclose any details about the article beyond what has been published by the journal The only exception is investigating the matters related to research and publication misconduct by the authors provided there is acceptable evidence.
• The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board are obliged to prevent any conflict of interests in the review process regarding any personal, business, academic, and financial contact that can potentially affect the acceptance and publication of the submitted articles.
• The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board are expected to encourage attention and expert opinion of the reviewers about authenticity and absence of publication or research violations.
• The Editor-in-Chief is required to carefully examine the articles that have allegedly violated the publication and research ethics and have been reported by the reviewers or any other sources and if necessary, take measures based on the process of taking action against ‘research and publication misconduct’ included in this guide.
• The Editor-in-Chief must not consider the rejection of articles with alleged violations or those articles that have been proved to be in violation of the regulations sufficient and is obliged to investigate the matter to the last step of the process. However, the authors accused of ‘research and publication misconduct’ must be given an opportunity to answer for the allegations.
• The Editor-in-Chief is expected to remove the published articles that have been found guilty of “research and publication misconduct” promptly and inform the readers and corresponding references in a clear manner.
• The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board are responsible for revision of the articles which contain errors and must publish a prompt amendment and clearly notify the readers of the changes applied.
•  The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board are expected to welcome and publish reasonable and acceptable reviews of the published articles.
• The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board must constantly request for the authors’, readers’ and reviewers’ opinions about the improvement of publication policies and physical and content quality of the journal.
• The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the editorial control and quality of the journal, including the soliciting, editing and publication of submissions.
• The Editor-in-Chief is always acting as an ambassador for the journal, commissioning content and fielding submission enquires as appropriate.
• The Editor-in-Chief can take the final decision for any publication oriented issue.

Coeditor-in-Chief

• The Coeditor-in-Chief who assists the Editor-in-Chief and share his roles and responsibilities for the journal.
• In the absence of Editor-in-Chief, the Coeditor-in-Chief will take decisions on his behalf.
• Coeditor-in-Chief assists the Editor-in-Chief in policy formulation and editorial selection.
• To guide managing and associate editors in content selection.
• To give final comments on the manuscripts.
• Organize special issues.
• Contributing editorials and relevant scientific articles.
• Select editorial board members for the journal.

Managing Editor

• A managing editor is the one who coordinates peer-reviewers, co-operate with authors, reviewers and board members, writes short editorials and research highlights, and carries out technical editing of manuscripts.
• Maintain highest standards of ethics and competence.
• Supervise editing of manuscripts for each issue with respect to scientific writing and layout conventions.
• Suggesting changes to enhance the content quality of the journal.
• Systematic evaluation of the review reports, hold vital decision on paper acceptance or rejection.
• Take an active part in the peer review process.
• Maintain highest standards of ethics and competence.
• Supervise editing of manuscripts for each issue with respect to scientific writing and layout convent,
• Suggesting changes to enhance the content quality of the journal.
• Systematic evaluation of the review reports, hold vital decision on paper acceptance or rejection
• No delays in assessing the review reports.

Associate editor

• Associate editors are responsible for obtaining reviews of each manuscript and for evaluating in a timely manner, the technical and intellectual content and suitability of manuscripts assigned to them.
• Suggesting suitable reviewers.
• Ensuring that the publication maintains the highest quality while adhering to the publication rules and procedures of the journal.
• Promote the journal at conferences and meetings.
• Submit an inaugural article which may have multiple authors, but the associate editor must be a corresponding author.
• Suggest and review the special issues as well.
• Systematic evaluation of the review reports, hold vital decision on paper acceptance or rejection.

Executive editor

• Review of manuscripts and suggesting suitable reviewers.
• Ensuring that the publication maintains the highest quality while adhering to the publication rules and proc of the journal.
• Occasionally, solicit articles / interesting work from your colleagues/acquaintances and help.
• Promote the journal at conferences and meetings.
• Submit an Inaugural Article which may have multiple authors, but the Associate Editor must be a corresponding
• Suggest and review the special issues as well.

Statistical editor 

• To provide statistical direction to the journal.
• Validating statistical methodology, trends and results.
• To ensure that the statistical tests used were appropriate, the results are properly interpreted and reported.
• Avoid outdated / invalid methods, even if pre-specified in protocol.

Guest editors for special issue

• The guest editor is responsible for ensuring that the review process for the special issue is conducted in an appropriate manner and in line with normal review practices for the journal.
•  The guest editor for special issue shall compile a list of authors and proposed titles of their papers.
• The guest editor only accepts papers that are within the subject matter scope of the conference and are submitted by the attending participants/delegates.
• The guest editor ensures that papers are from international authors and represent an academic contribution to the subject field.
• The guest editor will invite the authors to submit their papers by the given deadline.
• Once, the list of contents is known and articles are being submitted, the guest editor shall provide a short editorial, outlining and introducing the special issue and its significance.

Advisory board

• Advance the standing of the journal in the scientific community and increase its impact.
• Formulating policies and guidelines on ethical publishing practices.
• Contribute an article once in a year.