Peer-review policy

The rules about the peer review policy are detailed and can be consulted here:

http://analeromana.uoradea.ro/peerreview.pdf

General information

ALLRO`s list of peer-reviewers is published here:

http://analeromana.uoradea.ro/list_peer_reviewers.pdf

For any general questions and comments about the peer-review process, the journal or its editorial policies that are not addressed here, we encourage reviewers to contact us.

Questions about a specific manuscript should be directed to the editor who is handling the manuscript.

Online manuscript review

We ask peer-reviewers to submit their reports in agreement with the reviews editors of ALLRO. 

Criteria for publication

The journals receive submissions than they can't publish. To be published in the journal, a paper should meet four general criteria:

• Provides strong evidence for its conclusions.
• Novel.
• Of importance to scientists in the specific field.
• Ideally, interesting to researchers in other related disciplines.

In general, to be acceptable, a paper should represent an advance in understanding likely to influence thinking in the field.

The review process

Manuscripts judged to be of potential interest to our readership are sent for formal review, typically to two or three reviewers (a third peer reviewer is assigned only for reasons concerning the language of the manuscript. If the language of the manuscript requires an expert in that language, then a third reviewer complements the two assigned reviewers who are specialists in the field, understand the laguage of the manuscript but are not experts in it. The editors then make a decision based on the reviewers' advice, from among several possibilities:

• Accept, with or without editorial revisions
• Invite the authors to revise their manuscript to address specific concerns before a final decision is reached
• Reject, but indicate to the authors that further work might justify a resubmission
• Reject outright, typically on grounds of specialist interest, lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance or major technical and/or interpretational problems

Selecting peer-reviewers

Reviewer selection is critical to the publication process, and we base our choice on many factors, including expertise, reputation, specific recommendations and our own previous experience of a reviewer's characteristics. For instance, we avoid using people who are slow, careless, or do not provide reasoning for their views, whether harsh or lenient.

We check with potential reviewers before sending them manuscripts to review. Reviewers should bear in mind that these messages contain confidential information, which should be treated as such.

Timing

The journal is committed to rapid editorial decisions and publication, and we believe that an efficient editorial process is a valuable service both to our authors and to the scientific community as a whole. We therefore ask reviewers to respond promptly within the number of days agreed. If reviewers anticipate a longer delay than previously expected, we ask them to let us know so that we can keep the authors informed and, where necessary, find alternatives.

Anonymity

As stated on the site, our policy is single-blind peer -review.

ALLRO advocates the open peer-review systems. It means that the sender of the manuscript appears with her/his name when the manuscript is sent by the reviews editor to the peer-reviewers.

We have weighed up the pros and cons of masked author identity in the first stage versus open identity of manuscript sender throughout both stages of publishing. We totally agree with the masked review policy as a necessary tool for the warranty of objective, unbiased evaluations. However, guided by the purpose of our journal above all, we have resorted to the open, unmasked review. The authors must assume their ideas and be able to defend them against critical evaluations. It is more challenging for the authors to appear with their names from the beginning. This way the journal aims to retain some of the benefits of the writer-reader relationship. 

Editing referees' reports

As a matter of policy, we do not suppress reviewers' reports. Authors should recognize that criticisms are not necessarily unfair simply because they are expressed in robust language.

Peer-review publication policies

All contributions submitted to journal that are selected for peer-review are sent to two or more, independent reviewers, selected by the editors.  The journal sympathetically considers such requests and usually honours them, but the editor's decision on the choice of referees is final.

As a condition of agreeing to assess the manuscript, all reviewers undertake to keep submitted manuscripts and associated data confidential, and not to redistribute them without permission from the journal. If a reviewer seeks advice from colleagues while assessing a manuscript, he or she ensures that confidentiality is maintained and that the names of any such colleagues are provided to the journal with the final report. By this and by other means, the journal endeavour to keep the content of all submissions confidential until the publication date other than in the specific case of its embargoed press release available to registered journalists. Although we go to every effort to ensure reviewers honour their promise to ensure confidentiality, we are not responsible for the conduct of reviewers.

Ethics and security

ALLRO's ethical guidelines are published here:

http://analeromana.uoradea.ro/ethical%20code%20for%20publishing.pdf