Forewords
– The scientific articles, the reviews and the short scientific messages, published in the journal go through a peer-review procedure - by independent experts (hereafter referred to as reviewers) based on the principle of double-blind peer review. No payment is due for this work.
- In individual cases, the editors may involve additional reviewers when the manuscript has an interdisciplinary focus. The decision to publish or reject the manuscript is based on the reviewers' opinions.
- Reviewers are selected on the basis of scientific competence. The minimum educational requirement for an expert to be invited as a reviewer is the possession of a PhD. Reviewers should have their own personal profile in Scopus, Web of Science Researcher ID, ORCID or RINC (Science Index), and the corresponding personal ID number should be noted in the review.
– The reviewers agree to observe the confidentiality of reviewing, not to distribute the received manuscript, as well as to comply with the requirements and ethical principles for reviewing scientific texts. Their violation will be considered a refusal of cooperation for the future. Reviewers agree to have their review submitted/verified in the scientometric databases WoS and RINC. The editors undertake to maintain reviewer confidentiality by not publicly announcing the text of the review in these databases, as well as details related to the reviewed article. Only the number of reviews verified for the journal is noted in the reviewer's profile. This is a measure and recognition before the scientific community for the status of the reviewer's work.
- The reviewer receives the required materials (manuscript and review form) from the editorial office email. The names, addresses, and affiliations of the authors are deleted from the manuscript received. The manuscript may be in Bulgarian or English.
- After reading and analyzing the text of the manuscript, as well as making the necessary references to the evaluated text, the reviewer, following the instructions, fills in the form, writing at the beginning his/her name, scientific degree and academic position, affiliation and personal ID number in Scopus, Web of Science Researcher ID, ORCID or RSCI.
- The review should be sent to the editorial office email. The review is considered accepted if the reviewer has received an official letter of thanks from the editorial office. The acknowledgement letter should be received within one month from the date of sending the review. A submitted review that does not meet generally accepted academic standards for scientific peer review will be rejected and the peer reviewer will not receive a formal letter of thanks. The journal does not undertake to inform a reviewer whose review has been rejected.
- These Guidelines have been developed in accordance with the journal's desire to represent peer review as far as possible in international science metrics databases. In his/her work, the reviewer should be fair, honest, objective and critical in evaluating the manuscript proposed for review.
Preparing the review
General guidelines
(1) Reviews may be written in Bulgarian, Russian or English depending on the preference of the reviewers evaluating the manuscript.
(2) There is no recommended review length, but appropriate completion of the headings on the first page is mandatory.
(3) At the end of the review, textual recommendations are given to the author of the manuscript with a view to its revision, weaknesses, inconsistencies and factual errors are indicated, as well as the places of incorrect citation of the sources. The reviewer's attention is also focused on the presentation style of the authors of the manuscript. At the very end of the review, the date of the review must be indicated, as this is an important attribute for the location of the review in the WoS and RINC scientometric databases.
(4) After receiving the thank-you letter from the editors, the reviewer logs into his/her account in the WoS profile - the option Peer Review, and following the platform's instructions, verify their review, using the thank you letter sent to them by the editors. It is the journal's policy to encourage reviewers to verify an approved review in WoS in a timely manner. Verification is an objective criterion for a successfully implemented review procedure, raising the prestige not only of the journal, but also of the reviewer and his scientific organization.
Last words
The decision to publish the evaluated manuscript is based on the reviewers' recommendations. Publication does not necessarily imply editorial agreement with the opinions advocated by the reviewers. If the two reviewers are of opposite opinions, a super-reviewer will be appointed whose opinion will be considered final.
Information, as well as training materials on the correct review procedure, can be found at the following web addresses:
https://webofscienceacademy.clarivate.com/learn
https://researcheracademy.elsevier.com/navigating-peer-review/certified-peer-reviewer-course
