Peer Review Process

Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review

Initial Checks

All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked by a professional in-house Managing Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal, including those for human and animal experimentation. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the journals’ Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editors to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage. Reject decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief (for 7 days).

Peer-Review

The journal’s policy supports international high standards of the peer review process transparency. The Journal "Infectious Diseases – Infektsiyni khvoroby" follows a double-blind peer review process: follows a double-blinded process of peer review:  authors and reviewers do not know each other's names. Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with the express agreement of the reviewer.

In the case of regular submissions, in-house assistant editors will invite experts, including recommendations by an academic editor. These experts may also include Editorial Board members and Guest Editors of the journal. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered. Reviewers should not have published with any of the co-authors during the past five years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the co-authors of the submitted manuscript.

Editorial Decision and Revision

All the articles, reviews and communications published in Journal "Infectious Diseases – Infektsiyni khvoroby" go through the peer-review process and receive at least two reviews. Reviewers estimate the manuscript’s scientific level and filling the "Review Form", where specify their remarks and comments to the authors and recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor and Section Editors. All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response.

The in-house editor will communicate the decision of the academic editor, which will be one of the following:

Accept Submission:  The article is ready for publication and accepted without changes.

Revisions Required: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point by point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised. Usually, only one round of major revisions are allowed. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within a suitable time frame, and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.

Resubmit for Review:  If additional experiments are needed to support the conclusions, the manuscript will be rejected, and the authors will be encouraged to re-submit the paper once further experiments have been conducted.

 Decline Submission: The article has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is provided.

Author Appeals

Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the journal. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers' and/or Editor's comments. The Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Editorial Board member. The academic Editor being consulted will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.

In the case of a special issue, the Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief who will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage will be final and cannot be reversed.

Production and Publication

Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo professional copy-editing, Ukrainian or English editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, pagination, and, publication on the website.