Review Process

The Editorial team of the JOSSR is dedicated to independently reviewing papers for original contribution(s) to a given topic. This process starts with the editors making a first screening of the submitted papers resulting in either the papers being sent for refereeing or, if being rejected, without a review report. After the referee(s) send their report(s), the editor will screen the reports for soundness, fairness, and consistency before replying to the author(s). The authors will only be invited to submit a reply and a revised manuscript if the review process recommends acceptance subject to substantial revisions. If the editors find an article in need of only a few minor editorial changes, the copy-editing process may take care of the revisions without resort to the author(s).

Peer Review Objective:

While the Editorial team reserves the independence in deciding to accept or reject a submission, fairness requires the reviews to be impartial, sound, valid, comprehensive, and both theoretically and empirically defendable. To avoid selecting low quality articles, the referees' reports are screened for comprehensiveness in reaching the final decision.

The refereeing process is fully anonymous. The editorial team will protect the name(s) of the authors from the referees in order to preserve the integrity of the blind peer review process. The referees are required to adhere to the following classes of acceptance/rejection:

• Accept in present form with or without slight changes
• Accept with minor revisions as suggested by the reviewer(s)
• Accept with major revisions as suggested by the reviewer(s)
• Reject

Key Criteria:

As the JOSSR’s aim is to cater to international scholars, the journal has already established a set of consistent standards by adhering to the following:

• Clarity in communicating the contents of a paper (in English/Malay).
• Evidence of original contribution(s) to the field.
• High theoretical quality and validity in empirical application.