Editorial Policy

Editorial independence. Decisions to accept or reject manuscripts rest with the editors and are based only on scholarly merit, originality, relevance to scope and the outcome of peer review. The publisher, advertisers and sponsors have no influence on editorial decisions, and payment of the APC plays no part in them.

Peer review. Every research article, review and short communication goes through double-blind peer review by at least two independent reviewers, as set out in the Peer Review Process.

Reviewers evaluate manuscripts based on:

  1. Originality and novelty of the work
  2. Relevance to the journal's aims and scope
  3. Soundness of methodology and technical accuracy
  4. Quality and currency of the literature review
  5. Validity of results, analysis and conclusions
  6. Practical or theoretical contribution to the field
  7. Ethical compliance, including research ethics and citation practice
  8. Clarity of writing, structure and presentation

Decisions. Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision or Reject. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision.

Conflicts of interest. Editors and reviewers must declare any personal, professional or financial relationship with the authors or the work, and step aside from handling it.

Submissions by editors and editorial board members. Editors may submit their own work. Such manuscripts follow the same double-blind review with at least two external reviewers, are handled by another editor with no conflict of interest, and the author-editor has no access to their review records or the decision. If the Editor-in-Chief is an author, a senior board member makes the final decision. Editor-authored papers are not fast-tracked, and the published article notes that an author is a member of the editorial board. The journal aims to keep editor-authored papers to no more than [20%] of any issue.

Publisher relationship. Any editor who is also an employee, director or owner of Inlight Publisher declares this on the Editorial Team page. Commercial matters such as fees and waivers are handled by the publisher's office, separately from editorial decisions.

Special issues. Special issues follow the same double-blind review as regular issues. Guest editors are named on the special-issue page, do not handle their own papers, and work under the oversight of the Editor-in-Chief.

Confidentiality. Manuscripts under review are confidential. Editors and reviewers may not share, use or cite unpublished work.