Peer Review Process

Articles in this journal have undergone a rigorous double-blind peer review system, based on initial editor screening and involving in-country and international refereeing, ensures that articles meet the standards of quality. Reviewers do not know the identity of the author(s), & the author(s) do not know the identity of the reviewer. All articles submitted to this journal is initially assessed (in-house screening) by the EIC for overall suitability for the journal. ABR uses online tools to detect plagiarism of the manuscript. The EIC will use the Grammarly and Paperrater software for checking the originality of submissions received. 

New submissions go through an in-house quality control check to ensure adherence to our policies and requirements, including:
  • relevance with journal scope
  • competing interests
  • citation and referencing
The journal ensures that the peer reviewers are not belonging to its editorial team or the publishing house. Manuscripts will not be seen by an associate editor or peer reviewers until they pass this check.

If an article is deemed suitable it is assigned to an Editorial Board Member (Associate Editor) who scrutinizes the article even more closely, who decides whether or not the article is suitable for peer review. If the associate editor feels that the article is not yet ready for peer-review, he sends it back to the Author with an explanation of why the article is not ready and what might help it to be more suitable for the journal.

The time required for the review process is dependent on the response of the referees. Submissions considered suitable for peer review are assigned to minimum two independent experts, who assess the article for clarity, validity, and sound methodology. International Journal of Health & Complementary Medicine Review operates the review process which is expected to take period around 40 to 60 days. Reviewers are asked to provide formative feedback, even if an article is not deemed suitable for publication in the journal.

Reviewers will be asked to consider whether or not the submission is suitable for the International Journal of Health & Complementary Medicine Review audience. If necessary, revised manuscripts may be returned to the initial reviewers, usually within 1 month. Associate Editors may request more than one revision of a manuscript, and alternative reviewers may also be invited to review the manuscript at any time. Based on the reviewer reports the associate editor will make a recommendation for rejection, minor or major revisions, or acceptance. And based on the associate editor's recommendation EIC will make final decision. Overall editorial responsibility rests with the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, who is supported by an Associate Editor.
 
​Reviewers will make one of four recommendations:
  • Accept submission: no revisions are required other than those that would normally be carried out during the copy-editing/proof-reading process.
  • Revisions required: the submission would be acceptable for publication if minor revisions were made as outlined in your reviewers comments. The editorial team will be responsible for checking that the revisions have been completed satisfactorily.
  • Resubmit for review: the submission is relevant for the ABR audience and has the potential to be of publishable quality. It requires major revisions and should be resubmitted for review.
  • Decline submission: the submission is unfortunately not relevant for the ABR audience.​

The authors will receive an unsigned copy of the referees’ reports and editor's pen.

  • Acceptance and rejection notification will be sent to all authors.
  • Once accepted for publication, the corresponding author is encouraged to send the revised version of the manuscript.
  • Authors should submit only papers that have been carefully proof read and polished.
  • Before revised submission it should be ensure that the submission is prepared after proofreading and grammar checking according to editor's pen. This ensures fast processing and publication.

When revising your manuscript and responding to peer review comments address all points raised by the editor and reviewers, describe the revisions to your manuscript in your response letter, clearly show the major revisions in the text and return the revised submission and revision cover letter within the time period the editor tells you. Suggested to use the Response letter template from Edanz to make writing your reply easier.

The final decision and time to publication
The Associate Editor is responsible for the recommendation to reject or accept the manuscript for publication. This decision will be sent to the author along with any recommendations made by the referees. Please note we may forward accepted papers for legal review if appropriate. After acceptance of the revised submission, it currently takes 1 week to get a citable, uncorrected draft of the article online, another 2-3 weeks to get the final corrected article online, and a few weeks later this is compiled into an online volume and issue.

Publication Ethics

Recognized Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement
Our publication ethics and publication malpractice statement is mainly based on the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (Committee on Publication Ethics, 2011).

Editors' responsibilities
Publication decisions
The editor is responsible for deciding which of the papers submitted to the journal will be published. The editor will evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The decision will be based on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the journal's scope. Current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism should also be considered.
Confidentiality
The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the editor or the members of the editorial board for their own research purposes without the author's explicit written consent.

Reviewers' responsibilities
Contribution to editorial decisions
The peer-reviewing process assists the editor and the editorial board in making editorial decisions and may also serve the author in improving the paper.
Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and withdraw from the review process.
Confidentiality 
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be disclosed to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify cases in which relevant published work referred to in the paper has not been cited in the reference section. They should point out whether observations or arguments derived from other publications are accompanied by the respective source. Reviewers will notify the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
Disclosure and conflict of interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the papers.

Authors' duties
Reporting standards
Authors of original research reports should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
Data access and retention
Authors could be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the paper for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. In any event, authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals for at least ten years after publication (preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center), provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude their release.
Originality, plagiarism and acknowledgement of sources
Authors will submit only entirely original works, and will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work should also be cited.
Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
In general, papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Submitting the same paper to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. 
Manuscripts which have been published as copyrighted material elsewhere cannot be submitted. In addition, manuscripts under review by the journal should not be resubmitted to copyrighted publications. However, by submitting a manuscript, the author(s) retain the rights to the published material. In case of publication they permit the use of their work under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license, which allows others to download our works and share them with others as long as they credit us, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
Authorship of the paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. 
The corresponding author ensures that all contributing co-authors and no uninvolved persons are included in the author list. The corresponding author will also verify that all co-authors have approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
All authors should include a statement disclosing any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and to cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper in form of an erratum.

References
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). (2011, March 7). Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. Retrieved from- 
http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf 

Conflicts of Interest

Editors
  • Editors have systems for managing their own conflicts of interest as well as those of their staff, editor and editorial board members.
  • International Journal of Health & Complementary Medicine Review have a declared process for handling submissions from the editors, employees or members of the editorial board to ensure unbiased review. Editors will not make any editorial decisions or be involved in the editorial process if they have or a close family member has a COI (financial or otherwise) in a particular manuscript submitted to International Journal of Health & Complementary Medicine Review.
  • For example, if our editors have political/religious COI or personal COI with respect to the authors or their work, the editors will remove themselves from the decision-making process.
  • An editor may also be in a COI if a manuscript is submitted from their own academic department or from their institution (if it is small); in such situations, they should have explicit policies, made in advance, for how to manage it.
  • When any editor submit their own work to this journal, a colleague in the editorial office shall manage the manuscript and the editor/author will refuse himself or herself from discussion and decisions about it.

Authors
  • All authors will be asked to report their financial COI related to the research and written presentation of their work and any other relevant competing interests.  
  • International Journal of Health & Complementary Medicine Review will publish all COI (or their absence) reported by authors that are relevant to the manuscript being considered.  
  • In additional to financial COI, policies for authors shall be extended to other types of competing interests that might affect (or be seen to affect) the conduct or reporting of the work.  
  • This journal shall disclose all COIs that they themselves thought were important during the review process.  
  • Declarations will require authors to explicitly state funding sources and whether the organization that funded the research participated in the collection and analyses of data and interpretation and reporting of results.
 
Reviewers 
  • Reviewers shall be asked if they have a COI with the content or authors of a manuscript.  If they do, they shall be removed from the review process.  
  • ​Generally, it is our best practice to avoid reviewers from the same institution as the authors, unless the institution is so large that authors and reviewers are not working colleagues.