Peer review process

Magnificat CLM aspires to the highest academic excellence.

The review process of articles will be made anonymously through the double-blind system, ensuring mutual anonymity of reviewers and authors.

Articles will be subject to a preliminary review by the editorial board that will check whether the article meets the thematic and formal criteria laid down in the rules of publication. If so, the item will be submitted to a double-blind peer review, by at least two specialists in the subject area of the article.

Reviewers will:
1. Approve the publication of the article in the version as submitted.
2. Request significant changes in the article (which will prompt a second review by the same evaluators or by others).
3. Indicate its suitability for publication after making minor changes.
4. Reject article in the case of a doubly negative assessment. In case of marked divergence between the assessments of two reviewers, the text will be sent to a third reviewer, whose assessment, added to the previous two, decides for or against publication.

The peer-reviewers will be completely external to the editorial board and the publisher, the Universitat de València.

The evaluation form can be downloaded here.

This is the abbreviated version of the assessment policy. The full version can be seen in section “Editorial Process”.

Confidentiality:

Manuscripts submitted to Magnificat CLM should be treated with absolute confidentiality, as is required of a serious academic journal at all phases of the publishing process, both in the reviewing and in the publishing stages. For this reason, too, our choice is a double-blind peer-review system.

 

Evaluating manuscripts: policy and criteria

- Criteria for acceptance of manuscripts

Manuscripts submitted to Magnificat CLM should represent a significant advancement of knowledge, and fulfill these basic criteria for all research articles:

Originality and novelty of results, relevance (the article must be useful and advance knowledge in its area), methodological quality resulting in reliability and academic validity, and good presentation: clear and precise writing, logical consistency and good material presentation.

Editorial priority:

Excepting in its periodical monographs, Magnificat CLM's editorial priority is chronological: articles are posted in the order of their final acceptance. Final acceptance is given after academic peer reviewing: once reviewers have given the complete approval to the manuscript, or once the author has delivered his/her manuscript revised in accordance with the modifications suggested by the reviewers.

- Selection of reviewers

Magnificat CLM keeps a bank of reviewers external to the journal’s editorial board, with their nominal and institutional identification, email address and areas of specialization, number of reviews that have been requested of each one, number of reviews delivered by each one, quality of reviews, and meeting of deadlines in delivering their reports.

This bank of reviewers is created out of suggestions by the editorial and academic boards, other reviewers, and the authors themselves.

When submitting their manuscripts, authors can suggest names of potential reviewers, or indicate which experts should not participate in their paper’s review owing to rivalries or other conflicts of interest (see above under “conflict of interest”).

- Reviewers’ responsibilities and functions

Reviewers are specialists in the various fields covered by the journal, helping the editorial board judge the quality of papers submitted for publication. Their function is to help to keep the journal’s high standards assisting authors with constructive criticism.

Consequently, these are their responsibilities and guidelines:

Competence: the reviewer must be qualified to judge the article assigned to him/her. If s/he does not think her/himself suited to this task, s/he should not accept it, or decline as soon as possible and, if requested by the journal, suggest a substitute. Reviews should be serious; comments, specific; criticism should be accompanied by concrete suggestions for alternatives.

Confidentiality: the reviewer must refrain from commenting on the work s/he is judging with anybody, as well as from taking advantage of its ideas or data until the text is released, as in the process the text is the private property of the author. If the reviewer should need to consult with another expert on a particular point, s/he should first get permission to do so from the journal’s editor.

Impartiality and honesty: it is the reviewer’s duty to review the manuscript avoiding any prejudice. For this reason, the reviewer must let the journal know if there is any conflict of interest (see above under “Conflicts of interest”) that may bias his/her opinion of the reviewed manuscript, and must self-exclude him/herself when s/he thinks his/her objectivity might be affected.

Diligence: the reviewer must comply with the deadline set by the journal. If s/he cannot comply with it, s/he must notify the editor immediately, in order to negotiate a short extension or to be replaced by another reviewer.

- Final decision

When an issue is published, the journal will inform reviewers and authors who have collaborated in it. Thus reviewers will be able to see if the reviewed article has finally been published, as well as the author’s identity.

- Exchange of reviewers’ reports

The journal will only show the report of one reviewer to another (always anonymously) in the event of marked conflict. Otherwise, given the level of specificity of the questions asked in the review questionnaire, there is no need to make the work of the reviewers public.

- Recognition of the work of reviewers

The journal will only show to a reviewer the review of another (always anonymously) in the event of overt conflict. Otherwise, and bearing in mind the reviewing form’s specific questions, there is no need to show a reviewer’s work.

- Crediting the reviewers’ task

The journal will credit the meritorious work of its reviewers in two ways: on the one hand, it will certify the reviewer’s task when s/he needs it in order to comply with the Research Reference Framework or its equivalent (sexennia, accreditations, etc.). On the other hand, it will publish on its web in the future a list of its reviewers. However, and because otherwise the confidentiality principle would be compromised, this list will only appear once the journal has published at least thirty-five articles.

- Assessment of reviewers’ quality

As stated above in the section “Selection of reviewers”, within the journal’s bank of external reviewers, every reviewer’s record registers the result of monitoring his/her work: number of reviews delivered, quality of reviews, and ability to meet deadlines. This material serves as assessment of every reviewer’s work.

- Complaints or claims of authors

Authors’ rights will presuppose compliance with the rules of Magnificat CLM. If an author feels the need to make a complaint, s/he should direct it to mclm@uv.es. The editorial board will then study whether there is a legal basis for this complaint within the journal’s rules, and will respond to the author as soon as possible: either indicating that there is no case for complaint under the rules, or otherwise by communicating which steps will be taken by the board in order to solve the conflict. See also above, under “Conflicts of interest”. As for blind review, the commonest area of conflict, it should be born in mind that, just as the reviewer has a duty to work with impartiality and to issue a useful and constructive report, so too must the author be willing to accept comments and suggestions.