Peer Review Policy
IJAUD, uses double-blind peer review to review manuscripts. So that the reviewers do not know the author's identity and vice versa
International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development (IJAUD) accepts submission via its online submission system. The submitted manuscript must be accompanied with a cover letter in which the authors should state why the manuscript should be considered, evaluate on any issues relating to the IJAUD editorial policies and declare if they have any competing interests. The authors of received manuscripts are also asked to submit a declaration of competing interests as part of their manuscript.
Article submitted to the Journal is sent out to peer-reviewers, although submissions that are out of scope for the Journal or are of an unacceptably low standard may be rejected without review. Potentially suitable manuscripts will generally be reviewed by three experts in the field with the aim of reaching a first decision as soon as possible. Specialist statistical advisers are used when necessary to ensure that the statistical reasoning in manuscripts is sound. Reviewers are asked to declare their competing interests, if any.
Editorial decisions are made based on the manuscript’s validity and coherence, as judged by the peer reviewers. In addition to their comments for the authors, reviewers are asked whether the research is sound and coherent, the topic interesting and the writing of an acceptable quality. Where possible, the final decision is made on the basis that peer reviewers are in accordance with one another, or that at least there is no strong dissenting view. In cases where there is strong disagreement, either among the peer review or between the authors and the peer reviewers, advice is sought from an editorial board member or a researcher of similar standing.
This cycle continues until final acceptance or rejection.
Article Review Process (two to three months)
a) Article registration and initial review (Two week)
By submitting the article by the author, the initial assessment will be proceeding. In the initial assessment, based on criteria such as considering the relevance of the article with the scopes of the journal, the appropriate quality in terms of content, the use of appropriate and up-to-date references, innovation, and compliance with the journal format is evaluated. A preliminary review of articles is done in the following process:
- Registration of the authors and submitting the manuscript by the corresponding author on the IJAUD site and completing the authors' details and requirements (by the author)
- Announcing the opinion of the editor of the journal regarding the initial criteria of the article and, if necessary, referring to the Associate Editor (one week)
- Returning the article to the author for structural/format modifications (if any)
b) Double-blind review process (one to two months)
Articles that are not rejected at the initial review stage will be sent to professional referees through the following process while maintaining confidentiality and without the authors' names:
- Sending the article to three referees specializing in the field of the paper by Editor/AE . These referees are not necessarily the author's recommended referees.
- reviewing the article and comments along with completing the referee evaluation form and comments to the editor and author on the quality and quantity of the article by the referees.
c) Initial Decision
According to the referees' suggestion of the manuscript evaluation, the initial decision is based on one of the following cases:
- In case the article is rejected by two out of three appointed referees, the article will be excluded from the journal acceptance process and the author will be notified.
- In case of acceptance of the article by two referees, the article will be in the final acceptance stage.
- In case of requesting a major or minor revision of the article by the referees, the article will be returned to the authors for revision.
- If the referees didn’t assess the manuscript in due time or their referee was not in line with the promotion of the manuscript, new referee/referees will be assigned and the review process continues.
- Reviews will be assessed by Editor/AE and the initial decision will be made (one week).
- If the paper is not rejected, the referees’ comments will be sent to the authors.
- Providing a modified version of the article and reply to the comments of the referees by the authors (two weeks)
- In cases where the referees asked for a second round of review, the articles will be sent to the referee to evaluate the new version of the paper (10 days). Otherwise, the Editor and AE will adopt the revised version of the paper with the referees’ comments.
- If the article is rejected, the author will be notified and if accepted, it will proceed to the publication stages.
- Asking for the initial acceptance fee as announced on the journal site.
d) After Acceptance
Upon acceptance, the manuscript will be exported to Production to undergo typesetting. Once typesetting is complete, the authors will receive the final edition of the paper asking to confirm authors’ affiliation, contents as well as payment of any associated publication cost. Once the authors have completed this stage, the article will be processed for publishing and a volume and issues will be allocated to the paper and publish online.
The waiting time for publishing the papers depends on the number of accepted papers. However, the papers are available in the "Article in Press" section as soon as they are finally accepted. At this stage, each article will be assigned a DOI number.
After completing the articles in each volume, the article can be downloaded as a PDF file for free on the journal site.
