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Guidelines for Reviewers

Manuscripts submitted for publication in Bentham OPEN journals are subjected to double blind peer-review. The identities of both the reviewer and author are kept undisclosed to each other, ensuring anonymity and maintaining confidentiality throughout the entire review procedure. The anonymity of reviewers ensures an objective and unbiased assessment of the manuscript by the reviewers. Publishers recommend that reviewers review COPE Ethical Guidelines to provide quality unbiased review reports. Please read the complete guidelines at the Committee on Publication Ethics available at https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers.

Reviewers are advised to consider the following important aspects of a manuscript when conducting the review.

1. Reporting of Original Results

The results reported in the manuscript must be original and authentic work of the authors. They should be devoid of any plagiarism and the material should not have been published earlier. Studies which report some reproduced results, for example a new clinical trial, may also be considered for publication.

2. Experiments and Analyses

Experiments and other analyses should meet the recognized technical standards and must be described systematically. The research presented in a manuscript should facilitate in reaching accurate conclusions from the statistics. Methods and experiments as well as reagents should be documented in detail.

3. Interpretation of Results

Authors should present and interpret the results and conclusions in an appropriate and comprehensive manner, clearly explaining the results and outcomes of their study. Incomplete interpretation of results may result in rejection of the manuscript.

4. Language of Composition

The manuscript should be written in English in a clear, direct and active style, free from grammatical errors and other linguistic inconsistencies. All pages should be numbered sequentially, facilitating the reviewing and editing of the manuscript. Authors should seek professional assistance for correction of grammatical, scientific and typographical errors before submission of the revised version of the article for publication. Professional editing services may also be sought by the team available at Bentham Open at an extra charge.

5. Experiments involving Humans and Animals

The research must meet the highest applicable international standards of the ethics of experimentation and research integrity. A brief description on ethical guidelines is given in the ‘Instructions for Authors’ of every journal published by Bentham OPEN.

6. Reporting guidelines (e.g. CONSORT, MIAME, STROBE, EQUATOR) and Community Standards for Data

The manuscript should adhere to suitable reporting guidelines (e.g. CONSORT, MIAME, STROBE, EQUATOR) and community standards for data availability. Bentham OPEN seeks to disseminate research and therefore stipulates that the public deposition of data is as per the followed standards (for example gene sequences, microarray expression data, and structural studies). Other similar standards that may be applicable should also be followed.

Important Points To Consider

Reviewers are expected to provide advice on the following points in their review reports:

Is the manuscript written comprehensively enough to be understandable? If not, how could it be improved?
Have adequate proofs been provided for the declarations?
Have the authors addressed the previous findings fairly?
Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology to reproduce the experiments?
Bentham OPEN encourages authors to publish detailed protocols as supporting information online. Do any particular methods used in the manuscript warrant such a protocol?

Use of Generative AI and AI-assisted Technologies in the Peer Review Process

Since the use of AI technology has increased, it has brought its own challenges regarding the originality of the review of submitted manuscripts. Bentham Science has been striving to improve its policies accordingly. With time, we will continue to update our policies to support our reviewers, authors, and editors.

The quality of the peer review of submitted articles has been our top priority. The reviewers are advised not to use AI technologies or any other related assisting resources to generate review reports that could compromise the integrity and confidentiality of the reports.

Privacy Statement

The peer-review of a manuscript is a confidential process. Reviewers should keep the whole process completely confidential. They should consult the EiC/Senior Editor and obtain permission before consulting another colleague for help in the peer-review of the submitted manuscript.

Reviewers should not disclose any information whatsoever to anyone before publication of the manuscript.

Prompt Review

The reviewers should provide their reports in a timely fashion, since a prompt review leads to the timely publication of a manuscript. This is beneficial not only for the authors but for the scientific community as well.

Discount Offer

Reviewers who complete their reviews within the deadline will receive 100 points. Accumulated points can be used for purchasing any Bentham Science content or availing any other services offered within the next 12 months.

Reviewing Process Flow Chart

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Endorsements

"Open access will revolutionize 21st century knowledge work and accelerate the diffusion of ideas and evidence that support just in time learning and the evolution of thinking in a number of disciplines."
Daniel Pesut
(Indiana University School of Nursing, USA)

"It is important that students and researchers from all over the world can have easy access to relevant, high-standard and timely scientific information. This is exactly what Open Access Journals provide and this is the reason why I support this endeavor."
Jacques Descotes
(Centre Antipoison-Centre de Pharmacovigilance, France)

"Publishing research articles is the key for future scientific progress. Open Access publishing is therefore of utmost importance for wider dissemination of information, and will help serving the best interest of the scientific community."
Patrice Talaga
(UCB S.A., Belgium)

"Open access journals are a novel concept in the medical literature. They offer accessible information to a wide variety of individuals, including physicians, medical students, clinical investigators, and the general public. They are an outstanding source of medical and scientific information."
Jeffrey M. Weinberg
(St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, USA)

"Open access journals are extremely useful for graduate students, investigators and all other interested persons to read important scientific articles and subscribe scientific journals. Indeed, the research articles span a wide range of area and of high quality. This is specially a must for researchers belonging to institutions with limited library facility and funding to subscribe scientific journals."
Debomoy K. Lahiri
(Indiana University School of Medicine, USA)

"Open access journals represent a major break-through in publishing. They provide easy access to the latest research on a wide variety of issues. Relevant and timely articles are made available in a fraction of the time taken by more conventional publishers. Articles are of uniformly high quality and written by the world's leading authorities."
Robert Looney
(Naval Postgraduate School, USA)

"Open access journals have transformed the way scientific data is published and disseminated: particularly, whilst ensuring a high quality standard and transparency in the editorial process, they have increased the access to the scientific literature by those researchers that have limited library support or that are working on small budgets."
Richard Reithinger
(Westat, USA)

"Not only do open access journals greatly improve the access to high quality information for scientists in the developing world, it also provides extra exposure for our papers."
J. Ferwerda
(University of Oxford, UK)

"Open Access 'Chemistry' Journals allow the dissemination of knowledge at your finger tips without paying for the scientific content."
Sean L. Kitson
(Almac Sciences, Northern Ireland)

"In principle, all scientific journals should have open access, as should be science itself. Open access journals are very helpful for students, researchers and the general public including people from institutions which do not have library or cannot afford to subscribe scientific journals. The articles are high standard and cover a wide area."
Hubert Wolterbeek
(Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)

"The widest possible diffusion of information is critical for the advancement of science. In this perspective, open access journals are instrumental in fostering researches and achievements."
Alessandro Laviano
(Sapienza - University of Rome, Italy)

"Open access journals are very useful for all scientists as they can have quick information in the different fields of science."
Philippe Hernigou
(Paris University, France)

"There are many scientists who can not afford the rather expensive subscriptions to scientific journals. Open access journals offer a good alternative for free access to good quality scientific information."
Fidel Toldrá
(Instituto de Agroquimica y Tecnologia de Alimentos, Spain)

"Open access journals have become a fundamental tool for students, researchers, patients and the general public. Many people from institutions which do not have library or cannot afford to subscribe scientific journals benefit of them on a daily basis. The articles are among the best and cover most scientific areas."
M. Bendandi
(University Clinic of Navarre, Spain)

"These journals provide researchers with a platform for rapid, open access scientific communication. The articles are of high quality and broad scope."
Peter Chiba
(University of Vienna, Austria)

"Open access journals are probably one of the most important contributions to promote and diffuse science worldwide."
Jaime Sampaio
(University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal)

"Open access journals make up a new and rather revolutionary way to scientific publication. This option opens several quite interesting possibilities to disseminate openly and freely new knowledge and even to facilitate interpersonal communication among scientists."
Eduardo A. Castro
(INIFTA, Argentina)

"Open access journals are freely available online throughout the world, for you to read, download, copy, distribute, and use. The articles published in the open access journals are high quality and cover a wide range of fields."
Kenji Hashimoto
(Chiba University, Japan)

"Open Access journals offer an innovative and efficient way of publication for academics and professionals in a wide range of disciplines. The papers published are of high quality after rigorous peer review and they are Indexed in: major international databases. I read Open Access journals to keep abreast of the recent development in my field of study."
Daniel Shek
(Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

"It is a modern trend for publishers to establish open access journals. Researchers, faculty members, and students will be greatly benefited by the new journals of Bentham Science Publishers Ltd. in this category."
Jih Ru Hwu
(National Central University, Taiwan)