The Process

Journal authors belong to a community of professional interest and concern and on this basis are asked to provide critical and constructive feedback on the work of their peers. People who submit an article to the journal are requested to referee up to three other submitted articles over a 12-month period. These articles may come from the current or subsequent volumes of the journal. Once assigned to an article, referees are requested to complete reports within two weeks.

All editors are credited as Associate Editors in the volume of the journal to which they contribute.

The refereeing process for the journal can be either ‘double blind‘ (article submitted at least three months before the conference, which means the author/s needs to have a finalized, fully publishable article well before the conference) or ‘one-way blind’ (article submitted up to one month after the conference, which gives the author the chance to refine their article in light of the comments they received after their presentation). ‘Double blind’ means that the author and the referee do not know each other’s identity. ‘One-way blind’ means that the referee could potentially know the identity of the author, although the referee’s identity remains confidential. ‘Double blind’ refereeing cannot be guaranteed later than three months before the conference because it is possible to locate the title and author in the conference program.

If the outcome of the referee process is a recommendation that the article should not be published, we provide the author the opportunity to rewrite and resubmit their article to different referees.

Articles will be assessed by referees against five criteria—or fewer, if some criteria do not apply to a particular kind of article.
A sample copy of the referee form can be downloaded here. 

Peer Review Guidelines

Referees are requested to observe the following guidelines:

1. Feedback: The main focus of your report should be constructive comments that will assist the author as they rewrite their article.  Your suggestions and feedback are valuable, even for the very best of articles and when you recommend publication. In the case that articles you are recommending should be rejected, it is particularly important that you make suggestions about how this article might be rewritten or a different kind of article addressing similar themes might be written for resubmission to this or a different journal. All comments should be constructively directed, advising the author of next steps.

2. Expertise: Articles are not always sent to a reviewer whose field is identical to the subject matter of that article. You don’t have to be precisely qualified in a field to be a constructive reviewer. In fact, an excellent article will speak beyond its narrowly defined field. If, however, an article is so distant from your field that you do not feel qualified to judge its merits, please notify the publishing manager for the journal, who will locate another reviewer.

3. Confidentiality: Reviewers receive unpublished work, which must be treated as confidential until published. They should destroy all electronic or printed copies of the draft article and review report only after they have received confirmation that their reports have been received by the Managing Editor (in case we can’t open the report files you send us). Reviewers must not disclose to others which articles they have reviewed; nor are they to share those articles with any other person until published, and then only in the final published version.

4. Conflict of Interest: Reviewers must declare conflicts of interest or any other factor which may affect the independence of their review—when for instance, they know the identity of the author or where they have received an article representing a position they oppose vehemently. In cases of conflict of interest, please notify the publishing manager of your inability to review a particular article.

5. Intellectual Merit: An article must be judged on its intellectual merits alone. Personal criticism or criticism based solely on the political or social views of the reviewer, is not acceptable. Critical or negative judgments must be fully supported by detailed reference to evidence from the article under review or other relevant sources.

6. Plagiarism and Copyright: If a reviewer considers that an article may contain plagiarized material or that it might breach another party’s copyright, they should notify the publishing department for the journal, providing the relevant links or references to support their claim.

7. Deadline: Reviewers are asked to return their reports within two weeks. This assists us to provide rapid feedback to the author. If you are unable to meet this deadline, please contact us immediately on receipt of the article for review.

Publication Decision

The refereeing process will result in one of three possible publication recommendations: acceptance for publication in the journal; acceptance pending revisions and the submission of a change note; or rejection.

If your article is recommended for acceptance, you will have two weeks to submit a final version of your work for typesetting. If your article is accepted with revisions, we ask that you use the change note to respond to referee critiques and detail the changes you have made to your article. This change note should then be included as the first page of your revised article submission. In some circumstances we may return the change note to reviewers. Please note, per Common Ground’s Publishing Agreement, whether your article is recommended for acceptance or acceptance pending revisions, the final publication decision will be reached only after a review of the final submission of your article.

If your article is rejected, you may resubmit a revised version with a change note for review by new referees. Articles that referees reject may only be resubmitted once.

If referees recommend that you have your article edited, you may choose to use Common Ground’s editing services. 

Typesetting

Once you have accepted the publishing agreement, you will be prompted to upload your final submission. This submission is the version of your article that will be typeset. Your final submission must be formatted according to Common Ground’s Journal Article Template. Your article will not be typeset until it has been properly formatted. It is important that you thoroughly proofread and edit the final version of your article before uploading it to CGPublisher.

You will be notified when a typeset proof is available for your review. At that time, you will have the opportunity to request revisions. In order to expedite publication, the proof review process is limited to two rounds of revision. Your article will be published only after accepting the typeset proof.