Review Policy

DOUBLE-BLIND PEER REVIEW

JDS has adopted a double blind reviewing policy, where both the referee and author remain anonymous throughout the process. Please remove all identifying features from the main document itself, ensuring that Authors' identity is not revealed. However, this does not preclude Authors from citing their own works. However, Authors must cite their works in a manner that does not make explicit their identity.

Acceptable: "Lee (2013) has indicated that . . ."

Acceptable: "Some scholars have indicated that . . . (e.g., Lee, 2013; Youn &Lee, 2018)"

To facilitate the double-blind policy, please include the following separately:

Title page (with author details): This should include the title, authors' names, affiliations, acknowledgements and any Declaration of Interest statement, and a complete address for the corresponding author including an e-mail address.

Main document (without author details): The main body of the paper (including the references, figures, tables and any acknowledgements) should not include any identifying information, such as the authors' names or affiliations.

All contributions will be initially assessed by the Editor-in-Chief for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor-in-Chief's decision is final.

THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS
The peer review process can be broadly summarized into 8 steps, as shown below.

1. Submission of Paper
The corresponding or submitting author submits the paper to the journal, through the online submission platform.

2. Editorial Office Assessment
The journal checks the paper’s composition and arrangement against the journal’s Author Guidelines to make sure it includes the required sections and stylizations. The quality of the paper is not assessed at this point.

3. Appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief
The Editor-in-Chief checks that the paper is appropriate for the journal and is sufficiently original and interesting. If not, the paper may be rejected without being reviewed any further.

4. Invitation to Reviewers
The Editor-in-Chief sends invitations to individuals he or she believes would be appropriate reviewers. As responses are received, further invitations are issued, if necessary, until the required number of acceptances is obtained – commonly this is 3, but there is some variation between journals.

5. Review is Conducted
The reviewer sets time aside to read the paper several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewer may feel comfortable rejecting the paper without further work. Otherwise they will read the paper several more times, taking notes so as to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal, with a recommendation to accept or reject it – or else with a request for revision (usually flagged as either major or minor) before it is reconsidered.

6. Journal Evaluates the Reviews
The Editor-in-Chief considers all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the reviews differ widely, the Editor-in-Chief may invite an additional reviewer so as to get an extra opinion before making a decision.

7. The Decision is Communicated
The Editor-in-Chief sends a decision email to the author including any relevant reviewer comments. Whether the comments are anonymous or not will depend on the type of peer review that the journal operates.

8. Last Steps
If accepted, the paper is sent to production. If the article is rejected or sent back for either major or minor revision, the Editor-in-Chief may include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. At this point, reviewers should also be sent an email or letter letting them know the outcome of their review. If the paper was sent back for revision, the reviewers should expect to receive a new version, unless they have opted out of further participation. However, where only minor changes were requested this follow-up review might be done by the Editor-in-Chief.

FINAL CHECK-LIST BEFORE SUBMISSION
Please ensure that:

Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'

Note that submitted manuscripts will not go through language-focused copy editing with the journal prior to or after acceptance; language-focused copy editing is the responsibility of the authors prior to submission

Please prepare the manuscript for blind review; whenever possible, please use author names and references for self-citations but make sure that you use third person to discuss the work (see “Review Policy” above)

All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa

Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)

A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare

Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed\

Submission Declaration
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder. In instances where authors prepare multiple submissions using the same dataset or sue partially overlapping variables in two or more articles, this needs to be declared upfront in the letter to the editor. Masked reference(s) to previous studies based on the same dataset need to be included in the manuscript itself so the reader can understand the novelty of new study in relation to the previous articles. Please consult the APA-manual on piecemeal publications. In cases where the manuscript is part of a larger project (e.g., prospective longitudinal study, an intervention study with numerous arms, etc.) in which other partly overlapping publications already exist, or are planned in parallel to the submitted manuscript, need to be declared in the accompanying letter to the Editor-in-Chief. Authors are asked to be upfront declaring such manuscripts. A manuscript may be returned if the degree of overlap is found to be too large.