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.

SUBMISSION-REVIEW-ACCEPTANCE-PRODUCTION-PUBLICATION-INDEXING PROCESS

Step 1: Editor’s Decision on the Manuscript Submitted
Submission Consent Form, APC agreement, APA style format, Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice, and CrossCheck screening. The iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Authors can be assured that JDS is committed to actively combating plagiarism and publishing original research.

[Editorial Board and Selection Policy: Please note that Editorial Board of JDS will be very selective, accepting only the articles on the basis of scholarly merit, research significance, research integrity and compliance with the journal style guidelines (APA). JDS and Editorial Board respect and promote all authors and contributors on the basis of research ability and experience without considering race, citizenship, or any of narrow frames of reference.]

Step 2: Double-Blinded Peer-Review
If the manuscript successfully passes the requirements of submission and the first round of screening and plagiarism checking, then the paper goes to external reviewers, which will take another 2 to 8 weeks.

Step 3: Decision Completed

Decision is made based on the reviewer’s recommendation – Reject, Major Revision, Minor Revision, Accept.  

Step 4: Selection for the Month – Editor-In-Chief’s Final Review
All accepted articles will go through another selection process every month as JDS publishes about 12 articles each month. The selection process examines the quality of article and its suitability to the monthly topic. Please note that the publication may be sent for the revision or cancelled for publication if EIC decided that the article is not written aligned with aims and scope of JDS.

Due to the limited number of manuscript that can be published each month the waiting may take up to 6 months. 

Step 5: Manuscript Proof and Payment for the Publication Fee

An email will be sent out to the author of selected manuscript in the Step 4. The email will contain the proof of manuscript and the payment guideline for publication fee.

Any errors, author’s information, citations, references, tables, figures, heading, subheadings and etc will be double-checked and the editor may request the author to revise manuscript once again. The manuscript must be proofread by a native English speaker.

The email address that is written in the author’s information on the first page of manuscript will be primarily used and the publication will be cancelled if there is no response from the author for the reasonable time. 

[Important: Payment made before this stage does not give any credit toward its acceptance for publication.]

Step 6: Production
The paid manuscript will be sent to the professional printing editor for formatting.

Step 7: Final Confirmation from the Author

An email containing the final print version of manuscript will be sent to the author for the confirmation. If there is no response from the author within 24 hours from the time the email was sent the manuscript will be published as it was sent in the email. Please note that this is the final opportunity for the author to make change and any correction after the deadline may incur extra fee.

Step 8: Indexing on Web of Science and Scopus

This process may take up to another 2 to 8 weeks. These steps can vary slightly between indexing agencies.

Overall, it takes at least 2 to 10 weeks from submission to acceptance. In addition, it takes at least another 4 to 10 weeks from APC payment to online DOI publication. Then, it takes at least another 4 to 10 weeks from online DOI publication to having indexed on Web of Science and Scopus. For example, due to an increasing number of submissions since 2018 and a limit of publication space in each journal, the average overall time from submission to publication and print from now on takes 3-6 months.