The peer-review process can be broadly summarized into 15 steps. To understand our overall peer-review process, we recommend that you take a closer look at the following:
The corresponding author submits the manuscript to the journal through the ScholarOne Manuscripts online system. Occasionally, journals may accept submissions by email.
The Editorial Office ensures that the author has followed the journal's instructions well and checks for plagiarism. At this point, the quality of the paper is not subject to evaluation.
The EiC verifies that the manuscript is suitable for the journal and that it is original and interesting enough. Otherwise, the EiC may reject the document without further review.
In particular, the manuscript should be included in the Aims and scope, reflect the latest references in the relevant field, and maintain good English quality.
The EiC assigns manuscripts to Managing Editors (ME) or Associate Editors (AE) to manage peer-reviews.
The handling editor invites or assigns reviews by checking the manuscript's subject and content and selecting reviewers for the field.
The reviewer invited or assigned to the review accepts or rejects the review after considering their expertise, conflicts of interest, and availability.
If the reviewer rejects the review, ME/AE finds another appropriate reviewer. Otherwise, the reviewer will review the manuscript carefully within the period allotted to them and submit it to the journal using the online system, including the results of his review and requests for modifications to the author.
ME/AE integrates the reviewers' reviews and reviews them as a whole, then communicates its opinion on revision, acceptance, and rejection of the manuscript to EiC.
EiC receives comprehensive comments on manuscript reviews from ME/AE and decides whether the manuscript should be revised, accepted, or rejected.
If EiC decides to reject, the peer-review process of the manuscript ends at this stage, and if the acceptance is determined, it moves on to the process of publishing the manuscript.
If the EiC decides to revise and review the manuscript again, it sends the review results to the corresponding author to modify the manuscript.
The author checks EiC, ME/AE, and reviewers' opinions and revises the manuscript to submit again to the ScholarOne Manuscripts online system.
The Editorial Office checks whether the English quality of the manuscript is appropriate for publication.
If English quality is good, the editorial office proceeds with the manuscript to the editing (Proofreading) stage. However, if not, the editorial office informs the author to improve the manuscript's English quality for publication and re-submit it.
The author chooses whether to improve the English quality by him/herself of the manuscript or request the Language and Editing service of the HCIS journal.
It is never necessary to use the HCIS journal's Language and Editing Service for publication. However, if the author has self-improved English quality and re-submitted it, and it is judged that the level is not appropriate for publication, the editorial office will once again ask the author to do this work. And if this is repeated one more time, the manuscript will be rejected.
The editorial office checks once again whether the structure of the manuscript and the various formats are suitable for publication and whether the meaning of the author's content is unclear. If there is anything wrong or unclear, ask the author to confirm it.
The author checks what the editorial office has requested and feeds back.
The editorial office changes the format of the manuscript for publication.
The editorial office publishes the article online as open-access.