Peer Reviewer Ethics Policy

The reviewer’s role

A reviewer advises the handling editor. They assess whether the work is sound, whether the conclusions follow from the evidence, and what would need to change for the manuscript to be publishable. They do not decide the outcome — that rests with the editor under the peer review policy.

The obligations below apply from the moment an invitation arrives, and continue indefinitely after the review is submitted. Accepting an invitation is acceptance of them.

Accepting or declining

Decline promptly rather than accepting and hoping. A declined invitation costs the author a day; an accepted one that goes unanswered costs them a month. Decline where:

• You lack the expertise. Reviewing outside your competence produces advice the editor cannot use. Where you can assess part of the manuscript — the method but not the theory — accept and say so, so the editor can find a second reviewer for the rest.
• You have a competing interest. Co-authorship, shared institution or supervision within three years, a personal or financial relationship, or a competing manuscript of your own on the same question. The full list is in the conflict of interest policy.
• You cannot meet the deadline. If you can review but need longer, say so at the invitation and the editor will decide.

A reviewer who has agreed and then cannot complete the review must tell the editorial office as soon as they know, so the manuscript can be reassigned rather than sitting idle.

Delegation is not permitted without the editor’s prior agreement. Where you would like a graduate student or colleague to co-review as training, ask first; if agreed, name them in the report so their contribution is recorded and the same obligations bind them.

Confidentiality

A manuscript under review is a confidential document belonging to its authors. As a reviewer you may not:

• Show it to, or discuss it with, anyone other than the handling editor — including colleagues and students — without prior permission;
• Cite it, quote it, or refer to its findings in your own work or in conversation;
• Use anything you learn from it to advance your own research, secure funding, or gain any other benefit before it is published;
• Contact the authors about it, directly or indirectly, at any point;
• Retain a copy after submitting your report — delete the files.

Confidentiality does not lapse when the review is submitted, when the manuscript is rejected, or with the passage of time. A manuscript rejected here may be under review elsewhere.

Generative AI

Do not enter any part of a manuscript, or your report on it, into a generative AI service. This includes chat assistants, summarisers, translation services and writing tools that transmit text to a third party.

Doing so uploads confidential unpublished work to an external company, outside the authors’ control and potentially into training data. The journal treats it as a breach of confidentiality regardless of intent, and regardless of whether the tool claims not to retain input.

The judgement in a review must also be the reviewer’s own. A report generated by an AI tool is worthless to the editor, who needs a specialist’s assessment rather than plausible text. Where a review appears to have been produced this way, it is discarded and the reviewer is not invited again. The broader position is set out in the AI-assisted writing policy.

Conducting the review

Reviewers are expected to:

• Assess what was written, not the paper you would have written. A study answering a question differently from how you would have answered it is not thereby flawed.
• Support every criticism with a reason, and where possible with a specific location in the text. “The method is inadequate” is not usable; naming what is missing is.
• Separate the essential from the optional. State clearly which comments must be addressed for publication and which are suggestions the author may take or leave. Authors and editors both rely on this distinction.
• Note strengths as well as weaknesses, so the editor can weigh the report rather than reading a list of faults.
• Recommend citations sparingly and honestly. Suggest a reference only where it is genuinely needed for the argument. Asking an author to cite your own work in order to raise your citation count is citation manipulation and is treated as misconduct.

Tone and criticism

Criticise the work, never the author. Anonymity is not licence for remarks a reviewer would not sign their name to.

Comments about an author’s competence, nationality, institution, gender or command of English are removed by the handling editor before the report reaches the author. Where language genuinely obstructs understanding, say which passages are unclear and recommend language editing — that is a usable comment; a remark about the author’s English is not.

The journal publishes work from institutions with uneven access to research infrastructure. A reviewer who takes account of what was achievable in the setting, while holding the analysis to the same standard, is doing the job well.

Anonymity

Review is double-blind. Reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors — by searching distinctive phrases, checking preprint servers, or examining file metadata — and must not sign their reports or include anything in them that reveals who they are.

Where you recognise the authorship despite the anonymisation, tell the handling editor. If a competing interest follows from it, stop and withdraw. If none does, the editor will decide whether you should continue.

Reviewers must not reveal their role to the authors after publication, and must not use it as leverage in any subsequent dealing with them.

Suspected misconduct

A reviewer who suspects plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated data, manipulated images or an undisclosed ethics problem should report it to the handling editor with the specific evidence — the overlapping source, the inconsistent figure, the passage in question.

Do not contact the authors, and do not investigate independently. The editor follows the procedure in the publication ethics policy, which gives the authors a fair opportunity to respond. Raising a concern in good faith is protected; the reviewer’s identity is not disclosed to the authors even where the concern is not upheld.

Reviewer misconduct

The journal treats the following as reviewer misconduct and acts on it under the publication ethics policy.

Depending on severity, the journal discards the report and re-reviews the manuscript, removes the reviewer from its database, and where the conduct is serious informs their institution.

Recognition

Reviewing is unpaid work the scholarly record depends on. The journal acknowledges it by publishing an annual list of the reviewers who served during that year, with their consent and without linking any reviewer to any manuscript. Reviewers may also request a confirmation letter for their institution at any time.

Questions about a review in progress should go to the handling editor through the editorial office at ceoborjss@gmail.com. Practical guidance on writing the report itself is in the reviewer guidelines.