Peer Review Policy

Peer Review Process
All articles submitted to GDEB are initially assessed (in-house screening) by the Editor-in-chief for overall suitability for the journal. If an article is deemed suitable it is assigned to an Editorial Board Member (Section Editor) who scrutinizes the article even more closely and decides whether or not the article is suitable for peer review. Submissions considered suitable for peer review are assigned to one or more independent experts, who assess the article for clarity, validity, and sound methodology. 
If the section editor feels that the article is not yet ready for peer-review, (s)he sends it back to the Author to explain why the article is not ready and what might help it be more suitable for the journal. 

GDEB operates the peer review process which is expected to take a period of around 40 to 60 days. Reviewers are asked to provide formative feedback, even if an article is not deemed suitable for publication in the journal.
Reviewers will be asked to consider whether or not the submission is suitable for the GDEB audience.

Based on the reviewer's reports the section editor will make a recommendation for rejection, minor or major revisions, or acceptance. If major revisions are requested, then re-submitted files will be sent for the second round of review. Overall editorial responsibility rests with the journal’s Editor-in-Chief/ Managing Editor. Reviewers will make one of four recommendations:

  • Accept submission: no revisions are required other than those that would normally be carried out during the copy-editing/proof-reading process.
  • Revisions required: the submission would be acceptable for publication if minor revisions were made as outlined in your reviewers' comments. The editorial team will be responsible for checking that the revisions have been completed satisfactorily.
  • Resubmit for review: the submission is relevant for the GDEB audience and has the potential to be of publishable quality. It requires major revisions and should be resubmitted for review.
  • Decline submission: the submission is unfortunately not relevant to the GDEB audience.