Editorial Process

Editorial Process

Gastronary operates a rigorous and transparent peer-review process that aims to maximize quality. Peer review is handled by researchers and scholars.

We believe that peer review needs to be efficient, rigorous, and fair for everyone involved.

In most Gastronary journals, peer review is a single-blind assessment with at least one independent reviewer, followed by a final acceptance/rejection decision by the Editor-in-Chief or another academic editor approved by the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the academic quality of the publication process, including acceptance decisions, approval of Guest Editors and Special Issue topics, and appointing new Editorial Board members.

A summary of the editorial process is given in the flowchart below.

The following provides notes on each step.

 Pre-check

Immediately after submission, the journal’s Managing Editor will perform an initial check to assess:

Overall suitability of the manuscript to the journal/section/Special Issue;

Manuscript adherence to high-quality research and ethical standards;

Standards of rigour to qualify for further review.

The academic editor, i.e., the Editor-in-Chief in the case of regular submissions, or the Guest Editor in the case of Special Issue submissions, or an Editorial Board member in case of a conflict of interest and of regular submissions if the Editor-in-Chief allows, will be notified of the submission and invited to perform a check and recommend reviewers. Academic editors can decide to continue with the peer-review process, reject a manuscript, or request revisions before peer-review.

Guest Editors of Special Issues cannot make decisions regarding their own manuscripts submitted to their Special Issue, as this would constitute a conflict of interest. An Editorial Board member will instead be responsible for decision-making. The Guest Editor will be unable to access the review process except in their role as author. Similarly, Editors-in-Chief or other Editorial Board members are not able to access the review process of their manuscripts except in their role as authors.

 

Peer-review

From submission to final decision or publication, one dedicated Gastronary staff member coordinates the review process and serves as the main point of contact for authors, academic editors and reviewers.

The process is single-blind for most journals, meaning that the author does not know the identity of the reviewer, but the reviewer knows the identity of the author. Gastronary journals operate single-blind peer-review, where in addition to the author not knowing the identity of the reviewer, the reviewer is know of the author’s identity.

At least one review report is collected for each submitted article. Suggestions of reviewers can be made by the academic editor during pre-check. Alternatively, Gastronary's editorial staff will use qualified editorial board members, qualified reviewers from our database, or new reviewers identified by web searches for related articles.

Authors can recommend potential reviewers. Gastronary staff ensure that there are no potential conflicts of interest and will not consider those with competing interests. Authors can also enter the names of potential peer-reviewers they wish to exclude from consideration in the peer-review of their manuscript during the initial submission of the manuscript. The editorial team will respect these requests as long as they do not interfere with the objective and thorough assessment of the submission.

Reviewers could apply to review a submitted manuscript should the authors agree with this option during submission.

The following checks are applied to all reviewers:

1. That they hold no conflicts of interest with the authors, including if they have published together in the last five years;
2. That they hold a master or Ph.D
3. They must have recent publications in the field of the submitted paper;
4. They have not recently been invited to review a manuscript for any Gastronary journal.

Reviewers who accept to review a manuscript are expected to:

1. Have the necessary expertise to judge manuscript quality;
2. Provide quality review reports and remain responsive throughout peer review;
3. Maintain standards of professionalism and ethics.
4. Reviewers who accept a review invitation are provided 7–10 days to write their review via our online platform, SuSy. Extensions can be granted on request.
5. Reviewers are asked to provide their report within three days to review a revised manuscript. Extensions can also be granted on request.
6. To assist academic editors, Gastronary staff handle all communication with reviewers, authors, and the external editor. Academic editors can check the status of manuscripts and the identity of reviewers at any time and are able to discuss manuscript review at any stage with MDPI staff.

 

Open Peer - Review Option

Gastronary operates an open peer-review option, meaning that the authors have the option to publish the review reports and author responses with the published paper (often referred to as open reports). In addition, reviewers may choose to sign their reports if the review is published, in which case the reviewer's name appears on the review report (referred to as open identity). The default option is for reviewers to remain anonymous and for reports not to be published. Reviewers and authors, respectively, must opt into this option. If an article is rejected, no details will be published. Open peer review has the benefit of increasing transparency about the review process and providing further information about the paper for interested readers. We encourage authors to choose open reviews.

 

Revision

In cases where only minor or major revisions are recommended, Gastronary staff will request that the author revise the paper before referring it to the academic editor. In cases of conflicting review reports or where there are one or more recommendations for rejection, the academic editor will be requested for their judgement before a decision about revisions is communicated to authors.

Revised versions of manuscripts may or may not be sent to reviewers, depending on whether the reviewer requested to see the revised version. By default, reviewers who request major revisions or recommend rejection will be sent the revised manuscript. All reviewers can access the most recent version of the manuscript via their account in open journal systems (OJS).

A maximum of two rounds of major revision per manuscript is normally provided. If more rounds are required, according to the reviewers, the Gastronary staff request a decision from the academic editor.

 

Editor Decision

The academic editor can make Acceptance decisions on manuscripts after peer review once a minimum of two review reports have been received. Acceptance decisions are taken by an academic editor (the Editor-in-Chief, a Guest Editor, or another suitable Editorial Board member). Guest Editors are not able to make decisions on their own papers, which will instead be assigned to a suitable Editorial Board member. When making a decision, we expect that the academic editor checks the following:

The suitability of selected reviewers;

Adequacy of reviewer comments and author response;

Overall scientific quality of the paper.

The academic editor can select from the following options: Accept in current form, accept with minor revisions, reject and decline resubmission, reject but encourage resubmission, ask the author for revision, or ask for an additional reviewer.

Reviewers make recommendations, and the Editors-in-Chief or academic editors are free to disagree with their views. If they do so, they should justify their decision for the benefit of the authors and reviewers.

In some instances, an academic editor supports a decision of manuscript acceptance despite a reviewer's recommendation to reject it. Gastronary staff will seek a second independent opinion from an Editorial Board member or the Editor-in-Chief before communicating a final decision to the authors.

Articles can only be accepted for publication by an academic editor. Employed Gastronary staff, then informed authors. Gastronary staff never make acceptance decisions on papers.

Gastronary staff or Editorial Board members (including Editors-in-Chief) are not involved in the processing of their own academic work. Their submissions are assigned and revised by at least two independent reviewers. Decisions are made by other Editorial Board members who do not have a conflict of interest with the authors.

We aim to publish all manuscripts that are scientifically correct and do not artificially increase journal rejection rates, allowing the reader community at large to define impact.

 

Production

Gastronary teams perform production on all manuscripts, including language editing and copy editing. Language editing is carried out by professional English editing staff. In the small number of cases where extensive editing or formatting is required, we offer authors an English editing service for an additional fee (with authors’ prior approval).