Guidelines for reviewers
The following Guidelines were created according to the recommendations of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and strive for the journal to present the reviews as much as possible in international scientometric databases. The reviewer must be well-intentioned, exact, objective and critical in their work of evaluating the manuscript given to them for review, as well as adhere to the accepted practices and standards for ethical behaviour.
The scientific articles, overview articles and short scientific communications which adhere to the Guidelines of the Natural Science
and Advanced Technology Education journal go through a procedure of dual-anonymous reviewing by independent experts (hereafter called reviewers). In certain cases, such as when the manuscript is with an interdisciplinary focus, the Editorial Board may call in additional reviewers.
The decision for publication or rejection of the manuscript is based on the reviewers’ recommendation. Should the two reviewers’ opinions differ, a super-reviewer is appointed and their recommendation is taken as final. A publication does not necessarily signify the Editorial Board’s agreement with the reviewers’ positions.
Reviewing procedure
The choice of the two reviewers is based on their area of expertise and scientific competence. A minimal condition for an expert to be called upon as a reviewer is the possession of a doctorate degree.
Reviewers must have personal author’s profiles in Scopus, Web of Science or ORCID.
Reviewers agree to adhere to the privacy of the process of reviewing, not to distribute the manuscript received, as well as to follow the guidelines and ethical principles of reviewing scientific texts. Any violation will be considered a refusal of collaboration between the author and the publication in the future. Reviewers agree for their review to be presented/verified in the scientometric database WoS. The Editorial Board commits to keeping the secret of the review by not publicly sharing in such databases the text of the review as well as details related to the article under review. In the reviewer’s profile only the number of verified reviews for the journal is mentioned. That’s a meter for, and recognition in front of the scientific community of, the work that the reviewer has done.
Preparing the review
1) The reviewer receives an email with an invite to review, which can be accepted or rejected. To do this, the reviewer must click on the link received in the email or enter their profile in the platform ScholarOne.
2) In the received manuscript the names, addresses and affiliations of the authors have been redacted. After reading and analysing the text, as well as consulting as needed, the reviewer, following the Guidelines, fills in the online review form on ScholarOne.
3) The online review form can be filled out in either Bulgarian or English, depending on the original language of the manuscript. If they should want to, the reviewer may use the attached example review form, available in Bulgarian. The downloaded form is filled out, after which it must be attached to the online form (marking the "Editor only" field is obligatory) and the necessary information is entered in the compulsory fields (marked with *).
4) The reviewer gives recommendations to the author of the manuscript concerning any needed reworks; any noticed weaknesses, discrepancies and factual errors, as well as incorrectly cited sources must be pointed out. The style of the authors of the manuscripts’ exposition should also be an object of the reviewer’s work.
5) The review is considered accepted if the reviewer has received an official letter of thanks from the Editorial Board. Such a letter should be received within a month of the date of sending in the review. A review which does not adhere to the accepted academic standards for scientific peer review shall be rejected and the expert shall not receive an official letter of thanks. The journal does not commit to informing reviewers that their review has been rejected.
6) After receiving a letter of thanks from the Editorial Board, the reviewer may enter their WoS profile and through the Add Peer Review option, following the instructions of the platform, may verify their review, using the aforementioned letter of thanks as well. The journal’s policy is to reward the reviewers who verify the approved reviews in WoS in a timely manner. Verification is an objective criterium for a successfully completed peer review procedure and it boosts the prestige of not only the journal, but also of the reviewer and of their scientific organisation.
Additional information, as well as useful educational materials can be found at the following websites:
