Peer Review Process.pdf
 

1. (Purpose) This process is aimed to stipulate the matters on peer review and acceptance for the research paper submitted to the “Clean Technology” (Journal) according to the 「Instructions to Authors」 of the Korean Society of Clean Technology (KSCT).
2. (Editor-in-Chief check) All submitted manuscripts should be checked that the manuscripts satisfy the mandatory items in Editorial Checklist by the Editor-in-Chief. And the submitted manuscripts should also be checked against potential similarities by using an appropriate database. If the similarity is greater than 30%, the manuscript should be checked by Editorial Committee or experts. If this stage is not passed, the manuscript may be rejected without being reviewed any further. The quality of the manuscript is not assessed at this point.
3. (Editor appointment) After the manuscript passes the Editor-in-Chief check, an editor should be appointed by the Editor-in-Chief. The editor take the manuscript through peer review process. However, letters to the editor or errata may be acceptable at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief without a review process or may require an erratum to be sent back to the original reviewers for comment. If the author of a paper is the Editor-in-Chief himself, another director on the editorial board shall appoint the editor. The editor is asked to evaluate the manuscript based on the editorial checklist. If not suitable, the editor may reject the manuscript without review process.
4. (Reviewers appointment) A minimum of two reviewers who have sufficient expertise on subject matter to do justice to the manuscript should be appointed by the editor. In, principle, reviewers from the same institute as the corresponding author(s) should be exclude but if the reviewer from the same institute needs to be appointed, an evaluation should be requested to 3 or more reviewers. The names of the reviewers are not revealed to the authors according to a single blind peer review policy. The reviewers will review the manuscript for originality and significance of the work described, and judge its acceptability for publications. The reviewers may also critical comments and, where necessary, suggest improvements or additional experiments that could be done in support of the findings.
5. (Review period) The reviewers should review the submitted manuscript within two weeks after being commissioned to conduct the review, and should send their opinions on the manuscript to the editor. An urgent submission should be reviewed within one week. If the appointed reviewers do not submit their opinions within three weeks after being commissioned, the review request can be rescinded.
6. (Editor decision) The editor should make the decision on the manuscript’s suitability for the Journal based on the Reviewers’ judgements within one week after receiving the opinion of the reviewers. The editor should notify the his/her decision to the author. If reviewers have added remarks for revision to the manuscript, the manuscript should be provided to the author. Review results shall be notified only to the authors but not made public.
7. (Decision categories) The editor must choose between the following decisions:
   • Accept
   • Minor revision
   • Major revision
   • Reject
   (1) Papers given an ‘accept’ decision are accepted without any revision.
   (2) Papers given a ‘minor revision’ decision can in principle be reviewed and accepted at the discretion of the editor after the author has made the specific revisions or supplementations requested by the reviewers. If judged necessary, the Editor-in-Chief can ask the reviewers to review the revised content.
   (3) Papers given a ‘major revision’ decision will be reviewed by the same reviewers after the author has made the specific revisions or supplementations requested by the reviewers.
   (4) Papers given a ‘reject’ decision is unsuitable for publication.
   (5) In the event that the reviewers are divided in their opinion; specifically, if one of the reviewers judges the paper as worthy of an ‘accept’ decision, while another reviewer judges it to be worthy of a ‘reject’ decision, a third reviewer will be asked to review the paper with the opinions of the two reviewers attached. In such case, the editor will make a decision on the publication of the manuscript according to the decision of the third reviewer. However, if it is still difficult to arrive at a final conclusion even after the additional review process, the Editor-in-Chief will summon the editorial board members or collect their opinions before he/she makes a final decision on its publication.
   (6) If one of the reviewers gives a ‘reject’ decision to the manuscript and the reason for rejection is serious in nature, the editor can decide to ‘reject’ the manuscript without an additional review.
   (7) If more than two of the reviews gives a ‘reject’ decision to the manuscript, the editor must make ‘reject’ decision.
8. (Appeals) Only the corresponding author may submit a formal appeal for rejected manuscripts within two weeks of rejection notification. Appeal requests must be made in writing to the Editor-in-Chief by email with the word “appeal” in the subject line. The author must provide detailed reasons for the appeal and point-by-point reponses to the reviewers’ and/or editor’s comments. Appeals based solely on differences of scientific opinion will nat be accepted. Appeals will only be considered when a reviewer or editor is thought to have made a significant factual error or when his/her objectivity is compromised by a documented competing interest, and when a reversal based on either of theses grounds would change the original decision. Decisions on appeals will be made by the Editorial Committee, and they are final without exception. If an appeal is accepted, the manuscript must be resubmitted within four weeks of appeal acceptance notification.
9. (English manuscript) If a manuscript has been written in English and is difficult to understand clearly due to grammatical complications, the Editor-in-Chief or the editor can ask the author to revise the manuscript or rewrite it in Korean.
10. (Revision period) If a manuscript has been judged by the reviewers to be in need of modification and the author does not submit the revised manuscript or request postponement within two months after receiving such notification, it will be assumed that the author does not intend to publish his or her paper in the Journal, and the manuscript may be rejected by abandoning revision.
11. (Reject without review) In any of the following circumstances, the manuscript may be rejected without being reviewed any further. The author should be informed of the specific basis for the ‘reject’ decision:
    (1) The submitted manuscript is judged to have been plagiarized, forged or falsified, or to be identical to another paper published in another academic journal.
    (2) The manuscript does not contain the author’s clear original facts or ideas, and even in the case of previously known facts contained in the manuscript, the author did not clearly review or analyze the content comprehensively from a unique perspective and viewpoint that differs from those presented in the quoted literature.
    (3) Other factors deemed to make the paper inappropriate to merit publication in Journal.
12. (Final decision) Acceptance of the submitted manuscripts is decided by the editor based on the results of reviewers and the Editor-in-Chief shall make final decision over publication unless there are particular reasons. However, the Editor-in-Chief may delegate the task to the associate editor or editorial board as occasion demands.
13. (Acceptance notification) When the manuscript is completely reviewed and expected to be published, the Editor-in-Chief shall notify the authors of paper publication within one week after the completion of review.