Blue Nile Journal of Agricultural Research

Guidelines for Editors and Reviewers

Guidelines for Editors

The Editorial Board consists of international experts in their fields. All members of the Board occupy the positions in educational and research institutions. Being an editor, he/she should carry out their responsibilities with much dedication to improve the quality of the journal. It is advisable to oversee the journal policies time to time and assisting the publisher in maintaining the journal’s quality towards serving the scientific community. The roles of the Editorial Board members are the following:

• Provide expertise in definite research field;
• Advise on journal policy and scope and participate in the journal development;
• Propose subject definition and conference choice for special issues. Also, editorial members may be guest editors of special issue;
• Promote the journal at conferences, seminars, workshops, and relevant public events;
• attract new potential authors;
• Improve the ways of journal processes, the editor should actively seek the views of editorial board members, reviewers, authors;
• Encourage research into peer review, technological advances and reassess journal processes in the light of new discoveries
• Encourage initiatives designed to prevent research misconduct and educate researchers about publication ethics
• Encourages submission of quality articles to the journal by personally recruiting authors
• Ensures feedback provided to authors is constructive, fair, and timely
• Should determine whether a submitted manuscript is appropriate for the journal
• Article submitted for peer review is a privileged communication that should be treated in confidence, taking care to guard the author's identity and work
• Recruit high profile reviewers using multiple sources, e.g., personal recommendations, Web databases, published choice review
• Monitor the process of peer review and take steps to ensure this is of high standard
• Communicate with reviewers as regularly as possible, according to their availability and give them clear instructions in maintaining quality of the journal
• Avoid conflicts of interest when making assignments. Check whether reviewer has history of conflict with author
• Should encourage reviewers to comment on ethical questions and possible research and publication misconduct raised by submissions (e.g. unethical research design, inappropriate data manipulation and presentation)
• Ethical Guidelines: Expectations for ethical behavior from authors, reviewers, and editors. This could cover issues like plagiarism, data manipulation, conflict of interest, and proper citation practices.
• Editorial Decision Criteria: Criteria that editors use to make decisions about whether to accept, revise, or reject manuscripts. This can include factors like originality, significance, methodology, and relevance to the journal's focus.
• Quality Control: Editors should ensure that the journal's production process is of high quality and meets the standards set by the publisher. Editors should work with the publisher to ensure that the journal is produced in a timely and cost-effective manner.
• Continuous Improvement
: Editors should strive to continuously improve the journal's quality and impact by soliciting feedback from authors, reviewers, and readers, and by regularly reviewing and updating the journal's policies and guidelines.
• Timely Processing: Editors should strive to process manuscripts promptly and efficiently, and keep authors informed about the status of their submissions. Authors should receive timely and constructive feedback on their manuscripts.
• Ensure to rewrite content when required. (Typographical errors, incorrect line or page breaks, Spelling errors, Errors in grammar and syntax, Errors in word usage, graphs, the styling of tables, and other art, including their labels, captions, and text mentions, Ambiguous vocabulary and syntax)
• Should communicate directly with the author and the review team
• Recommend acceptance or rejection of the articles considered for publication to the journal Editor
• Should be able to resolve any conflicts

Guest editors play a vital role in ensuring the quality of special content publications, such as Special Issues. Guest editors overlook the process, from proposal to publication. The Editorial Board is reviewed every two years, which means exclusion of inactive members and addition of the new ones.

We appreciate applications from the editorial candidates. To submit an application, please send an e-mail to a Managing Editor of the BNJAR and attach a file with your CV (containing the current place of work, occupation, education, the scope of your scientific interest, types of activity, list of publications, list of the journals in which you occupy the positions of an editor or a reviewer, e-mail for contact and a link to personal page at you university).

Duties of editors

The editors of the BNJAR journal are responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal will be published. The editor may confer with the members of the Editorial Board in making this decision.

Fair play. The editors evaluate manuscripts without regard to the nature of the authors or the host institution including race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality. The editors, members of the Editorial Boards, and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone except the authors of the paper, reviewers, potential reviewers, and the publisher, for appropriate reasons.

Disclosure. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper should not be used in the own research of the editors or the members of the Editorial Board without the express written consent of the author.

Guidelines for Reviewers

Blue Nile Journal of Agricultural Research (BNJAR) clearly understands the importance of an effective peer review process when authors choose to submit their manuscripts to our journal. We try hard to establish and sustain peer-review integrity on every step and a vital part of this means ensuring that reviewers have the appropriate resources to carry out their work as efficiently and effectively as possible. The reviewing process varies from journal to journal, but this guide serves as an overview of what’s involved when becoming a reviewer with BNJAR.

We strongly recommend that our reviewers are familiar with and follow COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. Potential reviewers should provide personal and professional information that is accurate and a fair representation of their expertise, including verifiable and accurate contact information. During the peer review process, Referee Report preparation, and after reviewing we expect from our reviewers following:

1. Confidentiality
• In order to maintain the integrity of the review process, the reviewers shouldn't discuss the reviewed manuscript with anyone without specific permission from the Editor.
• The reviewers are welcome to solicit input from one or two colleagues in performing the review, but this should only be done with explicit permission from the Editor. In addition, colleagues’ (with names and affiliations) involvement should be mentioned in the Comments to Editors section of the Referee Report.
• The reviewers shouldn’t copy, disseminate, or share information, concerning the manuscript for any purpose (including advancement of their own research).
• If any clarifications from the author/authors are needed, they should be included into the Comments section of the Referee Report.


2. Standards of objectivity
• Reviewers should be objective while conducting reviews. All the comments and recommendations should be supported with relevant arguments.
3. Timeliness
• It is necessary to respond to an invitation to peer review within a reasonable time-frame.
• If the reviewers feel qualified to assess a particular manuscript, they should agree to review only in case of possibility to return a review within the proposed or mutually agreed time-frame.
• The reviews should be completed by the deadline indicated in invitation. If any difficulties arise that may prevent from submitting the Referee Report in time, the reviewers are obliged to contact the Handling Editor immediately.


4. Competing interests
• It is important to remain unbiased by considerations related to the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender and/or other characteristics of the authors, origin of a manuscript or by commercial considerations.
• We kindly ask our reviewers to reveal any potential competing interest that may bias the review of the submitted manuscript (including any financial interest in the publication or non-publication of the manuscript; a recent or ongoing collaboration with the authors; a history of dispute with the authors).
• If the reviewer is currently employed at the same institution as any of the authors or has been recent (e.g., within the past 3 years) mentors, mentees, close collaborators or joint grant holders, the invitation of the manuscript reviewing should be rejected.
• The reviewers should not agree to review a manuscript just to gain sight of it with no real intention of submitting a Referee Report.
• The reviewers are not precluded from reviewing the manuscript because of previously reviewing a version of it for another journal. However, this should be noted in the Comments to Editors section.