Peer Review Policy
Most journals use peer review to aid decisions related to acceptance of a paper for publication. For authors planning to submit to peer-reviewed journals, HILL PUBLISHING GROUP INC offers an independent pre-submission review service.
This service should speed passage of the paper through the target journal’s peer review.
Editors-in-Chief may assess the quality of your research design and give practical suggestions for revisions of your study or report. Please contact our editorial office if you would request pre-submission review.
Editor Responsibilities
Publication Decisions & Accountability
The primary responsibility of an editor will be to edit manuscripts after they have been peer-reviewed. The editor will ensure that revisions have been completed if requested by peer reviewers. The editor will also make sure that manuscripts are grammatically correct, consistent in style, readable, free of plagiarism or other scientific misconduct, and must fulfill the license agreement and copyright transfer policies of HPG journals. The editor of a journal is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal should be published, and, moreover, is accountable for everything published in the journal. In making these decisions, the editor may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and/or the policies of the publisher, as well as, by the legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers when making publication decisions. The editor should maintain the integrity of the academic record, preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards, and always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
Fair Play
The editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the author(s).
Confidentiality
The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Disclosure, Conflicts of Interest, and Other Issues
The editor will be guided by COPE’s Guidelines for Retracting Articles when considering retracting, issuing expressions of concern about, and issuing corrections pertaining to articles that have been published in HPG journals.
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the explicit written consent of the author(s). Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
The editor is committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint, or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions.
The editor should seek so ensure a fair and appropriate peer-review process. The editor should recuse himself/herself from handling manuscripts (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor, or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. The editor should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.
To that end, it is essential that all who participate in producing the journal conduct themselves as authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers in accord with the highest level of professional ethics and standards.
Conflict of Interest
Reviewers and editors are required to declare any and all potential conflicts of interest. Please see our Reviewer Expectations for what constitutes a conflict of interest. If an author of a submission under consideration has a primary appointment at the editor-in-chief's institution, decisions regarding that submission will be made by the depty editor or an associate editor.