Acadlore attaches great importance to peer review, which is crucial to the quality of the manuscript. All manuscripts submitted to our journals are peer-reviewed by experts strictly and thoroughly. To ensure the rigor, fairness, and effectiveness of peer review, our peer reviewers are expected to familiarize themselves with the best practices of peer review, and with the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.We welcome the reporting of any sign of manipulated peer review to info@acadlore.com.

Upon submission, a manuscript will be assessed preliminary by a professional in-house editor of the corresponding journal. Once an article passes the initial assessment, our professional in-house editor will invite at least two independent reviewers, who are preferably experts in the relevant fields. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered. The peer review will be double blind, where the authors and reviewers do not know the identities of each other. Before the final decision is made by our academic editor, the authors may need to make major revisions with a second round of peer review. The accepted manuscript will go through fast yet rigorous production, including Copyediting, language editing, proofreading, etc.

Our reviewers are responsible for evaluating every manuscript rigorously. Acadlore expects all reviewers to evaluate manuscripts ethically and timely, in the light of COPE guidelines. The reviewers should:

(1) hold a PhD or be a PhD candidate;

(2) work in institutions of higher learning or research institutes;

(3) be a prolific writer of research papers in the field of the submitted manuscript;

(4) have no conflict of interest with the authors of the manuscript;

(5) remain responsive throughout the peer review.

Acadlore fully appreciates the hard work of all reviewers, and promises to provide following benefits to our reviewers:

(1) A discount in the APC of a future submission to any of our paid journals. If the submission is not accepted, the discount can be reserved for your next submission.

(2) A certificate of peer review (upon request).

(3) An award for excellent reviewers (subject to the approval by our academic editors).

(4) Mutual assistance from researchers in our community.

Acadlore appreciates applications to join our community of peer reviewers. Please apply by sending an email to support@acadlore.com if you wish to work as a peer reviewer for an Acadlore journal. Your application will be reviewed by our academic editors. The reviewers are selected on a manuscript-by-manuscript basis. The background of each reviewer must suit the scope of the journal. You may also be requested to review for other Acadlore journals in your field of research.

Reviewers should avoid potential conflicts of interest, and decline to review a manuscript, if they:

(1) share an affiliation with one of the authors, i.e., work in the same institute as any author;

(2) have a recent publication or current submission with any author;

(3) hold any grant or has any other academic link with any author;

(4) have collaborated with any author in the past five years;

(5) have a close personal relationship with any author;

(6) have a financial interest in the publication of the paper;

(7) have any other non-financial conflicts of interest with any author;

(8) find it difficult to be objective in reviewing the manuscript.

That a reviewer is requested to evaluate a manuscript they previously reviewed for another journal does not constitute a conflict of interest.

We encourage reviewers to comment on the conflicts of interest declared by the authors, and raise concerns that the authors failed to fully disclose financial, institutional, commercial, personal, ideological, or academic interests in the reviewer report.

Acadlore journals operate double-blind peer review. Manuscripts under peer review should be strictly confidential. Reviewers must not share the contents of the manuscript, including the Abstract, with anyone outside the peer review process. To remain anonymous to the authors, reviewers should not reveal their identity in reviewer comments.

If a reviewer wants to have another person (e.g., a junior colleague) to complete the review on his/her behalf, he/she must inform the journal editor. The co-reviewing needs to be approved by the editorial office of the journal. The co-reviewer must also declare any relevant competing interests.

The reviewer report should assess the manuscript comprehensively, and provide constructive comments on how to improve the manuscript, particularly where revisions are recommended.

Before the review, reviewers need to:

(1) read the entire manuscript, and pay attention to data, methodology, figures, and tables;

(2) analyze the manuscript as a whole, and review key concepts in specific sections;

(3) avoid recommending citation of their own works if it is unnecessary to improve the quality of the manuscript;

(4) provide references that clearly improve the quality of the manuscript;

(5) avoid making derogatory comments.

Acadlore does not require a specific structure for reviewer reports. However, the following is the preferred format:

· A short paragraph that summarizes the purpose, innovations, and contributions of the manuscript.

· A list of general issues with the manuscript, such as the areas of weaknesses, the inaccuracies of methodologies, the irrelevance of the research topic, the gap in knowledge identified, the inappropriateness of references, etc. The general issues should focus on the scientific contents.

· A list of specific issues with the manuscript, such as missing contents in figures and tables, ambiguous statements, and incorrect formulas. Do not focus on language problems. These will be solved in the production process following acceptance.

Acadlore encourages reviewers to refer to the following reporting guidelines for writing a critical review:

· Clinical and general science: FAIRsharing

· Randomized controlled trials: CONSORT

· Non-randomized trials: TREND

· Systematic review and meta-analyses: PRISMA

· Case reports: CARE

· Observational studies: STROBE

· Genetic association studies: STREGA

· Qualitative studies: SRQR

· Diagnostic accuracy studies: STARD

· Animal experiments: ARRIVE

While expectation varies from discipline to discipline, we list the core considerations for reviewers:

· Is the manuscript presented clearly, and relevant to the field?

· Does the Abstract accurately summarize the research and results?

· Are the research questions valid?

· Is the experimental design suitable for testing the hypotheses?

· Do the experiments have proper controls?

· Are the research results reproducible based on the reported methods, including any equipment and materials?

· Are the statistical tests (if any) correctly reported?

· Are the figures/tables clear? Do they accurately represent the data?

· Are the data interpreted properly and consistently throughout the text?

· Have the previous research results been compared to the current results?

· Are the conclusions backed up by research results?

· Are the limitations of the research acknowledged?

· Are there any inappropriate citations, e.g., an excessive number of self-citations?

· Are the references mostly recent publications and relevant?

Reviewers are expected to rate the following aspects of the manuscript:

· Innovativeness: Does the research makes an original contribution to knowledge?

· Relevance: Does the manuscript falls in the scope of the journal?

· Significance: Are the research results significant? Are the results consistent with the conclusions? Are hypotheses testified?

· Technical soundness: Is the study design scientifically sound? Are the research results reproducible based on the reported methods? Are the raw data available, and correct?

· Attractiveness: Are the research results interesting for target readers of the journal?

· Quality: Is the article written logically? Are the results presented clearly? Is the language understandable?

At the end of their review, reviewers need to provide an overall recommendation for the next processing stage of the manuscript:

The article can be accepted without any further revision.

The article can be accepted for publication in principle, after it is properly revised according to the reviewer comments. The revised article will not be sent to the reviewers again.

The article can have a good opportunity of being accepted for publication, after it is significantly modified according to the reviewer comments. The authors need to respond to the comments point by point, or provide a clear response if they disagree with some comments. Normally, only one round of major revision is allowed. The revised article will be sent to the reviewers for another round of review. The major revisions should be completed within a suitable period.

The article should be rejected due to the technical flaws, e.g., the lack of contribution of the research contents.

The recommended decisions are visible only to our editors, not to the authors.