Peer-review process
All submitted articles are first evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief and a relevant Subject Editor for the structural and subject criteria of the journal. Those meeting the aims and scope of JIBS, and covering the Editorial criteria/standards, will proceed to subsequent processing. A maximum period of seven days is needed for this preliminary assessment to be conducted. Manuscripts that are scientifically poor/or written in poor English language will not be sent for the peer review process, but resubmissions after thorough corrections may be considered. Similar criteria will be followed for those manuscripts that exhibit Similarity Index >25%.
The peer-review process is double-blind, in which the reviewer’s name is unknown to the author and vice versa. So, both authors and reviewers are asked to exclude all identifying information (title page, Author’s contribution, acknowledgements, declaration of competing interests, etc..) over the course of the review process. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two independent reviewers (experts in the field who are not essentially part of the journal’s editorial staff). The reviewers are selected by the Editorial Board members according to their field of specialities if there is no conflict of interest. Potential reviewers can be suggested by authors, and they have the right to indicate those reviewers with whom they have a conflict of interest at the time of submission.
The results of evaluations by the reviewers are transmitted to the author (s), and they have a period of three months to revise their manuscript (the period can be extended upon the request of the authors). The authors' response to the reviewers' comments is evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief and the subject editor (as final referee), who can be either a member of the Editorial Board or invited. The editorial board and Editor-in-Chief will decide which article should be rejected or published. The review process is done as quickly as possible, and the first decision is normally made within 4–6 weeks of submission. After final acceptance, the articles may also be further revised by the Editorial Team members scientifically, structurally, and methodologically. According to Article No. 8.5.3. of ICZN, scientific names of all taxons will be registered in ZooBank (The Official Registry of Zoological Nomenclature) by the editorial office before the publication of the accepted papers. A galley proof of paper will be sent to the corresponding author for final confirmation. All authors are responsible for the precision and correctness of the content. All the submitted manuscripts from members of the Editorial Board will be processed in the same way as those from non-members, and authors will be completely unaware of the final evaluation process of their article.
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