The Journal of Science, Technology, Education, Art, and Medicine (J-STEAM) is committed to a rigorous, fair, timely, and independent peer-review process. Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit, methodological quality, ethical compliance, originality, clarity, and relevance to the journal’s aims and scope.
J-STEAM uses a double-anonymized peer-review model, also commonly known as double-blind peer review. Under this model, the identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers, and the identities of the reviewers are concealed from the authors.
Original Articles, Review Articles, Case Reports, and Short Communications are evaluated by at least two independent external reviewers with relevant subject expertise. Guest Editorials and other non-research content normally undergo editorial review and may be sent for external peer review when specialist assessment is required. Any content that does not undergo the journal’s standard external peer-review process will be clearly identified as such.
Following submission, the editorial office conducts an initial administrative assessment to confirm that the manuscript:
The Editor-in-Chief or a designated handling editor then evaluates the manuscript’s relevance, originality, academic quality, methodological adequacy, and suitability for external review. Manuscripts that are outside the journal’s scope, methodologically inadequate, ethically unacceptable, incomplete, or insufficiently developed may be declined without external peer review. This is referred to as an editorial or desk rejection.
Manuscripts that pass the initial screening are normally assigned to at least two independent external reviewers with appropriate expertise in the subject area.
During double-blind peer review:
Authors must submit a separate title page containing identifying information and an anonymized main manuscript. Authors should remove names, affiliations, acknowledgements, self-identifying statements, file metadata, and other information that could reasonably reveal their identities.
The editorial office takes reasonable measures to preserve anonymity; however, complete anonymity cannot be guaranteed when authors have previously shared their work through preprints, conference presentations, trial registries, repositories, or other public sources.
Reviewers are selected by the handling editor based on their:
Reviewers should not have a recent professional, supervisory, collaborative, institutional, financial, or personal relationship with the authors that could reasonably affect – or appear to affect – their impartiality.
Authors may suggest suitable reviewers or identify individuals whom they prefer not to review their manuscript. Authors should provide a reasonable justification for exclusion requests. Suggested or opposed reviewers will be considered at the editor’s discretion, and the journal is not obliged to follow these recommendations. The final selection of reviewers remains solely the responsibility of the editorial team.
Reviewers are expected to:
A reviewer may not transfer the manuscript to a colleague or involve another person in the review without prior permission from the handling editor. Any approved contributor to a review must be identified with the journal and must comply with the same confidentiality and conflict-of-interest requirements.
Reviewers are asked to evaluate the manuscript according to criteria appropriate to its discipline and article type, including:
Editorial decisions are not based solely on novelty, anticipated citation impact, the authors’ institutional affiliation, nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, political beliefs, seniority, or ability to pay an article processing charge.
After considering the reviewer reports and independently assessing the manuscript, the handling editor may recommend one of the following decisions:
Reviewer recommendations are advisory. The editor is responsible for evaluating the quality, consistency, and relevance of the reports and is not required to make a decision by numerical majority.
When reviewer recommendations conflict substantially, or when additional methodological or subject expertise is required, the editor may invite an additional independent reviewer or seek specialist statistical, ethical, or technical advice.
The Editor-in-Chief has final responsibility for acceptance or rejection. When the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict of interest, final responsibility is transferred to an independent senior editor who has not otherwise been involved in the manuscript. Submission to J-STEAM does not guarantee external review, acceptance, or publication.
When revision is requested, authors must submit:
Changes should be clearly identified in the revised manuscript when requested by the editorial office. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers or sent to additional reviewers. The decision to obtain further review depends on the nature and extent of the revisions.
A request for revision does not guarantee eventual acceptance. The journal may request more than one revision when necessary to resolve important scientific, scholarly, ethical, or reporting concerns.
Reviewers, editors, and editorial-board members must disclose any relationship or interest that could influence – or reasonably be perceived to influence – their judgment.
An editor must recuse themselves from handling a manuscript when they:
Manuscripts submitted by editors, editorial-board members, journal staff, or individuals affiliated with the journal are not given preferential treatment. Such manuscripts are assigned to an independent editor, and the submitting editor or board member is excluded from reviewer selection, access to reviewer identities and reports, editorial discussion, and the final decision.
Manuscripts submitted to a special issue are subject to the same editorial screening, ethical requirements, and double-blind external peer-review standards as regular submissions.
The Editor-in-Chief retains overall responsibility for the scholarly quality and integrity of special issues. Guest editors may coordinate the review process, but their recommendations remain subject to independent editorial oversight.
A guest editor must not handle their own manuscript or any submission for which they have a conflict of interest. Such manuscripts are assigned to an independent editor. Sponsorship, funding, or participation in a special issue does not guarantee acceptance or influence editorial decisions.
Submitted manuscripts, supplementary files, correspondence, reviewer reports, and editorial deliberations are confidential documents.
Editors and reviewers must not disclose, discuss, distribute, reproduce, or use any submitted material except for the purpose of evaluation. Information obtained through peer review must not be used for personal, academic, professional, financial, or competitive advantage.
Authors and reviewers should not attempt to identify or directly contact one another during the review process.
Submitted manuscripts are confidential and must not be uploaded, copied, or entered into publicly available generative artificial intelligence platforms or other third-party systems that cannot guarantee confidentiality, data protection, and non-retention.
Reviewers and editors must not use generative AI to replace their own critical evaluation or to independently generate reviewer reports or editorial decisions.
Any proposed limited use of an AI-assisted tool to improve the language of a reviewer’s own report requires prior editorial permission, must not involve uploading any part of the manuscript, and must be disclosed to the editor. Reviewers and editors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, originality, and confidentiality of their assessments.
If reviewers or editors identify possible plagiarism, redundant publication, fabricated or falsified data, inappropriate image manipulation, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, unethical research, or another integrity concern, the journal may suspend the review while the matter is investigated.
J-STEAM addresses suspected misconduct using relevant guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and other internationally recognized publication-ethics standards. Authors may be asked to provide ethics approvals, consent documentation, protocols, raw data, statistical files, images, or other supporting information.
Authors may appeal an editorial decision by submitting a clear and evidence-based request to the editorial office. An appeal should identify a significant factual error, procedural irregularity, overlooked evidence, or substantial misunderstanding that may have affected the decision.
An appeal is not an opportunity to submit a substantially rewritten manuscript or to object solely because the authors disagree with the reviewers’ opinions.
Where reasonably possible, the appeal will be assessed by the Editor-in-Chief or an independent senior editor who was not responsible for the original decision. The journal may seek additional expert advice when necessary. The decision made following completion of the appeal process is final.
Concerns regarding reviewer conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, or procedural fairness may also be reported confidentially to the editorial office.
J-STEAM aims to conduct peer review as efficiently as possible while maintaining the quality and integrity of the evaluation. Review duration may vary according to the manuscript’s subject, complexity, reviewer availability, revisions required, and the need for additional specialist assessment.
The journal does not guarantee a specific decision date or expedited acceptance. If an exceptional delay occurs, the editorial office will inform the corresponding author and provide an opportunity to continue the review or withdraw the manuscript.
Published research articles should display the dates of initial submission, revision, acceptance, and publication, where applicable.
The peer-review status of each published item must be clear. If an article has followed a process that differs from the standard double-blind external peer-review procedure, the nature of that review will be disclosed in the published article.
The J-STEAM peer-review process is informed by the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, and the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.