IJARST’s Commitment to Research Quality

Fast publication and rigorous peer review are not opposites at IJARST. Both are produced by the same set of editorial controls, and both are governed by policies that authors and reviewers can read in advance. This page documents the controls that protect the scientific record IJARST publishes — what we look for, what we reject, and how we handle the harder cases.

Manuscripts are screened before peer review begins

Every submission is reviewed at the editorial desk first. We check that the paper is in scope, that the methodology is sound enough to evaluate, and that the similarity index is below our published threshold (see the ethics & plagiarism policy). Manuscripts that fail desk screening are returned to the authors with reasons within a few working days — not held in limbo.

Peer review is double-blind, by 2–5 subject experts

Manuscripts that pass desk screening are routed to two to five independent reviewers selected from our subject-area pool. Both authors and reviewers remain anonymous to each other. Reviewers evaluate originality, methodological soundness, the validity of the conclusions given the data, and the appropriateness of citations. The full editorial workflow describes how decisions are reached and communicated.

Reviewer assignment avoids conflicts

Reviewers are not assigned to manuscripts from their own institution where another reviewer is available, and editors recuse themselves from manuscripts involving recent collaborators or supervisees. Conflicts that surface during review are escalated to the editor-in-chief.

Decisions are evidence-based, not deadline-driven

The 6-day post-acceptance publication timeline is a production statistic, not a review SLA. Papers are accepted only when reviewer feedback supports it. A manuscript that needs major revisions takes as long as it takes — we do not accept papers to meet an issue deadline.

Quality controls after publication

Quality assurance does not end at publication. Where a published paper is shown to contain an error, an erratum is issued and linked through the CrossRef DOI record. Where research misconduct is established, the paper is retracted following COPE guidelines and the retraction is registered with CrossRef so it travels with the DOI permanently.

What we reject — on principle

• Papers that fail similarity screening above our threshold.
• Papers whose methodology cannot be evaluated because the data, analysis, or experimental setup is not described in sufficient detail.
• Papers where the conclusions are not supported by the data presented.
• Papers from authors who refuse to address substantive reviewer concerns.
• Papers under simultaneous review elsewhere — we follow standard scholarly practice of single-journal submission.

Verifiable signals

Quality claims should be independently verifiable. The signals you can check on IJARST without trusting our marketing pages:

• Every accepted paper has a CrossRef DOI — resolvable at crossref.org.
• The journal has registered ISSN numbers (Print 2319-1783, Online 2320-1126) verifiable at the ISSN International Centre.
• The editorial board lists every member by name, role, and institution.
• The journal is indexed at third-party indexing services whose listing pages can be verified independently.

Have a quality concern about a published paper? Write to editorijarst@gmail.com with the DOI and the specific issue. We respond on the record.

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